Los Angeles Times' Scores

Select another publication »
For 16,524 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:
  1. Positive: 8,698 out of 16524
  2. Mixed: 5,809 out of 16524
  3. Negative: 2,017 out of 16524
16524 movie reviews
view
per page
  1. The Lawnmower Man
    Every scene in this cautionary tale about science running amok has spectacular views, unusual camera angles and moves, or dazzlingly outre computer effects. And every scene, story-wise, gets mushier and more outlandish or perfunctory--until the movie seems disengaged from itself.
    • 24 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Maximum Overdrive
    Maximum Overdrive offers a variation on what has become a hopelessly hackneyed theme -- technology as monster. As long as King is tinkering with his crazed machines, the film sustains a certain amount of ominous tension, but as soon as the author turns his attention to his actors, the movie's slender storyline goes limp. It's dreary to the max.
  3. Creepshow 2
    Creepshow 2 is a cut-rate sequel from those two popular masters of horror, Stephen King and George Romero, that plays like leftovers. Fans of both deserve better. The second--and the only one of the three stories that King has published--is the best. This vignette is effective because it's simple and suspenseful, but it's not enough to carry the whole movie.
  4. Thinner
    The problem with Thinner, which went unscreened for critics, is that it's medium-level King. It lacks the gravity of "Shawshank" and the crazed obsession of "Misery." It's more like "Needful Things," another good film of a lightweight story, with a few more servings of gore and gross-out humor to hold us over until the next big thing.
  5. Savage Dog
    There’s not enough story here but every time David pops up on the soundtrack to spout dime-novel clichés like, “Fear the hanged man, because he’s dead already,” this movie takes on the quality of classic storybook, not straight-to-video schlock.
  6. Brave New Jersey
    The story is spread too thin, or perhaps there just wasn’t that much substance to begin with.
  7. The Mighty Ducks
    Most of the movie is like the ice on which Bombay's limousine rests: cold and shaky. The only time it really comes alive is in the obvious scene, the fast, furious championship, with every Duck having his day.
  8. Heartburn
    You can fret at Heartburn's flimsiness, may even find it insufferably smug in its portrait of our set, but you probably won't be bored by it. And it is peopled with adults, these days enough to make you whimper in gratitude. If only these talents were in the service of something.
  9. Blue
    Unfortunately, with its on-the-nose dialogue, abrupt turns and overuse of fades and dissolves, the film can feel more like a checklist of scenes than a fully plumbed and cohesive work.
  10. Chaplin
    An unfortunate melding of style and subject matter, too intent on turning the Little Tramp into an icon to be regarded with stately awe to do justice to the disturbing energy of his life.
  11. The Living Daylights
    I feel just rotten about this, but I'm afraid I've outgrown James.
  12. Gemini Man
    No matter how many (presumably non-computer-generated) tears Smith sheds, he and Lee never transform this baby hit man into a plausible science-fiction conceit, let alone invest him with a soul.
  13. The Persian Connection
    Writer-director Daniel Y-Li Grove impresses with his sleek, inventive style and effective pacing but falls short on depth and substance.
  14. Fun Mom Dinner
    This raunchy, female-driven comedy should be able to rely on the strength of its cast, but even the collective talents of Katie Aselton, Toni Collette, Molly Shannon and Bridget Everett aren’t enough to make the movie worth a babysitter’s hourly rate.
  15. The Good Catholic
    Though there’s never any real doubt that the rules of rom-com (even the platonic kind) and the sanctity of Catholicism will be given a once-over, what’s annoying in this otherwise well-meaning movie is how the barbs become a kind of armor against real feeling, and the bland direction offers nothing.
  16. Day of the Dead
    Let's hope Romero is not tempted to go for a quartet, for at this point sheer gruesomeness overwhelms his ideas and even his dynamic visuals. He would, in fact, have been better off not having tried for a third installment. [04 Oct 1985, p.4]
    • Los Angeles Times
  17. Temple
    The Temple has competent visuals with a few particularly nice shots that establish mood. However, its script is poorly structured and opaque, offering little insight into what is terrorizing the tourists and why.
  18. Imperfections
    While Henner and Begley bring a seasoned ease to their secondary roles, their presence, and that of a lively Zach McGowan as Cassidy’s drug-dealing ex, can’t compensate for wobbly dramatic stakes and glib main characters who don’t lend themselves to audience empathy.
  19. Can't Buy Me Love
    There's a moral to the new teen movie Can't Buy Me Love: Money can't buy popularity. But it seems to have been lost on the movie makers themselves. What are they doing here but trying to spend their way to audience approval, success and glory? The plot is another one-sentence gimmick, the jokes juvenile, the morality a sham.
  20. Howard the Duck
    The imagination of the opening is a hint of what the movie might have been: a view of our world that made kids consider it from another angle--as well as a spoof of the superhero. But what are all the pleasant duck effects in the face of any of this numbing waste?
  21. 12 Strong
    What makes 12 Strong objectionable — and what will also make it appealing to some — is its attempt to induce a kind of amnesia in the audience, to ask that we forget about the subsequent moral and strategic failures of America’s “war on terror” or the limits of military retaliation when it comes to the pursuit of justice.
  22. The Leisure Seeker
    The stars are as imprisoned as their characters’ respective frailties.
  23. Game Night
    Certainly you expect a good time from Bateman and McAdams, who give their banter just the right sly, sportive rhythm even when the lines and situations themselves come up short.
  24. England Is Mine
    Mark Gill’s debut feature, England Is Mine, tackles the early life of Moz, but unsatisfyingly stops just short of the Smiths, telling a rather disjointed origin story.
  25. Chronically Metropolitan
    The result is a chronically “meh” coming-of-age meets dysfunctional-family tale, with a particularly unsatisfying ending.
  26. The Adventurers
    At every turn, the Chinese globe-trotting heist flick The Adventurers, with Andy Lau as international master thief Zhang and Jean Reno as his Javert, calls to mind better, craftier precursors.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Fletch Lives
    Fletch Lives is the ultimate comedy of condescension, a movie with a hero whose every other line of dialogue is a snide wisecrack directed at a fool. In this meager sequel, as in its popular predecessor, Chevy Chase demolishes every easy target in sight with a quip of the tongue. Some of the lines are funny, but after a while you just want to smack him.
  28. Gun Shy
    The biggest problem for Gun Shy isn’t its ridiculous premise or its frequently silly tone; it’s that it doesn’t fully commit to either.
  29. Where's the Money
    Lacking the incisive bite of the keenly observed campus-based “Dear White People,” the movie too often finds itself on the unfunny side of that very fine line between risqué and bad taste.
  30. Bedeviled
    Despite a few meta moments in which the characters comment on how their plight is like “a bad horror movie,” Bedeviled ultimately embraces clichés rather the subverting them. The evil technology’s up to date, but the storytelling’s too old-fashioned.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »