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. The ghost scenario that this boring, CW-ready, "Scooby-Doo" gang uncovers isn't nearly as shocking as the blasé attitude they have toward friends dying off.
  2. Although their work involves interviewing eyewitnesses and gathering photographic evidence to build a case for violations of international law, the procedural stuff tells just half of E-Team's compelling story.
  3. On the surface, Anderson seems to have all the necessary pieces for a surreal psycho pop. But the fear factor eludes him, leaving Stonehearst Asylum more insipid than insane.
  4. The director is increasingly adept at getting her actors to bask in emotions without any pretensions. It makes for easy watching. Seigel's breezy script makes the dialogue easy listening.
  5. It's a B movie made with A-student love for the relentless thrill of bodies in brutal motion.
  6. Citizenfour is a formidable viewing experience, but it's not necessarily a problem-free film.
  7. Once tragedy strikes, the clichés in Bram and Toni Hoover's screenplay win out, and Baker never stirs up enough energy to make it feel any different from a thousand other tales of underdog triumph.
  8. Like so many movie stars, Bigfoot has been sold out by movie opportunists, in this case as ho-hum fright bait in the aggressively unimaginative Exists.
  9. This is a weirdly compelling look at a weirdly compelling auteur.
  10. Aside from too many characters and story strands, the dialogue is hackneyed and the acting subpar, starting with the movie's lead.
  11. Private Violence makes painfully clear the emotional and legal hurdles battered women endure just to feel safe again in or outside the home.
  12. Though it hasn't the sweep to be greater than the sum of its parts, the movie offers an absorbing mix of melodrama and historical detail.
  13. Credible performances, effective visuals and tight pacing round out this chilling effort.
  14. Engaging, naturalistic performances and nicely explored real-world issues add to this absorbing film's down-to-earth appeal.
  15. Paltrow's kitchen-sink visual sense may keep your eyes engaged, but it sucks dry any inherent drama, leaving you with a bunch of characters who feel pegged by a conjurer rather than nurtured from a wretched new Earth.
  16. The documentary style makes the proceedings all the more frightening.
  17. The mishmash that results is by turns creepy, silly, inventive, darkly funny and, at one point, mind-blowingly bloody. Still, some smart streamlining would have sharpened the focus and amped up the power of this well-shot and edited spookfest.
  18. Director Simon Brand devotes so much running time to fear-mongering and grotesque stereotypes that a last-ditch effort at moral ambiguity and a critique on muckraking barely register.
  19. The complicated narratives don't distract from what this film does best: make you laugh about the things that make you furious.
  20. Working from a screenplay by Edgerton, rising Australian director Matthew Saville has expertly constructed a low-key, realistic drama in which the malleability of morality in an increasingly murky situation takes center stage.
  21. The Tale of the Princess Kaguya is a marvel of Japanese animation, a hand-drawn, painterly epic that submerges us in a world of beauty.
  22. The director's surrealist portrait of modern times and the cult of celebrity is brilliant on so many levels that even the occasional downdraft can't keep Birdman from soaring.
  23. The Book of Life juxtaposes overwrought visual imagery with an undernourished, familiar story.
  24. What makes this film distinctive is the adroit way it both subverts and enhances old-school expectations, grafting a completely modern sensibility onto thoroughly traditional material.
  25. Addicted doesn’t know whether it wants to be a modern-day bodice-ripper, a morality-tinged cautionary tale or a serious snapshot of sexual compulsion. Whatever the case, it fails on all fronts.
  26. Director Brett Harvey has gotten the documentary look and format down pat, complete with generic and gratuitous nature and cityscape shots. Where he shows an amateurish hand is in the term-paper-like voice-over narration and the inclusion of underqualified talking heads.
  27. At its most effective, though, The Decent One reveals a psychological portrait of a man devoted to his family yet consumed by a soul-blackening and horrifically destructive cause.
  28. I Am Ali may never truly wow as the umpteenth portrait of a living legend, but it has its charms in reminding us of one fighter's singular ability to knock us all out with his talent, personality and convictions.
  29. Acher makes some astute observations about the contemporary dating scene, but this airless vehicle ultimately feels more like a stage piece than a feature proposition.
  30. The film operates under the assumption that the average Joe associates Mormonism more with "Sister Wives" than Mitt Romney, so the film will be an eye-opener only for subscribers to such stereotypes.

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