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. The Devil's Rejects
    This film is lean, tight and irredeemably vile. People are gonna love it.
  2. The Edukators
    Put simply, this second feature by the young Austrian director Hans Weingartner is a put-on -- a glib anti-capitalist rant in which the rhetoric rarely rises above the you-too-can-save-a-child-for-less-than-the-price-of-coffee level.
  3. November
    To their great credit, writer Benjamin Brand and director Greg Harrison weave these contradictory variations into an effective puzzle, if one that doesn't quite transcend being a puzzle - it never becomes a mystery, like, say, "Mulholland Drive," or even "The Sixth Sense."
  4. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
    The first half of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a brilliant blend of the best of Burton and Dahl, with some unexpected input from Charles Dickens. In the second half, the contraptions take over, drowning whatever story remains...But it falls frustratingly short of the masterpiece it might have been.
  5. Wedding Crashers
    Most of the time Wedding Crashers is more genteel than it is outrageous (or funny), playing like an only slightly less benign spin on the tiresome fish-out-of-water farce that fueled the two Meet the Parents movies.
  6. God's Sandbox
    The pivotal secret of God's Sandbox is no secret minutes into the story, and director Doron Eran doesn't seem to know, or care much, whether he's making feminist agitprop or softcore porn. The two don't mix well.
  7. Happy Endings
    When all is said and done, Roos treats his characters and his audience to an unblushingly sentimental, conciliatory ending of the kind that ordinarily makes me feel as though I'm being played for a sucker. I wept on demand and went home happy.
  8. The Reception
    It's fine stuff, beautifully played, but there's no denying that viewers will have to be patient with this 80-minute chamber piece, the first third of which feels cold and false, only to suddenly shift into unexpectedly deep emotional territory.
  9. The Warrior
    Scaled like an epic but possessing the narrative simplicity of a fable, The Warrior unfolds over a brisk 85 minutes of screen time, keeping dialogue to a minimum as it celebrates the power of stories told through handcrafted, CGI-free images.
    • 30 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Oil Factor: Behind the War on Terror
    Ungerman and Brohy spread themselves a little thin across the map of U.S. intrigue, abruptly losing sight of Iraq while retreading familiar ground about early American backing of the Taliban.
  11. On the Outs
    Well-meaning but mediocre.
  12. Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus
    Far too often, Douglas indulges his preference for the superficial over the substantive: The plentiful performance footage -- shot in overproduced, music-video fashion -- overwhelms the film, as do White’s purplish, faux-poetic musings.
  13. Dark Water
    The movie is prettily shot by Almodóvar collaborator Affonso Beato, but no amount of tastefully desaturated color or imaginary friends going whoo-whoo in the deserted apartment upstairs can save this lumbering echt-thriller from fatal tedium.
  14. Fantastic Four
    Directing seems an unduly elegant term for what Hollywood hack du jour Tim Story (Barbershop, Taxi) does here -- the action scenes are so choppily constructed that their excitement disappears faster than the Invisible Woman.
  15. Murderball
    A great sports drama first and a heart-wrenching triumph-over-adversity weepie almost never.
  16. Chronicles
    Writer-director Sebastian Cordero wrings nerve-racking suspense, and complex performances, from these dynamics.
  17. Rebound
    Rebound is a sports comedy so by-the-numbers that you don't really have to watch it -- you can just check in on it every once in a while between trips to the concession stand and the bathroom.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Undead
    Flesh-eating fish notwithstanding, Peter and Michael Spierig's low-budget schlock-horror parody brings precious little new to the undead genre.
  19. The World
    The comic, tragic and monumentally beautiful new film by writer-director Jia Zhangke (Platform).
  20. Twist of Faith
    Doesn't offer much new in the way of news or analysis. What it does offer is inspiration from an unlikely source, via an unsparing look at one such victim.
  21. War of the Worlds
    The imagery is startling not just for its symbolic resonances, but for the breathless intensity with which it sears the screen.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Bewitched
    The film's funny for 15 minutes as it skewers Hollywood and prowls block after block of familiar L.A. scenery.
  23. Rize
    The film soars when the camera is trained on its young subjects in action.
  24. March of the Penguins
    Thrilling documentary.
  25. Lila Says
    Vahina Giocante oozes a killer blend of purring, lascivious innocence and little-girl-lost vulnerability as Lila.
  26. The Last Mogul
    Love him or loathe him, Avrich proposes, Wasserman mattered -- which is a lot more than can be said for most of the multinationals and their MBA-bearing surrogates who came to run the studios in his wake.
  27. Herbie Fully Loaded
    Adds up to little more than a cynical marriage of marketable commodities -- Lohan, NASCAR and the durably profitable Bug himself.
  28. Waging a Living
    The lack of cohesion and conviction is disconcerting, and it allows the movie to veer dangerously close to exploitation. Its subjects -- and its viewers -- deserve more.
  29. The Deal
    Although the dialogue initially flakes with awkward exposition, writer Ruth Epstein and director Harvey Kahn have fashioned a riveting thriller full of good scares and learned, muckraking insight into the global labyrinth of oil and politics.
  30. Pure
    Real kudos goes to Molly Parker, searing as a heroin-addicted mother immobilized by the death of her husband, and to a poised little boy named Harry Eden, who's astonishingly good as the 10-year-old son desperately trying to hold her to the straight and narrow.
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