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. Final Destination 5
    FD 5 did not raise even a single goose bump - which for a movie that bills itself as horror is not a good thing. The camp factor, however, is high and makes the 95 minutes pretty much fly by.
  2. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
    With Snow Flower, the filmmaker is forever torn between two childhoods, two adulthoods, two distinct political and social eras, and two complex relationships, unable to make both equally relevant.
  3. The Help
    Laughter, which is ladled on thick as gravy, proves to be the secret ingredient - turning what should be a feel-bad movie about those troubled times into a heart-warming surprise.
  4. The Harvest/La Cosecha
    A straightforward, intimate and heartbreaking chronicle of the 2009-10 farm seasons for three teens, smart and sensitive, who have been following the crops with their parents for as long as they can remember.
  5. Bellflower
    With American independent filmmaking all too often a ready punching bag in today's cinéaste culture, this frequently dazzling, eccentric portrait of mutually assured destruction is that most delirious of combos: charmingly funny and emotionally terrifying.
  6. The Perfect Age of Rock 'n' Roll
    Some grace notes and riffs ring true, but mainly it plays like a familiar tune on a broken record.
  7. The Whistleblower
    Though more brutish than elegant, The Whistleblower does have a certain charged, unvarnished power in its examination of how people can harm those they are enlisted to protect.
  8. Rise of the Planet of the Apes
    Smart, fun and thoroughly enjoyable, it's a model summer diversion that entertains without insulting your intelligence.
  9. Good Neighbors
    Quirky, creepy and increasingly involving, the Montreal-set thriller Good Neighbors throws a trio of offbeat apartment dwellers together under one shaky roof as a serial killer wreaks havoc around town.
  10. The Sleeping Beauty
    One could argue that, in varying degrees, all of the iconoclastic French director's films have dismantled femme-centric fairy tales. But in this, the second of a planned trilogy, she's confronting burnished old folk tales head-on. Sly and playful, it's a beauty.
  11. The Myth of the American Sleepover
    First-time writer-director David Robert Mitchell tells a coming-of-age tale with such freshness and such bemused insight it's as if it has never been told before.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Devil's Double
    Despite numerous pluses - Lee Tamahori's vigorous direction, handsome cinematography, outstanding production design, an impressive dual performance by Dominic Cooper as Uday and Latif - the film is more wearying than entertaining.
  13. Cowboys & Aliens
    A leaden mash-up of western and science-fiction elements that ends up noisy, grotesque and unappealing.
  14. Life in a Day
    Life in a Day has an earthy and at times euphoric appeal. Helping on that front is the editing artistry of Walker (and an expansive team), the man in charge of all that splicing and dicing keeps things moving at an entertaining clip.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Point Blank
    A taut, roller-coaster ride clocking in at under 90 minutes about another everyman caught in an extraordinary situation.
  16. Attack the Block
    Pulsing with a rowdy energy, the film works as both a sci-fi horror flick and a teen adventure film.
  17. The Smurfs
    This animated-live action hybrid is really more 3-D disaster than family comedy. Even Neil Patrick Harris, who has proved he can save just about any sinking ship, cannot make this boat float.
  18. Crazy, Stupid, Love
    Between the writing, acting, directing and the rest, it works. Not crazy, not stupid, and filled with love. Period.
  19. Singham
    Singham is as boldly overwrought as an early silent melodrama, and its comic relief is extremely broad.
  20. The Tree
    With her Modigliani mystery, Charlotte Gainsbourg brings aching melancholy to the role of Dawn. As compelling as she is to watch, though, the character's passivity saps the film of energy, especially in its first half, which is all but devoid of tension.
  21. Passione
    A beautifully structured and photographed film, John Turturro's rapturous Passione offers a vibrant exploration and celebration of Neapolitan music in all its grit and glory, presenting 23 musical numbers that encompass a millennium's worth of influences.
  22. A Little Help
    What writer-director Michael J. Weithorn, a sitcom vet, gets right is the Long Island vibe, the New York smarts crossed with small-town insularity. If the film takes too long to reach its rather soft denouement, Fischer makes Laura's awakening convincing.
  23. Friends with Benefits
    Even with all their huffing and puffing, this very salty, often funny affair is never quite as satisfying as it should be.
  24. Captain America: The First Avenger
    Captain America is first and foremost an origins story. Almost half of the film's running time elapses before Rogers gets any kind of power at all, and though its elements are awfully familiar, it's the most involving part of the film because it takes advantage of Evans' performance.
  25. Sarah's Key
    Sarah's Key is more powerful than you expect, maybe even more powerful than it should be.
  26. Another Earth
    Quietly and movingly out of this world. Director Mike Cahill has woven sci-fi imaginings and quantum physics theories of parallel universes into a provocative meditation on the prospect of rewriting your life history.
  27. Project Nim
    What makes this film especially engrossing is that what happened between that chimp and the humans with whom he spent his life in intimate contact turns out to be only half the story that Marsh, who directed the electrifying "Man on Wire," has to tell.
  28. The Undefeated
    A troop-rallying campaign infomercial as imagined by Michael Bay: hero-worshipping, crescendo-edited at a dizzying pace, thunderously repetitive and its own worst enemy as a two-hour, talking-points briefing.
  29. Winnie the Pooh
    It's predictable, painless, occasionally amusing fluff perked up by a clever visual interplay with the book text and John Cleese's avuncular narration.
  30. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
    Part 2 turns out to be more than the last of its kind. Almost magically, it ends up being one of the best of the series as well.
  31. Fading of the Cries
    Enthusiasm isn't exactly a replacement for good sense or basic skills, and the film's truest mystery is why no one pulled Metcalf aside and suggested he keep all this to himself.
  32. Crime After Crime
    A deeply affecting account of the very real effect of political corruption, but also of resilience and grace.
  33. The Chameleon
    Salomé and co-writer Natalie Carter offer some explanatory psychology, but the complexities remain underdeveloped. Still, you won't be bored.
  34. Ironclad
    Though the hambone acting quotient is high (and not necessarily unenjoyable), the loud, closely photographed limb-hacking becomes as monotonous as the movie's unrelentingly gray palette.
  35. The Ledge
    Despite a capable cast and attractive Baton Rouge, La., locales photographed by Bobby Bukowski, The Ledge suffers from a seriously flawed script that's just too implausible to be taken seriously.
  36. The Ward
    The Ward is bland shock therapy from the guy who reinvented bloody peek-a-boo with the classic "Halloween."
  37. Beats Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest
    It is at its most vibrant when re-creating the energy of Tribe's original moment in the late '80s and early '90s, when the musicians brought a spirited, playful artfulness to the sometimes drearily self-serious world of hip-hop.
  38. Terri
    It's potent stuff, laced with smart, sensitive humor, and extremely well handled by Wysocki and the excellent ensemble of young actors that become Terri's intimates.
  39. Zookeeper
    Zookeeper has the territory-marking scent of a franchise product from the Sandler-produced stable: pratfalls, caricature and aggression, which the likeable-enough James isn't as effective at getting laughs with as he is the more recessive, aw-shucks moments.
  40. Farmageddon
    It's an eye-popping wake-up call revealing how the USDA and FDA have increasingly waged war on America's small farmers even when they can prove they are contributing healthful products to our food supply.
  41. Gangster's Paradise: Jerusalema
    The whole effort is undermined by an abundance of mob-movie cliches.
  42. Vincent Wants to Sea
    What's missing is any of the real-life messiness that might have lifted this material from its creatively tic-ridden confines.
  43. Delhi Belly
    Akshat Verma's script is imaginative and funny, the film's stars are engaging and Delhi Belly adds up to pleasing escapist fare.
  44. The Perfect Host
    What aims for Hitchcockian slyness ends up an inconsequential jumble in the comedy thriller The Perfect Host.
  45. Leap Year
    Might be too much for some audiences, but it is a potent and surprising work.
  46. Larry Crowne
    Larry Crowne is an inside-out movie, acceptable around the edges but hollow and shockingly unconvincing at its core. When that core is two of the biggest movie stars around - Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts - it's an especially dispiriting situation.
  47. Transformers: Dark of the Moon
    The franchise remains as much an endurance test as a movie, but at least a better Bay has delivered a leaner, meaner, cleaner 3-D rage against the machines.
  48. Double Dhamaal
    The film is amiably silly, gaudy and even pleasantly diverting for the non-Hindi-speaking viewer who realizes that the verbal gags that elicited laughter in the original language tend to elude translation via English subtitles. The comedy, however, is also heavy on slapstick, pratfalls and crazy disguises.
  49. Bad Teacher
    A frustrating mix of smart flash and smirking impudence.
  50. Conan O'Brien Can't Stop
    The film, like the tour, will satisfy the Conan cravings of hardcore fans the most, and prove an enjoyable enough diversion for the rest.
  51. A Love Affair of Sorts
    Though the title hints at a tale of infatuation, Levy sheds little light on interpersonal conflict or why we're such an addictively self-documenting modern society.
  52. The Best and the Brightest
    Unfortunately, writer-director Josh Shelov's sendup of the Manhattan private school culture flies off its comic rails after an engaging start, never to land back on solid ground.
  53. Cars 2
    These creations have become like family to Lasseter as well as to each other, and they never fail to make us smile.
  54. Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times
    Though it's blessed with a strong subject and some memorable characters and situations, the drawback of this fitfully engaging documentary is that it can't settle on anything even close to a single theme or line of inquiry.
  55. Rejoice and Shout
    Rejoice provides both a melodic education and a once-in-a-lifetime concert in one soul-stirring package.
  56. The Last Mountain
    Yet another dispiriting depiction of corporate clout, The Last Mountain offers hope, too, in the form of wind-power success stories and the passion of frontline activists.
  57. Angel of Evil
    Though there's no shortage of mustache-quivering energy and wide-collared strutting, Angel of Evil can't separate itself enough from the pack as a character piece to be memorable as anything other than a blood-spattered timeline.
  58. !Women Art Revolution
    In her vibrant !Women Art Revolution Hershman focuses on a number of the many women who created what has been called the most significant art movement of the late 20th century.
  59. Road to Nowhere
    In its masterful use of evocative imagery and music, Road to Nowhere is flawless.
  60. Queen of the Sun: What Are the Bees Telling Us?
    It's not all doom and gloom. This crisply shot picture also offers stirring views of these industrious little creatures, their complex habitats and the rich amber goodness they create. Some jaunty animation enlivens things as well.
  61. Jig
    As for the dancing itself, it's nothing short of dazzling.
  62. Buck
    The film is deeply moving yet never maudlin in telling this hard-knocks-but-hope-infused story.
  63. The Art of Getting By
    Unformed protagonists don't come more wallowingly irritating and contradictory than George.
  64. Mr. Popper's Penguins
    The-impossible-to-upstage stars are the penguins, a combination of real Gentoos specially trained for the film and some computer-generated counterparts. The special effects gurus blend the two seamlessly, making it easy to believe there was no digital wizardry involved, which is perhaps the niftiest trick of all.
  65. Green Lantern
    More science-fiction space opera than superhero epic, it works in fits and starts as its disparate parts go in and out of effectiveness, but the professionalism of the production make it watchable in a comic book kind of way.
  66. Viva Riva!
    As gut-punch storytelling, Viva Riva! delivers much, not the least of which is the promise of an exciting new filmmaking talent.
  67. Just Like Us
    Despite its brief running time, the film feels padded by sightseeing footage and a warm but diversionary visit between Ahmed and his Cairo-area relatives. Still, Just Like Us proves an amusing, uniquely unifying effort.
  68. The Trip
    Coogan and Brydon are either quite brilliant at this or just serving up slight variations of their very witty selves. Either way, their travels and squabbles are great fun to watch, the countryside is bucolic, the food mouthwatering. You just wouldn't want to go on a real road trip with them.
  69. Super 8
    This melding of two cinematic sensibilities, though effective at moments, is finally not as exciting or involving as it we'd like it to be.
  70. Submarine
    Writer-director Richard Ayoade has the knack. A fresh and inventive cinematic voice, he's taken a subject that's been beaten half to death and brought it miraculously to life in his smart and funny debut feature, Submarine.
  71. Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff
    Craig McCall's affectionate "Life & Work" doesn't dig deep on the biographical side, and the lack of personal detail can be frustrating. Yet it suits its subject's gentlemanly reserve.
  72. Beginners
    A buoyant and disarming drama about sons and fathers, death and dying, living and loving and all the ways we find ourselves starting over, hoping to finally get it right.
  73. Empire of Silver
    Has enough going for it to make it likely worth the effort for fans of Asian cinema, but it does seem an opportunity missed.
  74. X-Men: First Class
    A tedious two-plus hours. There were such possibilities in the origins idea.
  75. Make Believe
    The various sleights of hand are impressive even if we're afforded little insight into their actual execution. Still, it's fun stuff.
  76. Blank City
    The doc flags toward the end, but it remains an absorbing snapshot of a daring time.
