Los Angeles Times' Scores

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For 16,550 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 2.2 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: 8,714 out of 16550
  2. Mixed: 5,819 out of 16550
  3. Negative: 2,017 out of 16550
16550 movie reviews
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  1. Close Your Eyes
    Sometimes a movie's charm materializes where you least expect it and in this particular case it emerges in the unlikely form of Henderson's character, Scotland Yard detective Janet Losey.
  2. The Rage: Carrie 2
    Dares to take a different tack, taking its young people seriously in a more realistic context. If ever there was a director ready to graduate from genre films, it surely is Shea. [12 March, 1999, Calendar, p.F-6]
    • Los Angeles Times
  3. Tomorrow Never Dies
    Veteran director Roger Spottiswoode has tried to pep the old warhorse up, but the combined inertia of all those pictures over 35 years proves hard to budge.
  4. The Curse of the Jade Scorpion
    It would be dishonest to deny that Jade Scorpion has amusing moments, but it never gets better than that and often settles for less.
  5. Guinevere
    We have a right to yawn, but we don't, and Sarah Polley is the reason.
  6. Two Girls and a Guy
    A small movie with some big moments and a lot of unfinished business.
  7. Radio
    A gentle film yet develops increasing dramatic tension beneath its easygoing, fair-minded surface.
  8. The Shape of Things
    Unfortunately, this film is not as convincing as LaBute's first feature ("In the Company of Men"), for it betrays its origins in the theatricality of its dialogue, resulting in an aura of artificiality.
  9. Casa de los babys
    There is often not enough space for all these personalities to truly play out. They tend to become types rather than people, representatives of classes and points of view more than individual human beings.
  10. Better Than Sex
    It's a good thing Better Than Sex, which is pretty raunchy and absolutely not for prudes, does have more than sex on its mind, because otherwise audiences might be tempted to dismiss it as a tease.
  11. Brother Bear
    Does have a satisfying ending and it's nice to see a G-rated film without bathroom humor, but there is too much formula and not enough reason to pay attention here.
  12. Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!
    A sweet-natured romantic comedy that's easy viewing but could have used a little more energy and a little less unalloyed niceness to put it over with more punch.
  13. The Ice Storm
    As frigid as its name. Burdened with a story of some of the world's least interesting people going through a holiday crisis, director Ang Lee and screenwriter James Schamus get as close as any creative team could to making matters involving, but the task is finally too much for them.
  14. Drowning Mona
    With a hilarious script and capable cast, the film puts a clever spin on the everyone-is-a-suspect plot.
  15. Entrapment
    While the film glistens a bit now and again, a closer look reveals you've been diverted not by a diamond but by a genuine synthetic zircon.
  16. Moog
    Fjellestad exhibits a playful adoration for the man and the otherworldly sounds of his machine in an intriguing rendering of one of music technology's seminal figures.
  17. Love & Sex
    Not quite original enough to make much of a dent in the marketplace, but it shows its stars to advantage.
  18. Such a Long Journey
    A thoughtful but uneven film.
  19. Mona Lisa Smile
    For all its flaws, its obvious if irrelevant similarity to "Dead Poets Society," it lets us spend some quality time with some of the finest actresses in American film as they give energetic life to one of the most radically underrepresented minorities in Hollywood: the intelligent woman.
  20. Panic Room
    What's surprising about this traditional thriller, moderately successful but not completely satisfying, is exactly how genteel and unsurprising the execution turns out to be.
  21. Anna and the King
    The problem with Anna and the King is that it's caught halfway between then and now--- the film tries to throw in notions of cultural relativism and big power imperialism, but can't do without corny shtick.
  22. Hulk
    However nifty, Lee's Cubist gambit fails to capture the graphic tension that makes great comic-book art jump off the page and great pop movies jump off the screen with pow, zap and wow!
  23. The Big Blue
    Besson's restored Big Blue proves mystical, intriguing.
  24. Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
    This is a work of excess and passion, an untidy sprawl of a motion picture that is sometimes ragged, occasionally uncertain, but -- and this is what's important -- always warm, accessible and rich in emotional life.
  25. Tube
    The picture is sleek rather than merely slick, moves like lightning and is loaded with nail-biting incidents and dynamic action. What's unfolding for the most part is fun and exciting, but unfortunately it isn't always fully clear.
