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 8.7 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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    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    ZigZag
    A great ensemble cast can't lift this heartfelt enterprise out of the familiar.
  2. Windtalkers
    In the studied excess of his Hong Kong action movies, Woo's swooning sentimentality plays like grand opera. With its dogged Hollywood naturalism and the inexorable passage of its characters toward sainthood, Windtalkers is nothing but a sticky-sweet soap.
  3. The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys
    The British music-video director Peter Care (making his feature debut) and screenwriters Jeff Stockwell and Michael Petroni have retained much of the wry, teen-wise dialogue from the late Chris Fuhrman's cult-hit novel, while giving his story arc a fuller, more rounded shape.
  4. The Bourne Identity
    Though it's clearly meant to be character-driven, the movie is thrown out of whack by a total lack of chemistry between the leads, and some great acting (Clive Owen, Chris Cooper, Brian Cox) on the side.
  5. Gangster No. 1
    Like almost everything in this clever, brutal and strangely soulful movie, the time and place are accomplished by suggestion.
  6. Scooby-Doo
    Director Raja Gosnell apparently doesn't even try to pump life into this wan film version of the beloved Saturday-morning cartoon.
  7. Bad Company
    Deft, funny and intelligently scary.
  8. Ivansxtc
    To the degree that ivans xtc. works, it's thanks to Huston's revelatory performance.
  9. Cherish
    May be scant on character and plot development, but it’s rich with affection for daydream believers
  10. Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
    Khouri manages, with terrific flair, to keep the extremes of screwball farce and blood-curdling family intensity on one continuum -- not only through the strength of the performances (including one from James Garner, who, as Sida's dad, gets the best one-liners) but in the ways they match across time.
  11. Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner
    The first REALLY great mythic film of the summer has arrived.
  12. The Sum of All Fears
    Smartly directed, grown-up film of ideas -- with a debonair script by Paul Attanasio (Donny Brasco) and Daniel Pyne.
  13. Undercover Brother
    The film works no matter which side of the racial divide you're on, because nothing unites an audience quite like making fun of everyone.
  14. The Next Big Thing
    Spins a warm and fuzzy tale about love and happiness in the cutthroat art business.
  15. Elling
    Heartwarming here relies less on forced air than on Petter Næss’ delicate, clever direction -- and a wonderful, imaginative script by Axel Hellstenius.
  16. CQ
    CQ is modest, especially for something bearing the grandiose family name, and it possesses both a tenderness and a quiet intelligence.
  17. Master of the Flying Guillotine (re-release)
    Yu’s filmography includes dozens of pictures between 1965 and 1994, but with its nonstop flurry of fighting, ersatz bloodletting and incidental hilarity, this remains his signature work.
  18. Thirteen Conversations About One Thing
    The superb ensemble never plays for sympathy, and the movie isn't as depressing as it may sound. Its hushed, contemplative quality is oddly affecting.
  19. Enough
    Mechanical revenge fantasy that skirts every serious issue it raises along a slick, cynical trajectory.
  20. Bartleby
    While Parker and co-writer Catherine di Napoli are faithful to Melville’s plotline, they and a fully engaged supporting cast — have made the old boy's characters more quick-witted than any English Lit major would have thought possible.
  21. Insomnia
    Nolan gets his two larger-than-life leads playing off each other in the same frame (which is something Michael Mann couldn't pull off in "Heat's" pairing of Pacino and De Niro) and coaxes a melancholy turn from Pacino, an icon of angst whose real strength has always been his capacity for eloquent silence.
  22. Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron
    Rather exciting, rendered in a bright sunset palette and a mixture of expressive, boldly drawn traditional animation and fluid computer-generated imagery.
  23. The Importance of Being Earnest
    Mercifully, the supporting cast saves the day by grasping clearly that in a comedy of manners you have to act mannered, though not to the point of situation comedy.
  24. Late Marriage
    Late Marriage, though hardly dispassionate, assiduously avoids passing judgment on any of its characters, all of whom are desperately trying to bend the world into conformity with their own narratives and superstitions.
  25. About a Boy
    There's not much more to this adaptation of the Nick Hornby novel than charm -- effortless, pleasurable, featherweight charm.
  26. The Believer
    After its electric opening -- one of the few occasions where Bean advances his case cinematically, showing rather than just telling -- the film rapidly assumes the shape of a 100-minute debate, as Danny argues against the Jews and, in the same breath, for them.
  27. Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones
    Attack of the Clones' high-definition surfaces are certainly impressive, but they offer no lifelight, nothing to put your arms around.
  28. Ultimate X: The Movie
    All of this looks great on the giant IMAX screen -- most things do -- but the filmmakers can't shake the sense that this is an inflated TV special.
  29. Blackwoods
    Whatever the cause, everyone involved takes this blend of slick Verhoeven sleaze and Deliverance-brand musk way too seriously.
  30. Unfaithful
    The irony is, it's his vulgarity, this mixture of the gaudy and the glossy, that distinguishes Lyne, that makes his work identifiable and, when the story's right, such a guilty pleasure.
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