  77. The Abduction of Zack Butterfield
    Subscribing to the philosophy that creepy equals interesting, the film contains barely a moment that isn't flat-footed, ludicrous or both.
  78. The Tree of Life
    While Malick's great ability holds us for a time, it is finally not enough to compensate for a lack of dramatic involvement - those eschatological quandaries tend to overwhelm the story. The Tree of Life, its enormous advantages notwithstanding, ends up a film that demands to be admired but cannot be easily embraced.
  79. Kung Fu Panda 2
    The big action pieces, particularly the final face-off, are masterful both for their cleverness in bringing down the house and the detail jammed into every frame. Even composers Hans Zimmer, who's scored a zillion movies, and John Powell seem to be having more fun than usual.
  80. The Hangover Part II
    Lost is the fresh, perverse, painfully politically incorrect R-rated pleasure that came when "The Hangover" ate up the summer of 2009.
  81. Spork
    For all its poignancy, Spork never loses sight of its goal to be zesty, sharp-witted fun.
  82. L'amour fou
    The documentary is fascinating as a museum piece with Berge serving as docent.
  83. How to Live Forever
    The cheeky title How to Live Forever belongs to a wry, hopeful yet enigma-appreciating documentary about the perils and possibilities that come with growing old.
  84. Earthwork
    A flawless gem, a gentle yet ultimately ironic meditation on the power of art.
  85. Bloodworth
    As members of that clan, Kris Kristofferson, Val Kilmer and Dwight Yoakam are compelling in beautifully lived-in, vanity-free performances, but the drama's escalating dread fizzles in a farcical pileup of disaster.
  86. Midnight in Paris
    With Midnight in Paris, Allen has lightened up, allowed himself a treat and in the process created a gift for us and him.
  87. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
    Johnny Depp, back again as the swashbuckling miscreant who favors guy-liner and gold, somehow manages to keep this ship of fools afloat. But just barely.
  88. Hey, Boo: Harper Lee and 'To Kill a Mockingbird'
    Though it's more than a little awestruck and feels padded even at 82 minutes, the story it tells remains completely fascinating
  89. The People vs. George Lucas
    You don't have to be a "Star Wars" nut to enjoy this fast-paced film, though it's sure to resonate most with those whose childhoods - and beyond - were shaped by the 1977 phenomenon.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Priest
    The film is somehow a disappointing combo of too-full and oddly empty. Even with all the various parts and pieces going into its structure, it feels bare-bones.
  91. An Invisible Sign
    Alba gives such a focused, interior portrayal that she just might have managed to carry the movie had it been better.
  92. The Big Bang
    The movie never rises above a style-over-substance exercise.
  93. The High Cost of Living
    Set in a noirish, gleaming Montreal, this handsome, captivating, well-paced and stylish film is fully realized in every aspect.
  94. True Legend
    A hodgepodge of styles, True Legend works best as a freewheeling showcase for Yuen's dazzling fight sequences above any sort of cogent storytelling.
  95. The First Grader
    Anchored by a lovely performance from Oliver Litondo as Maruge and an exuberant Naomie Harris as Jane Obinchu, the school principal who champions his cause, the result is a tearful, joyful, imperfect, yet nearly irresistible ode to the human spirit.
  96. Hesher
    Director Spencer Susser, who wrote the film with David Michod, has a kinetic filmmaking style and an impish, crash-and-burn sense of humor that keeps sentiment at bay long enough to let us appreciate the loose, uncomplicated performances from a cast that includes suddenly ubiquitous Oscar winner Natalie Portman.
  97. Everything Must Go
    The cast Rush has assembled around Ferrell helps as well. There are tiny gems contributed by Laura Dern as the long-lost high school crush Nick looks up, and Stephen Root as a prickly neighbor with some unusual proclivities.
  98. Bridesmaids
    From the first overheated moments of Bridesmaids...it's clear we're in for that rarest of treats: an R-rated romantic comedy from the Venus point of view.
  99. Skateland
    Not on the same artistic level as "The Last Picture Show" yet has its own integrity and value - and a fine array of performances.
  100. Poetry
    Daring in the ways only quiet, unhurried but finally haunting films have the courage to be. A character study of remarkable subtlety joined to a carefully worked-out plot that fearlessly explores big issues like beauty, truth and mortality, it marks the further emergence of Korean writer-director Lee Chang-dong.
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