Los Angeles Times' Scores

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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
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  1. Silencio
    While Silencio could be fascinating sci-fi, it’s bogged down in all the family drama.
  2. Time Trap
    The result, directed by Mark Dennis and Ben Foster (not the actor) from Dennis’ script, is a handful of intriguing ideas in search of a more cohesive and dimensional narrative.
  3. The Queen of Hollywood Blvd
    The movie’s artier components are imbued with enough heart and poetry to hold the picture together — just barely — through the more tedious stretches.
  4. The Best of Enemies
    Bissell has needlessly manipulated the real story, completely missing what makes it significant.
  5. Miss Bala
    It’s understandable that Hardwicke didn’t want to mimic her predecessor’s moves. But in chop-chop-chopping the action into standard Hollywood fragments, she has drained the material of its tension, its meaning and its purpose, to say nothing of its beauty.
  6. Solis
    The minimalist approach and premise of Solis should work, but the execution in the script keeps the viewer disengaged, wishing the pod would move more quickly toward its final destination.
  7. Love Jacked
    Unfortunately, in Love Jacked, Anderson brings the heat, while West is barely present, unable to keep the necessary chemistry crackling.
  8. 5 Weddings
    Despite chemistry between its attractive leads, 5 Weddings is a hot mess that deserves to be left at the altar. Inorganic and implausible, this Bollywood-inflected rom-com features little comedy and even less romance.
  9. Better Angels
    Factoring in the flat narration by Clarke and some awfully hokey visual effects, Better Angels would have benefited from better angles.
  10. Overcomer
    Kendrick’s film eventually finds its legs in the final stretch, with an emotionally effective conclusion that might persuade even the cynics to its cause. Whether it converts them to running or to Christ will depend on the viewer.
  11. Texas Cotton
    The cast of Texas Cotton is good company, and the location’s a nice place to hang out for an hour and a half. But all these nice folks are worthy of more than such a flat, featureless story.
  12. Tinker'
    By the time the Tinker fantasy elements kick in, they seem more like an afterthought than the reason this movie was made in the first place.
  13. 12 Round Gun
    The characters and story take a backseat to the movie’s message — which is as subtle as a roundhouse punch.
  14. The Appearance
    Knight does a good job of establishing the political complexities of a more theocratic age. But then The Appearance pivots straight to the usual assortment of things going bump in the night, which — as it turns out — aren’t suddenly less clichéd when everyone’s wearing robes.
  15. Back Roads
    Though there’s an abiding sensitivity in the often-noirish approach to the story’s many traumas and its characters’ flailing attempts at coping, as a whole it’s something of a tonal mess.
  16. Between Worlds
    The actor’s fierce commitment turns Between Worlds into another solidly strange entry in the ever-expanding “Nicolas Cage movie” sub-genre.
  17. Shaft
    The plotting is so leaden and the fire fights so pro forma that not even the sight of the three Shafts in action can keep this film from sinking under its own weight. Yes, the great Isaac Hayes music makes an appearance, but the old days are gone and they are not coming back.
  18. All These Small Moments
    The characters make such unrealistic, outlandish choices at almost every turn that it’s hard to buy into their journeys. The pace is so measured as to be stultifying, and at the end of the film, you have to wonder where all of this is going, and ultimately, what is it for?
  19. An Acceptable Loss
    There’s the kernel of an intriguing political thriller buried beneath all the strained exposition and pompous speechifying enveloping An Acceptable Loss, but writer-director Joe Chappelle never manages to find it.
  20. Men in Black: International
    Even during the fun moments — and there are a few, if nowhere near enough — you know you’re in the presence of an impostor, a generic blockbuster wannabe in established franchise drag.
  21. The Wolf Hour
    Watts is plenty convincing as someone well past the brink of a psychotic break, but The Wolf Hour takes too long to get properly cranked up. This movie is mostly just mood-setting, with much more going on in the background than the foreground.
  22. Then Came You
    In the overstuffed plot of Then Came You, Skye’s terminal illness isn’t even about her. Her life merely serves as a lesson for Calvin to overcome his fears and seize the day. It’s a shame this manic pixie dream sick girl can’t even get her own movie.
  23. The Aspern Papers
    Landais has made a version of Aspern that is too often uncertain and unconvincing despite the good work of his female stars. And when the actresses leave the screen and the film ventures into ill-advised flashback territory, things get shakier still.
  24. Action Jackson
    It's a generic action movie with more guns than brains, more car crashes than coherence and more opportunism than originality. [12 Feb 1988, p.21]
    • Los Angeles Times
  25. The Doom Generation
    The Doom Generation plays like a low-budget Natural Born Killers -- and that is not intended as a compliment. [27 Oct 1995, p.F6]
    • Los Angeles Times
  26. Mojin: The Worm Valley
    While “Worm Valley” is generally diverting, the plotting is remedial — and devoid of whatever personality Zhang brought to his books. There’s just enough story here to support the next big special effects sequence.
  27. I'm Not Here
    A dour drama that lacks depth despite all its good intentions.
  28. The Amityville Murders
    The effect is like watching a bar band do a cover version of “The Amityville Horror” — spirited enough, but hardly ready for the big time.
  29. Cliffs of Freedom
    The dialogue is often stiff, the action and plotting unlikely, making the romance hard to swallow. The appealing Uddin and Raymonde do generate enough chemistry in their fleeting time together to keep the proposition afloat.
  30. The Untold Story
    There’s not much story to tell in The Untold Story, a bland, rather old-hat take on male reinvention and redemption. That it’s as watchable as it is proves a testimony to star Barry Van Dyke’s committed turn.
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