Los Angeles Times' Scores

For 16,536 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:
16536 movie reviews
  1. In much the way "Crystal Fairy" blossomed when we were snapped out of our chuckling repulsion, Nasty Baby rights itself intriguingly when Silva pushes his characters into unknown territory and lifestyle is imposed upon by life.
  2. Copeland's victories are shortchanged by the film's prevailing sense of detachment from its main subject.
  3. Like "A Cat in Paris" or "Sita Sings the Blues," Extraordinary Tales reminds viewers that animation can enable an artist to realize an individual vision, even on a limited budget.
  4. Without pandering to audience sympathy, Silverman's dark shadings lend something unexpected and real to the role.
  5. Zahler's still starkness, enhanced by a fondness for long shots and dark spaces, is refreshing in this shaky-cam era, and his ear for Old West sensibilities — from the mythically polite to the realistically xenophobic — is clinically effective.
  6. While the gangsta lyrics and posturing are laden with cliché, there's still some novelty in sustaining a rap narration for nearly two hours. But whenever the music stops, the film can never stay in the game by landing on a figurative chair.
  7. The Last Witch Hunter is one of those artlessly restless, exposition-dialogue fantasy-action slogs that, thanks to Breck Eisner's untamed direction, never manages to corral all the potion talk, mythology rationale and leaps back and forth in time into anything remotely entertaining.
  8. The oddball script by Mitch Glazer ("Scrooged"), as directed by Barry Levinson ("Rain Man," "Good Morning, Vietnam"), takes so long to bring Richie and Salima together, it deprives us of the kind of fully fleshed dynamic the story so desperately needs.
  9. In revisiting the pop rock quest of a multiracial group of adopted sisters in suburban California, Chu has made a stylish and self-aware musical fantasy for the YouTube generation.
  10. Tristan's creaky, often episodic script attempts to tackle some big topics — art, love, loss, family bonds, mortality — but does so in such a forced, talky way that it's hard to buy into the tale's earnest emotional core.
  11. Whenever the larkishness thins, though, Sheil — who could easily have modeled her face for Modigliani — grounds it all as a young woman torn between dissecting a mistake and accepting a responsible future.
  12. Though ably acted and indisputably on the side of the angels, Suffragette as directed by Sarah Gavron is more dead-on earnest and schematic than it needs to be.
  13. The pedestrian writing and acting prove even more cringe-worthy and dreadful than the special effects.
  14. Aram, Aram is almost too lightweight to have real power, but its snapshot of a vibrant local community and a hollowed-out transplant's very real identity crisis feels genuine.
  15. The Tainted Veil resists taking a stance, and both sides of the argument are compelling and persuasive.
  16. An increasingly rare example of traditional 2D American animation, Henry & Me is so well-intentioned, you wish the film were better.
  17. Taking those Hail Mary passes to heart, Woodlawn is a heavily Christian sports drama that almost goes the distance despite adhering closely to the inspirational movie playbook.
  18. The Diabolical is a tepid horror-thriller that never manages to sell, much less clarify, its potentially ambitious concept.
  19. They may not do enough to alter the climate change film landscape, but Klein and those impassioned protesters provide something that has been in short supply in the predecessors — namely, a modicum of hope for the future.
  20. Nathaniel, a native of Pakistan, has delivered a stunning, emotive work that takes to task oppressive patriarchy. It's a gorgeous, suspenseful cinematic achievement.
  21. The overall tone is more tongue-in-cheek than terrifying. Though some of the directors involved — like Lucky McKee ("May") and Neil Marshall ("The Descent") — have a hard horror pedigree, the emphasis here is on slickness.
  22. Supplementing the interviews with well-chosen archival material, Hanks assembles a capsule history of the music biz and youth culture.
  23. Combining Hou's patient, observant style with a historical martial arts tale, the film is a fascinating hybrid of craft, genre and story. Beautiful to look at and with deeply felt emotions, the film has a meditative aura punctured by sharp bouts of fighting.
  24. Momentum is a spectacularly generic action-thriller that, despite its sleekly shot and edited mayhem, lands with a giant thud.
  25. Writer-director Michael Almereyda, whose "Hamlet" and "Cymbeline" boldly reimagined Shakespeare, takes a stylized visual approach in Experimenter, with bracing results.
  26. Though the film is well made, the all-aftermath approach to Meadowland leaves a lot — an establishing, enlightening character stability, for one thing — to be desired.
  27. The ideas are not deep enough and the dramatic tension isn't real enough to sustain this feature.
  28. Truth is a movie curiously in conflict with itself. There is a constant shift between granular detail and big-picture sweep that the movie never fully resolves.
  29. Crimson Peak's astonishing visuals don't enhance its story (co-written by the director and Matthew Robbins); they overwhelm it, encouraging us to stand back and admire the look when we should be involved in the emotional mechanics of this lurid tale.
  30. Larson has done exceptional work before... but the way she has taken the deepest of dives into this complex, difficult material is little short of astonishing. The reality and preternatural commitment she brings to Ma is piercingly honest from start to finish, as scaldingly emotional a performance as anyone could wish for.

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