Los Angeles Times' Scores

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For 16,522 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 56% higher than the average critic
  • 6% same as the average critic
  • 38% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 2.3 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 63
Highest review score: 100 Sand Storm
Lowest review score: 0 Saw VI
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 8,697 out of 16522
  2. Mixed: 5,808 out of 16522
  3. Negative: 2,017 out of 16522
16522 movie reviews
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  1. Trade
    Trade works fairly well as a thriller ticking down to Adriana's auction. It's less assured when it strains for some buddy picture chemistry between Ramos and Kline. Though both actors are fine, with Ramos' performance being reminiscent of some of Diego Luna's English-language roles, the attempts at humor to ease the tension between Jorge and Ray and some of the speechifying are out of tune with the rest of the film.
  2. Feast of Love
    Love is a many-splendored thing in Robert Benton's dull romantic fantasy Feast of Love, though none of its splendors rings true.
  3. The Game Plan
    Pettis is adorable, but she pushes the cuteness dial well past one's tolerance level. Still, if you've got small ones yourself, they'll probably enjoy the messes Joe and Peyton make together. They may also wonder why it takes so long for all the movie's messes to get cleaned up.
  4. The Kingdom
    THE Kingdom has some power but not enough sense. A ripped-from-today's-headlines thriller, it wants us to feel as if we're watching something relevant when what's really going on is a slick excuse for efficient mayhem that's not half as smart as it would like to be.
  5. Lust, Caution
    A brooding meditation on the unnerving power and terrible cost of emotional and political masquerades, the Chinese-language Lust, Caution gets under your skin with its examination of what qualifies as love and what does not.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Price of Sugar
    Still, as compelling as The Price of Sugar is, it also represents a squandered opportunity. A stronger connection could have been made between the film's subject and our own responsibility as consumers.
  7. Into the Wild
    Though Penn's fierce identification with the protagonist is a key source for the film's accomplishments, Into the Wild succeeds on screen because Hirsch ("Alpha Dog," "The Lords of Dogtown") throws himself into the part without reservation, projecting an appealing openness and life force that brings a special poignancy to his fate.
  8. The Last Winter
    It's billed as an environmental horror story, but The Last Winter bears all the hallmarks of an ever-popular genre that has always pitted science, technology and reason against emotion, awe and nature. It bears all the hallmarks of the gothic: ghosts, death, alienated sexuality, decay, secrets, madness and, of course, awe and trepidation in the face of the sublime power of nature.
  9. Sydney White
    Sydney White is a carnival of ethnic and social stereotypes that are rising up against the lily-white status quo. In Hollywood, blond princesses and fairy tales die hard.
  10. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
    A film whose reach exceeds its grasp. Hugely ambitious and not without moments of success, this indulgent 2 hour and 40 minute epic ends up as unwieldy as its elongated title. It's a movie in love with itself, and few things are more fatal than that.
  11. The Jane Austen Book Club
    Swicord has a playful sense of humor and a good ear for dialogue, and the movie pleasantly accomplishes what it set out to accomplish.
  12. December Boys
    A refreshingly gentle treatment of familiar themes such as the inevitability of change, the dashing of youthful illusions and mutability of family. Enhanced by an exotic locale, the movie overcomes a well-trodden narrative path and unflinchingly brandishes its sentimentality as it stakes out its crowd-pleasing territory.
  13. Dragon Wars: D-War
    Fluent in the laughable dialogue of a million bad fantasy flicks:
  14. Eastern Promises
    Expertly realized and gunmetal slick, Eastern Promises whirs along with perfect efficiency, but doesn't stir much in the way of visceral horror despite its penchant for treating the human body like a chicken carcass on a block. (Squeamishness, yes.)
  15. In the Valley of Elah
    The characters in this somber film have the glum look of individuals delivering a Very Important Message to the world. And though this film in fact does have something crucial to convey, this is not the way to go about it.
  16. Ira & Abby
    This round-robin of marital malaise has a lot more integrity than one might anticipate from its meet-cute beginnings.
  17. King of California
    The strange, funny and sad story of a bipolar jazz musician and his long-suffering teenage daughter, reunited after his two-year stay in a mental institution.
  18. Mr. Woodcock
    A movie that commits sins of excess, except regarding Thornton. There's not nearly enough of him.
  19. Silk
    Though the film aspires to the epic with pretensions of deeper philosophical meaning, it ultimately settles for being the "Escape (The Piña Colada Song)" of historical romances.
