Los Angeles Times' Scores

Select another publication »
For 16,533 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: 8,703 out of 16533
  2. Mixed: 5,813 out of 16533
  3. Negative: 2,017 out of 16533
16533 movie reviews
view
per page
  1. Moving
    Since the humor in Moving never rises above the level of a stale sitcom, the film defeats proven comedy director Alan Metter and even its star, Richard Pryor, stuck in the squarest, most strait-jacketed role of his career.
  2. Benji
    The film contains many moments of canine uber-cuteness that although not unbearable, are definitely a bit much. Fortunately, the kids here are less aggressively adorable and feel fairly authentic.
  3. Three Fugitives
    Nick Nolte and Martin Short make a frequently hilarious odd couple, but the film itself is shamelessly sentimental and often slapdash.
  4. Bird on a Wire
    Both frenetic and witless--a bad combination. It's the sort of action-comedy vehicle that stands a chance of succeeding only if the star chemistry is strong enough to compensate for all the uninspired calisthenic derring-do.
  5. The Nun
    Despite its clammy atmosphere and two credible and appealing leads, the movie is mechanical in its rhythms and unimaginative in its terrors.
  6. The Accused
    A preachy, empty story, enlivened by a great central performance and generous dollops of self-delusion, not the least offensive of which are Topor's and Lansing's quoted comparisons of their movie to the moral climate of the Holocaust. To paraphrase dear Joseph Welch, have they no shame? [14 Oct 1988, p.4]
    • Los Angeles Times
  7. Birthmarked
    The old debate over nature versus nurture is played for (sporadic) laughs in Birthmarked, a satire that's unable to deliver on a promising hypothesis.
  8. Days of Power
    Unnerving camerawork, editing and sound design rule this nightmarish, nonlinear effort which features credible glimpses into the world of celebrity, if not the music business itself. But dialogue, characterizations and acting (Eric Roberts has a negligible cameo) feel decidedly secondary to the film's more jarring visceral elements.
  9. The Outsider
    The Outsider is a slick copy of multiple, much-better films and TV series. It's so well-polished it's practically featureless.
  10. Status Update
    Its bubbly tone is often at odds with the casual cruelty present. Status Update layers in a message about social media's filters and fakery, but it isn't enough to make this a movie worth sharing
  11. Stakeout
    Stakeout is this summer's suntan lotion: It won't linger in the memory any better than it would survive a quick dip in the pool.
  12. 1:54
    Unfortunately, writer-director Yan England never focuses on any one lesson long enough to make a complete or satisfying statement. The result: a potentially meaningful movie that hands us a double dose of despair when a ray of hope was needed.
  13. Valley Girl
    The original film was not a time capsule; it was a snapshot, capturing a unique time and place. The new film simply doesn’t have the same spark and energy.
  14. Return to Return to Nuke 'Em High a.k.a. Vol. 2
    You're either on board with this brand of outré exploitation or you're very much not on board. Return to Nuke 'Em High a.k.a. Vol. 2 is strictly for die-hard fans.
  15. St. Elmo's Fire
    Instead of real people, they've created fast-moving upscale wise guys, so thoughtless, so utterly self-absorbed that you're quite content letting them simply love themselves--they do it so well...The St. Elmo's Fire bunch, for all their wheel-spinning melodrama, is all surface--all speed and stylishness without a bit of emotional resonance beneath.
  16. Fireworks
    For all its temporal twists and lyrical, sometimes remarkably photorealistic backdrops, Shinbo’s movie has none of “Your Name’s” narrative intricacy or stunning visual richness, much less its radical cross-gender empathy. These Fireworks look depressingly flat from any angle.
  17. A Bag of Marbles
    Director Christian Duguay is much more comfortable handling the sledgehammer superficialities of near-miss action and prankish boyhood than the complicated, turbulent emotions surrounding children imperiled during wartime.
  18. An Ordinary Man
    Kingsley is certainly committed to the arc of tough guy stripped bare, but his gifts aren't served well by an artificially studious attempt at applying Understanding 101 logic to a perpetrator of atrocities.
  19. Terminal
    Robbie is fascinating to watch, as always. But in this case she's providing 100-watt star power to a tacky little table lamp.
  20. Death Becomes Her
    Death Becomes Her is a black comedy that is so pleased with its blackness it frequently forgets to be funny. [31 July 1992, p.F1]
    • Los Angeles Times
  21. Barren Trees
    The primary characters and setting of "Barren Trees" are solid, but the overly complicated storytelling falters.
  22. Krystal
    The Dixie-set, coming-of-age tale Krystal, directed by William H. Macy and written by Will Aldis, is too forced, chaotic and randomly eccentric to make for a fully engaging and cohesive emotional experience.
  23. Masters of the Universe
    A misfiring, underdone epic that takes its inspiration not from life or literature, but from a toy line and the cartoon series it inspired.
  24. Mannequin
    It's the material that's a problem, its sheer emptiness. Gottlieb and co-writer Ed Rugoff are clumsily trying to re-create something that's better if it's done cannily, with no illusions.
  25. Counterfeiters
    Counterfeiters is an amateurish first film, with inexperienced actors, clunky writing and a homemade ambiance. But the ambition and moments of inspired style are be lauded.
  26. Always at The Carlyle
    Each moment in Always at the Carlyle feels like a pitch. Though it's effective in presenting the hotel's appeal, the salesman's greasy fingerprints linger, a stain which would never be welcome at the pristine spot.
  27. Modern Life Is Rubbish
    As the name suggests, Modern Life Is Rubbish romanticizes analog relationships — and is meant for anyone who does the same.
  28. Wanderland
    Although the prospect of watching a mash-up of "La La Land" and Martin Scorsese's "After Hours" holds promise, director-writer Josh Klausner, in a departure from his screenplays for "Shrek Forever After" and "Date Night," opts instead for offbeat spiritual enlightenment, but is unable to sustain a delicate tone that becomes increasingly twee as it goes along.
  29. Kids
    Kids is more tedious than titillating, one of those cinematic irritations more interesting to read about than to see.
  30. Color Me You
    Color Me You lacks details that would make its characters, their relationships and their actions feel real.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »