Los Angeles Times' Scores

For 16,526 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:
16526 movie reviews
  1. If you can get past the gross invasion of privacy issues that would exist if this were real life and not just a frothy confection, what you have is some bittersweet fun peppered by bursts of sharp patter, the best between the boys.
  2. More lyrical tone poem than straightforward documentary.
  3. The Swell Season emerges as an incisive cut at fame's effect on the real-life music and romance of Hansard and Irglova. It's an accomplished piece of filmmaking from the trio, who are making their feature-length documentary debut.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Misses opportunities to add much substance to the debate over immigration reform. Instead, it strings together the views of a few law enforcement officials, legal experts, agriculture industry representatives, politicians, one "coyote," or human smuggler, and others hailing from the south Texas town of Laredo.
  4. This ambitious first feature film about the period made entirely by Rwandans (shot in a remarkable 16 days), while hardly an all-inclusive look at this complex conflict, paints a heartfelt, fairly restrained picture of a nation under siege.
  5. Perhaps most egregiously, director Mike Sears, working from Martin Dugard's awkwardly structured, subtext-free script, builds little excitement for the game of lacrosse, which comes off here as all sticks and legs and bad camera angles.
  6. This mind-and-fork-bending sci-fi saga comes from the freaky imaginations of director Josh Trank and screenwriter Max Landis, who've packed their feature debut with smartness.
  7. It's a bit precious in its narcissistic point of view, but still a kick to watch the hopelessly devoted astronaut wannabe fulfill his wildest dream.
  8. An undercooked, "Glee"-like hybrid of grating indie pop songs and forest slasher flick.
  9. Though Safe House may be too violent and nihilistic for everyone's taste, it does have several crackerjack action sequences.
  10. With its modest scale and sharp observations, writer-director Liza Johnson's first feature has the quiet impact of a short story.
  11. By making the movie as much about the women as Yunus and his theories, the filmmaker brings a sense of balance to Bonsai People that would have been easy to lose given the international economist's long and much-honored career.
  12. A self-indulgent pilgrimage to the shrine of '70s fabulousness, Ultrasuede: In Search of Halston assembles a fine assortment of archival material but falls far short of its stated goal.
  13. This is a movie that leaves you wanting more. To care more, to cry more, to love more.
  14. If Frederick Wiseman's involving new documentary Crazy Horse is any indication, that old rule about how you get to Carnegie Hall - "practice, practice, practice" - applies equally well to that Parisian temple of self-described "nude chic" known to its intimates simply as "Le Crazy."
  15. This is a far more brutal film than Wheatley's first, 2009's "Down Terrace." Though it had crime at its center as well, it was balanced by a dry irony and far less blood. There is no offset in Kill List, with one scene so relentless in its gore that it makes the notorious elevator scene in "Drive" pale in comparison.
  16. If the story is laid out none too subtly, its straightforward purity is, finally, its greatest strength. Screenwriter Jane Goldman has adapted Susan Hill's 1983 novel (which spawned a radio series, TV movie and long-running West End stage play) with economy, placing a premium on eeriness, not gore.
  17. Most depressing is the spectacle of Debbie Reynolds in the de rigueur Betty White role - Hollywood having relegated seniors to the category of adorably "outrageous" while it caricatures single women as desperate updates on romance-novel heroines.
  18. All cartoon and no charm.
  19. Fábio Barreto's film is an act of hero worship, not a multifaceted exploration of a charismatic leader.
  20. In Man on a Ledge, Leth does well in taking us to dizzying heights. If only he had found a way to ground that thrill in some real pathos as well.
  21. A brisk creature-feature that ditches the series' dreary mythology in favor of a more direct, action-oriented approach.
  22. Jang and screenwriter Park Sang-yeon recognize the situation's senselessness but can't resist ramping up the melodrama and celebrating the heroism of the battle-fatigued soldiers. These contradictory impulses, combined with the film's undercooked characters, make The Front Line a war movie not quite worth engaging.
  23. Loosies (slang for singly bought or bummed cigarettes - and a nod to Bobby's commitment phobia) proves a largely enjoyable ride.
  24. A uniquely frenetic hodgepodge of story lures.
  25. Fans, go be with your people. Others, approach cautiously.
  26. With its rich, layered storytelling, Film Socialisme is, in its broadest sense, about nothing less than the history, present and future of Western civilization, up to and including Internet videos of cats.
  27. A terrifically entertaining, smartly constructed trip down memory lane with one of the American stage's most legendary troupers.
  28. What the film captures so effectively is the cultural reality of Mexico's ubiquitous underclass.
  29. Haywire doesn't measure up to the best of the director's work - like, say, his Oscar-winning drug drama, "Traffic." But watching Carano kick, spin, flip, choke, crack and crush the fiercest of foes - mostly men about twice her size - is thoroughly entertaining, highly amusing and frankly somewhat awe-inspiring.

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