  26. The Peacemaker
    What The Peacemaker doesn't do well, though it tries, is bring much in the way of emotion or character development to the table.
  27. The Hunting of the President
    Worthy of being seen as more than a potential double-bill partner for "Fahrenheit 9/11."
  28. Spy Game
    What Spy Game turns out to be is the old reliable family car spruced up around the edges in an attempt to convince a new generation of buyers that it's a hot number.
  29. Clifford's Really Big Movie
    Though not exactly a gripping experience for adults, parents have reason to be grateful for a movie that has been so carefully tailored to preschool to first-grade sensibilities.
  30. Deep Impact
    The latest in Hollywood's almost biblical procession of disaster films, Deep Impact tries with moderate success to be more than just the sum of its special effects.
  31. Testosterone
    Surprise after surprise follows in this increasingly dark comedy, which is loaded with sharp observations and exceptionally complex characterizations.
    • 25 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Double Take
    An even-handed mixture of suspense and comedy that aims to play fair with the audience on both fronts.
  33. Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle
    As insistent as it is skillful -- and it is very skillful -- it does all it can to pound you into enjoying yourself. The result is rather like being force-fed a meal of your favorite foods by the Terminator.
  34. Facing Windows
    Far from a simple, feel-good story of self-discovery, Facing Windows delivers a challenging examination of loneliness and human interaction.
  35. Braveheart
    Never tries to confuse our loyalties or question the strategies of our hero or bring home the all-embracing soul-destroying horrors of war for all sides. Braveheart may be rip-roaring, but it isn't all that brave.
  36. Narc
    To transcend cliché, movies like Narc need the passion of a heretic who can take stock characters with their stock predicaments and turn them inside out, the way Curtis Hanson and Quentin Tarantino do. Blood, guts and flash aren't enough.
  37. Walking Tall
    This Walking Tall does have the Rock, and that, both physically and metaphorically, is no small thing.
  38. The Punisher
    That rare comic book movie that actually feels like a comic book. Which turns out to be mostly, but not entirely, a good thing.
  39. The Recruit
    No matter how seriously everyone works to make the CIA impossibly sexy, the illusion that these pencil pushers are incarnations of Bond, James Bond, is difficult to sustain.
  40. Shanghai Knights
    Loving Jackie Chan has always been easy, which is why it would be nice if he could find better material in which to bask in his long-sought American stardom or, alternately, ease into bad movies as effortlessly as his co-star.
  41. She Hate Me
    Lee's energy never flags, and She Hate Me resonates with authority and impact and daring, but the messages it sends are mixed.
  42. Mulan
    Mulan has its accomplishments, but unlike the best of Disney's output, it comes off as more manufactured than magical.
  43. The Reckoning
    The Reckoning isn't great by any means and there are moments during the final stretch when it isn't even good. But for its first hour or so, the story moves at a steady clip, generating enough mystery to keep you guessing and enough atmosphere to keep you interested.
  44. Returner
    Like all good B-movies, Returner comes loaded with enough eccentric touches to give the recycling a whiff of freshness and, as is often the case with many above-par follies, it's the cast that takes the whole thing to another level.
  45. Fade to Black
    It's clear early on, however, that this is standard concert-film fare geared to the faithful.
  46. Levity
    About as well-meaning as a movie can get, but that's never enough to ensure it comes alive on the screen, which is sadly the case here.
  47. White Oleander
    This is a film without a center, a film whose young protagonist should have more texture, more of a compelling voice than she does. Through no real fault of the acting, young Astrid does not compel our attention the way she must if White Oleander is to succeed completely on the screen.
  48. Cast Away
    Comes off as convincing but never compelling. There's a ponderous quality to it, as if it's forever clearing its throat to say something of value that doesn't quite get articulated.
  49. Rush Hour 2
    Feels out of shape and self-satisfied, as if it knew it didn't have to try very hard.
  50. Monsters, Inc.
    Though it has its charms, Monsters, Inc. does not measure up. As a childhood entertainment it is certainly fine, but Pixar's celebrated lure for adults is largely absent.