  20. The Brave One
    Trapped in a no man's land between seriousness and pulp trash, it plays like a combination of "Death Wish" and "The Hours." If that sounds like an awkward fit, it is.
  21. The Rape of Europa
    A surprisingly vast and involving topic.
  22. Great World of Sound
    Enthusiastically received at Sundance, "Great World" is an intriguing look at our obsession with being successful and famous.
  23. Moving McAllister
    There are enough reasons to avoid this oh-so-wacky comedy as it meanders from piney Georgia to Port Arthur, Texas, to Monument Valley, Utah, and they include Gourley's sense of direction.
  24. 3:10 to Yuma
    James Mangold directs it with such energy and passion that it's as if he didn't know it's all been done before.
  25. Fierce People
    Dunne and Wittenborn, who adapted his book, work too hard at stressing just how ruthless the unspoken standards of the stinking rich can be, leading to a story-pivoting act of brutality toward Finn that careens the movie into a tonal wilderness that it never recovers from.
  26. Hatchet
    Even after appropriately lowering expectations, it's kind to call this one a cut below.
  27. In the Shadow of the Moon
    The riveting documentary In the Shadow of the Moon, is an unexpected knockout.
  28. Romance & Cigarettes
    Enthusiastically smutty and lyrical, the movie attempts to capture the way we unconsciously set the emotional moments of our lives to pop music, turning fits of passion, anger and righteous indignation into elaborate musical numbers in our heads.
  29. Shoot 'Em Up
    The presence of the two actors and the film's mordant sense of humor buoy the downtime between bloodbaths and genre fans may find enough to love here.
  30. The Bubble
    It's only when The Bubble takes a swift turn into domino-tipping tragedy in the final act that a tender, fraught love story feels casually discarded in favor of something psychologically pat and ham-fistedly earth-shattering.
  31. The Hunting Party
    Black comedy becomes funnier as the action becomes darker and more perilous, but The Hunting Party fails to locate the absurdity in the central situations and goes for midget jokes instead. In the end, you're not sure if you're supposed to be watching "The Three Amigos" or "Hotel Rwanda."
  32. Milarepa
    It's doubtful Milarepa will be opening in Beijing any time soon; all the more reason it deserves a look.
  33. The Unknown Soldier
    Where Verhoeven loses his way is when he allows himself to sink into a seemingly endless recounting of atrocities, getting away from the main moral and philosophical questions his film brings up so provocatively.
  34. I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With
    James and Beth have fun in a grocery store pretending to be different characters meeting in the aisles. As they learn, sometimes the moment works, sometimes it doesn't. The same can be said for this unfailingly modest film.
  35. Death Sentence
    While there is the requisite amount of shorn limbs and splashing blood one might expect from the director of "Saw," Wan should be saluted for putting the coup de grâce off-screen.
  36. Freshman Orientation
    An uneven coming-of-age comedy.
  37. The Nines
    Rather than come across as fantastic or dreamlike, the stories have a vivid, hyperreal quality to them.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Halloween (2007)
    It's a more polished, high-fidelity version of a story that's played out on screen many times since 1978, but once Zombie runs out of subtext, he's right back to the same old slasher text: "Blood. Guts. The end."
  39. Exiled
    To packs the moments of contemplation with as much suspense as the action sequences and is a master of ratcheting up tension through small details.
  40. Self Medicated
    Self-Medicated is not loathsome or lurid, just one-sided and in need of guidance -- ironically so, because that's what its protagonist so steadfastly refuses to accept. The movie's lack of nuance is balanced by its good intentions.
  41. Balls of Fury
    A lifeless pingpong comedy that ricochets from one flat gag to the next.
  42. Deep Water
    Disturbing, unnerving and wire-to-wire involving, Deep Water is the story of a dream that got so wildly out of hand that it ensnared the dreamer in an intricate trap of his own devising.
  43. Mr. Bean's Vacation
    There is a guilty-pleasure quality to watching Atkinson at work even when Mr. Bean has overstayed his welcome. The film's lightness makes you wish you were the one headed to the beach.
  44. The Nanny Diaries
    The social bite of the popular novel fades into a generic chick flick.
  45. Resurrecting the Champ
    Delivers a heckuva story marred by some credibility problems but lands the majority of its punches via subtly powerful performances and a moving undercard of paternal connection.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Right at Your Door
    A dumb twist can be excused, however, if your characters keep the thing afloat, which makes perhaps the most unforgivable sin of this claustrophobic terror scenario the fact that we have to spend it with arguably the two least interesting people in Los Angeles.
  47. September Dawn
    A rare case in which one can't help but wish the film were somehow worse than it is, for it would then be easier to dismiss outright. Jon Voight's turn as a fictional local Mormon leader and, in particular, Terence Stamp's performance as Brigham Young have a strange, unnerving conviction about them, and give the film an oddly engaging pull.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    War
    War ties itself in knots trying to bring something new to a stale formula. It's never painful to watch, but that's only because it provokes no feeling at all.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Eye of the Dolphin
    Overly earnest and roughly constructed, the film is bearable largely thanks to the performance as the daughter by Carly Schroeder, recently seen in the girls' soccer pic, "Gracie."
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Closing Escrow
    A spoof, sometimes a funny one, and sometimes just plain overkill.
  51. The Hottest State
    Personal and heartfelt, it's nevertheless bogged down by a lack of perspective on the material and a pointlessly frilly visual style.
  52. Hannah Takes the Stairs
    There's something to be said for cinema this perversely naturalistic.
  53. Superbad
    What with everyone so focused on the raunchiness, it comes as a complete surprise to find that Superbad is in fact a love story.
  54. Them
    Them is surprisingly tight, efficient and economical, conjuring a super-creepy atmosphere and incredible tension seemingly out of nothing at all.
  55. Manda Bala (Send a Bullet)
    Edgy and provocative but with a weakness for sensationalistic footage.
  56. The 11th Hour
    Thankfully for audiences, 11th Hour is not without hope. The filmmakers save the most exhilarating portion for last when they ask what's being done about the problems.
  57. The Invasion
    Still effectively creepy and surprisingly unnerving despite the occasional misstep and rumors of a troubled production, the new film illustrates why and how the power of the original story remains undiminished more than half a century after its creation.
  58. The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
    Obsession creates its own fascination, and never more so than in King of Kong, a sprightly new documentary that's as compulsively watchable as the vintage video game it focuses on is addictive.
  59. The Last Legion
    Not as bad as it sounds nor as good as it might have been.
  60. Primo Levi's Journey
    For while the idea of comparing the Europe of 60 years ago to the Europe of today sounds didactic, the results are anything but. Ferrario turns out to have a delicate, unforced eye for elegant counterpoints, and his style unobtrusively draws you into the journey.
  61. Delirious
    A story peopled by flawed archetypes, it's an achingly funny film that is also a little sad around the edges.
  62. Skinwalkers
    There's a lot that remains unclear about the powers and abilities of the creatures in Skinwalkers, largely robbing the film of tension as events transpire in a slapdash, haphazard manner.
  63. Cut Sleeve Boys
    The bones of something more interesting are there -- how people come to mentally and emotionally define themselves and the ways in which they often need to realign those beliefs -- but Yeung can never reconcile his impulses toward humor and human conflict, so things tend to sputter about, feeling disconnected and episodic.
  64. 2 Days in Paris
    2 Days in Paris is pure Julie Delpy, figuratively and otherwise. Since first becoming known to American audiences in the early '90s, she's revealed herself to be an artist of sundry and unexpected talents, with a distinctive voice and point of view.
  65. Descent
    Depending on your revenge story preferences, the brutally pretentious Descent is either a payback flick with an agonizingly formless middle, or a soul-darkening head trip bracketed by a crude vengeance tale. Mostly, though, it's indie provocation trapped between shock and blah.
  66. Rush Hour 3
    There's precious little that is fresh or new about the movie.
  67. Stardust
    Floating in on an airy breeze of dreams and true love, the lively adventure-romance Stardust offers that elusive quality summer movies are supposed to possess but rarely do -- total escape.
  68. In Paris
    Moody, mannered and supremely irritating, Christophe Honoré's Dans Paris plays like a pastiche of French cinema clichés through the ages.
  69. The Bourne Ultimatum
    It says something about Paul Greengrass' directing style that he's able to make a movie as fresh and frank as The Bourne Ultimatum from a genre as moldy and bombastic as the spy thriller.
  70. The Ten
    David Wain, director of "Wet Hot American Summer," brings his popular brand of surrealist yet mundane humor to the big screen with more or less dreadful results.
  71. Becoming Jane
    It's neither very original nor very convincing. "Shakespeare in Love" did something similar by casting its writer protagonist as the hero of a story he himself might have written, but Becoming Jane lacks that movie's wit and playfulness.
  72. La faute à Fidel!
    Blame It on Fidel is the thoroughly engaging, clear-eyed and charming story of a little girl grappling with the domestic fallout of tumultuous political times.
