Los Angeles Times' Scores

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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:
  1. Positive: 8,706 out of 16536
  2. Mixed: 5,813 out of 16536
  3. Negative: 2,017 out of 16536
16536 movie reviews
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  1. P.S. I Love You
    You could go see P.S. I Love You, or you could hit yourself on the head with a meat mallet -- it depends on the amount of time and money you want to devote to what amounts to roughly the same experience.
  2. Charlie Wilson's War
    Overall, Charlie Wilson's War is glib rather than witty, one of those films that comes off as being more pleased with itself than it has a right to be. It also suffers from being not all of a piece, with mismatched elements struggling to cohere.
  3. National Treasure: Book of Secrets
    Everything has been significantly amped up -- bigger, louder, further removed from reality -- but it also feels that much more forced. Cage and Kruger seem like they're not having much fun this time around, and Bartha still gets the best throwaway lines.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Steep
    Certain to appeal to the extreme sport enthusiast, but it also deserves a mass audience for its incredible imagery and window into a lifestyle most can't fathom. It's nearly impossible to walk away without a new motivation to find something that can make you feel the way these skiers do.
  5. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
    It's not entirely surprising that Burton's Sweeney Todd feels heavier on style than on substance -- so much that the style almost subverts the story. Still, it's a gorgeous artifact and pretty enjoyable in all.
  6. Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
    Smart and genial satire.
  7. Alvin and the Chipmunks
    There is sweetness here. The scene in which Dave and the boys decorate the tree is charming, and the Chipmunks' excited presentation of gifts to their human dad is actually sort of touching. And dang it, the little animated rodents are cute.
  8. I Am Legend
    Slick, adrenaline-fueled fun.
  9. The Kite Runner
    The Kite Runner is a house divided against itself. The Marc Forster-directed version of the Khaled Hosseini novel does one part of the story so well that its success underlines what's lacking in what remains.
  10. Look
    With its emphasis on its interweaving stories, the movie offers no commentary on the phenomenon of increasingly pried-apart privacy, positive or negative. Not that Look needs to be political, or even particularly deep, but that nonexamination, coupled with lack of real insight into the characters, leaves one sensing an opportunity missed.
  11. Youth Without Youth
    Ultimately, Youth Without Youth is more intriguing than it is satisfying. It hooks you, then lets you flounder.
  12. Half Moon
    An eloquent and audacious lament.
  13. Atonement
    This is one of the few adaptations that gives a splendid novel the film it deserves.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    The Amateurs
    There are no laughs to be found in writer-director Michael Traeger's would-be comedy The Amateurs, but there is one big mystery: how actors of this caliber could have been convinced to take part.
  15. Dirty Laundry
    Overwritten and under-directed by Maurice Jamal, the movie contains several honest moments but remains too awash in clichés and stereotypes to take seriously.
  16. The Golden Compass
    Ultimately satisfying and successful version of the opening volume of the celebrated "His Dark Materials" trilogy.
  17. Looking for Cheyenne
    The film, adeptly directed by Valerie Minetto (from a script she wrote with Cecile Vargaftig), suffers from some awkward subtitling and a few ineffective fantasy bits but is otherwise provocative and well-acted. This one's worth looking for.
  18. Grace Is Gone
    An emotionally rich and satisfying drama featuring a terrifically understated performance from John Cusack.
  19. Revolver
    The result is a film that's main crime is inducing stupefying boredom with little payoff in the end.
  20. The Walker
    The whole thing feels fusty and forced.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Man in the Chair
    Though they can't transcend writer-director Michael Schroeder's pointed contrivances, the actors tap into something achingly true in this valentine to Hollywood's below-the-line crafts people and society's castoffs.
  22. Juno
    Deceptively superficial at the outset, the movie deepens into something poignant and unexpected.
  23. Billy the Kid
    a movie about adolescence unlike any other; An intimate portrait of a singular personality in the making and a stark look at our culture of suspicion and conformity.
  24. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
    Simultaneously uplifting and melancholy, suffused with an unexpected sense of possibility as much as the inevitable sense of loss.
  25. Awake
    Trashily in-your-face thriller, which leans heavily for its effects on intense sympathy pain, improbable reversals and the mystifying star appeal of Jessica Alba.
  26. Oswald's Ghost
    Stone covers territory all too familiar to most Americans old enough to remember the JFK assassination.
  27. Protagonist
    Yu's film may be challenging to synopsize, but it's thoroughly engrossing and wildly surprising.
  28. Badland
    It unflinchingly illuminates the toll exacted by the Iraq War in a raw, deeply personal and completely compelling manner.
  29. The Savages
    A brutal encounter with mortality told with uncommon humanity, wit and humor.
  30. Starting Out in the Evening
    Intelligent, involving and conspicuously adult, Starting Out in the Evening is almost shocking in its distinctiveness, its ability to create high drama from an unlikely source.
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