  51. Little Lili
    La Petite Lili itself is pretty good, but it is also assured to the point of glibness.
  52. Power and Terror: Noam Chomsky in Our Times
    Chomsky deserves a more thoughtful documentary than Power and Terror, and in fact he got it in 1993's "Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media" --The film's main flaw is the absence of other voices -- From a cinematic point of view, two sides of an issue are always better than one.
  53. How High
    There's a spirit of generosity to How High that allows many performers to shine beyond its sharp and amiable stars.
  54. Valentin
    His constant chatter may grate, but Noya does the wide-eyed wonderment thing very well.
  55. Wet Hot American Summer
    It's nice, once in a while, to come upon a movie that knows it's nothing special, proves it and doesn't care so long as its target audience feels good enough to have a refreshing beverage or two afterward.
  56. Paper Clips
    Paper Clips arrives with an authentically persuasive message of hope.
  57. Glitter
    Glitter is the week's only major Hollywood release, and it offers considerable escapist entertainment while hitting an affirmative note.
  58. Red Dragon
    There's no freshness here, no sense of newness or discovery. In its place, there's an earnest desire not to drop the ball, a determination to risk as little as possible in keeping this golden egg from cracking wide open.
  59. The Matrix Reloaded
    If a concept is to sustain itself over a multipart story, it must make an emotional connection, and this "Reloaded," especially with stars cast for their lack of affect and affinity for blankness, cannot do that.
  60. Lost Highway
    Beautifully made but emotionally empty, it exists only for the sensation of its provocative moments.
  61. America's Sweethearts
    As enjoyable as this film is in parts, it's not nearly as successful as a whole. Enormously engaging in its opening segments, it's unable to sustain that good feeling over the long haul.
  62. September 11
    It's no surprise that Imamura has directed the best film in September 11, which is doubtless why the producer saved it for last.
  63. The Devil's Advocate
    Directed in bold, energetic strokes by Taylor Hackford, "Devil" is fine disreputable fun at first, a stylish and watchable hoot. But then its tone changes, the plot goes gimmicky and bombastic speeches about the nature of good and evil clutter the airwaves and confuse the issue.
  64. Overnight
    Though Overnight seems to be cautioning us about the excesses of filmmaker ego, it isn't always consistent.
  65. Fierce Creatures
    A charming mess with moments of hilarity.
  66. Touching the Void
    It's a nervy, quasi-documentary scheme that's often successful, perhaps more so than you'd expect for this kind of a hybrid endeavor. But Macdonald's technique eventually turns out to be as distancing as it is involving, paradoxically undercutting the reality as often as it enhances it.
  67. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
    You can't roll monstrous boulders straight at audiences any more and have a whole theater-full duck and gasp with fright--and pleasure. We may be plumb gasped out. And although Harrison Ford is still in top form and the movie is truly fun in patches, it's a genre on the wane. [24 May 1989, Calendar, p.6-1]
    • Los Angeles Times
  68. Pulp Fiction
    The writer-director appears to be straining for his effects. Some sequences, especially one involving bondage harnesses and homosexual rape, have the uncomfortable feeling of creative desperation, of someone who's afraid of losing his reputation scrambling for any way to offend sensibilities. [14 Oct 1994]
    • Los Angeles Times
  69. Super Size Me
    Packs a lot of good information, witty visual aids and expert testimonials into its fast 96 minutes, and all the bad eating certainly makes for compelling if at times repugnant viewing. But the film ends up too short and, as a consequence, frustratingly glib.
  70. Danny Deckchair
    As instantly gratifying and devoid of surprises as a Club Med vacation. It bears no relation to reality whatsoever, but sometimes it's nice to imagine that, somewhere, there's a place nothing like home.
  71. Saw
    Saw is so full of twists it ends up getting snarled. For all of his flashy engineering and inventive torture scenarios, the Jigsaw Killer comes across as an amateur. Hannibal Lecter would have him for lunch.
  72. The Young Black Stallion
    A film truly geared to the 6-year-old level. If not younger.
  73. Luther
    After a summer of numbing mindlessness, there is something frankly refreshing about a movie that deals even superficially with as significant a figure as the rebellious 16th century theologian Martin Luther, one of the founders of Protestantism and the man who put the reform in the Reformation.