  73. Bratz
    It's a movie on the wrong side side of the so-bad-it's-good line.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Hot Rod
    A cheekily fun sendup of Gen X iconography.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    If I Didn't Care
    There's murder, deception, cruel twists and plenty of scenes at night in If I Didn't Care, but writer-directors Benjamin and Orson Cummings lack the fatalistic glue of true film noir to hold it all in place.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Underdog
    Director Frederik Du Chau's big-screen Underdog has all of the cartoons' crudeness and none of their charm. It's the celluloid equivalent of sugar cereal: cheap, empty and headache-inducing.
  77. Gandhi, My Father
    Exposes director Khan's stage roots -- he has no feel for the close-up, although his use of the frame itself, and negative space, is occasionally thrilling.
  78. Laura Smiles
    As Ruscio piles it on, he gets himself further and further away from any sense of genuine emotional truth.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    No End in Sight
    The result, narrated in a grave monotone by Campbell Scott, is a catalog of horrors so absurd and relentless it verges on farce, or Greek tragedy.
  80. No Reservations
    The movie feels stubbornly, resolutely disingenuous and one-dimensional. Everything in it isdesigned to make you feel better, so why does it feel artificial and palliative in that really depressing way?
  81. The Simpsons Movie
    In some ways, it reminded me of the final "Seinfeld" episode. As much as I laughed throughout, I kept wondering what was with all the emotional lessons.
  82. This Is England
    The writer-director brilliantly juxtaposes the personal and the political, bookending a stirring coming-of-age drama with the provocative opening and an equally affecting end sequence.
  83. Arctic Tale
    Reinforcing the adage that looks aren't everything, the live-action animal drama Arctic Tale arrives in an impressive visual package and even boasts a timely message, but its undistinguished storytelling is a big letdown.
  84. Cashback
    Writer-director Sean Ellis more-or-less successfully expands his Academy Award-nominated 18-minute short to full length, showcasing his talented young cast to good effect.
  85. Goya's Ghosts
    Lavish production and wardrobe design, as well as beautiful cinematography by Javier Aguirresarobe make Goya's Ghosts lovely to look at, but as a portrait of the artist, the movie is a letdown.
  86. Hairspray
    What it offers isn't really a nostalgic look at a "more innocent time" so much as a saucy wink at a casually vicious time that is constantly being sold to us as innocent.
  87. I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry
    Fails to deliver on its main promise of big laughs, which is the film's truly unforgivable sin.
  88. Sunshine
    For though it can't maintain its momentum all the way to the end, Sunshine until it stumbles is gratifyingly far from the usual space-opera stuff.
  89. Live-In Maid
    What Live-in Maid offers is a pitch-perfect observation of life on a continent where forms are adhered to, distances aren't really kept, and your best friend is the person who knows to pour the cheap domestic whiskey into the empty bottle of imported stuff before your bridge buddies show up to judge you.
  90. Interview
    For a film that unfolds mostly in a single location, Interview manages not to feel like a stage piece. But the premise, which may have worked in Holland, gets a little lost in the American translation.
  91. My Best Friend
    Too serious to be an out-and-out comedy, too funny not to be one, My Best Friend is a lot easier to enjoy than to classify.
  92. Talk to Me
    With its R&B soundtrack and footage of civil unrest, Talk to Me might seem to cover familiar ground. But as an intimate portrait of the complex, fruitful and extremely volatile friendship between trailblazing African American men whose daring came to redefine an industry, it's fresh and revelatory.
  93. Tekkonkinkreet
    Arias has a tendency toward creative overkill, mostly in the climax that renders with apocalyptic imagery the metaphysical consequences of Black and White's separation.
  94. Captivity
    It's the movie business equivalent of encountering someone you once knew begging for money on the street.
  95. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
    It finally can't transcend the limitations inherent in being no more than a way station in an epic journey, a journey whose cinematic conclusion is several years away.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Drama/Mex
    Skipping from one story to another and scrambling their relative chronologies, Drama/Mex presents a flashy package, but that only reveals the paucity of its ideas.
  97. Joshua
    Seductive and creepy, perfect for a hot summer night when nobody has the energy to pose a lot of questions.
  98. Introducing the Dwights
    The movie belongs to Blethyn, who takes a difficult, easily misunderstood role and gracefully cracks it open to reveal what's inside.
  99. Rescue Dawn
    Aside from a riveting adventure story that Herzog tells in all of its terrifying, stripped-down simplicity, Rescue Dawn is a fascinating study of human particularity.
  100. Transformers
    Transformers' multiple earthling story lines are tedious and oddly lifeless, doing little besides marking time until those big toys fill the screen.
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