L.A. Weekly's Scores

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For 3,750 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 46% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 51% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 8.6 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 56
Highest review score: 100 A Bread Factory Part Two: Walk With Me a While
Lowest review score: 0 Deuces Wild
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,540 out of 3750
  2. Mixed: 1,542 out of 3750
  3. Negative: 668 out of 3750
3750 movie reviews
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  1. Mousehunt
    The movie's real charms lie in its surprisingly dark atmosphere and its almost subversive sense of humor.
  2. The Apostle
    An effortlessly complex portrayal that relishes the contradictions and complexities of someone capable of both exalted and debased behavior, a shape-shifter it is possible to be fascinated, repelled and compelled by, all at the same time.
  3. Scream 2
    The less ticklish bad joke of Scream 2 is that self-referentiality has its limits.
  4. Deconstructing Harry
    Increasingly, reviewing the latest Woody Allen movie has taken on the feel of a dreaded ritual, an annual excursion into careless filmmaking, desperate shtick, and vainglorious misanthropy disguised as cuddly neurosis.
  5. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
    The film is consummately professional but phlegmatic, a slow fizzle.
  6. Mortal Kombat: Annihilation
    It's cynical and it's depressing, and I would lock a child in a room before I'd show him Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.
  7. The Jackal
    Scottish director Michael Caton-Jones continues to fritter away the last traces of his talent with this ugly variant on Fred Zinnemann's 1973 original, The Day of the Jackal.
  8. The Wings of the Dove
    Softley starts out a little awkwardly, as he tries to capture turn-of-the-century flux by opening several London scenes from disorienting, too-obvious camera positions.
  9. Bean
    This is not comedy - it's mugging. And there's no excuse for making Bean cuddly; he only works with an evil edge.
  10. Eve's Bayou
    Writer-director Kasi Lemmons works fast, and the world she conjures is powerfully realized.
  11. Mad City
    The great, and given Costa-Gavras' previous m.o., inevitable irony of Mad City is that even as it condemns the media for exploiting the situation, it's busy doing the very same.
  12. Gattaca
    Although that's enough plot for two movies, Niccol proceeds to clog up his meticulously mounted story with a murder and a romance (hence Uma Thurman), allowing needless intrigue to distract from his ideas.
  13. I Know What You Did Last Summer
    There's no doubting that Williamson is a man who knows and loves his genre, and all the scary, screaming, sniggering fun continues here.
  14. The Devil's Advocate
    Subtlety was never Taylor Hackford's long suit, but that's an asset in this mischievously fortissimo poke at lawyering and capitalist competition.
  15. The House of Yes
    What follows doesn't much surprise, since every emotional detail, accompanied by a noisy storm and then a black-out, arrives well in advance of its execution.
  16. The Peacemaker
    If I were a grief-stricken Sarajevan I'd take offense.
  17. Soul Food
    But if you go in knowing this, the payoff is considerable - the film delivers on its feel-good promise.
  18. In & Out
    Kline, Debbie Reynolds (as his mom) and Tom Selleck are all wonderful. But it's the always amazing Cusack, playing the baffled Emily, who steals the film in a smooth transition from wide-eyed fiancée to possibly wronged woman, a role she essays with a perfect balance of wounded-ness and comedic aplomb.
  19. The Myth of Fingerprints
    An overly mannered film drowning in the symptoms of dysfunction but unable to tap the root causes of this WASPish clan's pain except in the most oblique and cursory ways. This might be Freundlich's point, considering this family deals with its problems through avoidance.
  20. Hoodlum
    Too long by about 20 minutes, the film drags a bit, but the acting--fine throughout--carries the whole thing.
  21. Event Horizon
    The worst thing about Event Horizon--written by Philip Eisner, directed by Paul Anderson--isn't all the gore decorating the 21st-century space ship that gives the movie its name, but the filmmakers' reliance on shock edits and headache-inducing sound F/X to obscure the fact that this is one of the most derivative movies to hit screens in memory.
  22. The Full Monty
    Genuinely touching.
  23. Conspiracy Theory
    The film isn't really about much and so feels patchy and forced, with elements more calculated than inspired, more urgent than exciting.
  24. In the Company of Men
    A provocative, timely script full of gasp-inducing lines and scenes.
  25. Picture Perfect
    Director Glenn Gordon Carron's movie is far more bearable when Kate is spinning lies and sticking her tongue in Kevin Bacon's desiccated bad boy.
  26. Spawn
    If Spawn had anything close to a script, it would be a pretty nifty fantasy about conspiracy, apocalypse and a fat killer clown.
  27. Air Force One
    The first 20 minutes of Wolfgang Petersen’s new action adventure, Air Force One, are so thrillingly choreographed (and so very, very loud), it’s all the more disappointing that the balance of the movie tends to move less like a Stealth bomber and more like a jalopy — jerking fitfully from plot hole to plot hole, only occasionally finding momentum.
  28. Her Majesty, Mrs. Brown
    Despite its Scottish scenery and period frocks, Madden's film proves a pallid creature indeed compared to the hanky-panky leaking out of Buckingham Palace of late.
  29. Kiss Me, Guido
    That crack in Vitale's storytelling foundation would be forgivable if the writing, acting and character epiphanies . . . well, existed. As it is, not even Scotti's formidable lips can blow life into this stillborn flick.
  30. George of the Jungle
    This bit of fluff overflows with so much honest charm it barely matters that it's one in a seemingly endless succession of Tarzan retreads.
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