  74. Signs
    Shyamalan's great gift is the creation of atmosphere, the conjuring of spooky, unseen menace. When he gets around to doing this in Signs, all is well, but it's a tossup as to whether the film offers enough of a payoff considering how long it takes to get where it's going.
  75. Alfie
    In the original, extended, unrepentant bad behavior results in bad consequences for the protagonist. In the remake, it gets the character some life lessons and a personal growth spurt.
  76. The Blair Witch Project
    A clever, entertaining stunt, no more, no less.
  77. Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius
    The movie's clatter and whiz-bang suggests more humor than there actually is.
  78. True Crime
    It's a gritty story made in the director's more elegiacal mode, a confusion of style and content that is not in the film's best interests.
  79. Moonlight Mile
    What's on screen is too honest and from the heart to totally dismiss but too slick and contrived to completely embrace. This is a film that cares about genuine emotion but also wants to tame it, to tidy it up and keep it confined to quarters.
  80. The Saint
    For the future, the Saint is such an unpleasant and predatory manipulator, it's difficult to root for romance. And when Kilmer's mightily convincing Ice King begins to melt, it's so out of character with what's gone before that its believability is touch and go.
  81. Imaginary Heroes
    It would have been nice if Harris, who casts a sardonic yet compassionate eye on the Travis family, had set his sights a little higher than the typical chronicle of a dysfunctional suburban family.
  82. The Big Lebowski
    This film feels completely haphazard, thrown together without much concern for organizing intelligence.
  83. Behind Enemy Lines
    As a director, Moore is like an energetic puppy who's all over you all at once. You admire his energy, and it's awfully hard to get angry at such high spirits, but you can't help but wish he'd calm down just a bit.
  84. Barton Fink
    Exhilarating and frustrating at the same time... the Coens' skill is such that you're not averse to following them anywhere, but every once in a while you can't help wishing they weren't so dead set against throwing the rest of us at least a hint of what's on their minds. [21 Aug 1991]
    • Los Angeles Times
  85. Cold Mountain
    There are not one, but two wars raging inside this adaptation: one between the North and the South, and another, more calamitous war between art and middlebrow entertainment.
  86. How the Grinch Stole Christmas
    One overstuffed movie, but it's by no means a turkey.
  87. Jackie Brown
    A raunchy doodle, a leisurely and easygoing diversion that goes down easy enough but is far from compelling.
  88. A Walk to Remember
    A sensitively told story of first love that could have been more affecting with a little more grit and without so mawkish a score.
  89. The American President
    Genial and entertaining if not notably inspired. But its most interesting aspect turns out to be fantasies of another kind, pipe dreams about the American political system and where it could theoretically be headed.
  90. Anastasia
    Though originality is not one of its accomplishments, Anastasia is generally pleasant, serviceable and eager to please.
  91. City of God
    A potent and unexpected mixture of authenticity and flash -- even if this is what happened on the ground, making it worth our time on screen is just beyond the contortionist abilities of even this most acrobatic of films.
  92. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
    The film's scary moments are too monstrous and its happy times have too much idiotic beaming, making the film feel like the illegitimate offspring of "Alien" and "The Absent-Minded Professor."
  93. Team America: World Police
    Yes, it's inventive, yes, it's out-there and audacious, but no, it's not always as funny as those good things would lead you to hope.
  94. Amy
    A skilled heart-tugger from Australia that verges on rock opera.
  95. Wimbledon
    The Bjorn Borg of romantic comedies: precise, good-looking, dependable and serviceable, if predictable. It never really heats up, which is too bad.
  96. Paparazzi
    It was shrewdly written by Forrest Smith and directed crisply by Paul Abascal (Gibson's onetime hairdresser) for maximum visceral impact upon the susceptible.
  97. Touch of Pink
    Lively and often comical.
  98. Anatomy of Hell
    What follows is graphic, but it's too cerebral and too challenging to be dismissed as pornography.
  99. Bubble Boy
    Bubble Boy simply has the gall to make light of one of the last untouchable left in America: disease.
  100. Closer
    Despite involved acting and Nichols' impeccable professionalism as a director, the end result is, to quote one of the characters, "a bunch of sad strangers photographed beautifully."
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