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. Kids in America
    A comedy so inane and tedious that it buries its premise and its various worthy points under too many arch and improbable shenanigans and endless dialogue, much of it seriously under-inspired.
  2. In the Mix
    A jumble of genres including mob melodrama, bodyguard romance and interracial love story, none of which is handled in a remotely satisfying manner by director Ron Underwood. The film's tone shifts with all the grace of a car with a balky transmission.
  3. Rent
    Rent is commodified faux bohemia on a platter, eliciting the same kind of numbing soul-sadness as children's beauty pageants, tiny dogs in expensive boots, Mahatma Gandhi in Apple ads.
  4. The Libertine
    A trying experience. As we watch Rochester fall apart in spectacular fashion, it's clear that a major lure for the venturesome Depp was the chance to play a grotesque, to become a pestilent physical wreck with an artificial silver nose. There's more in that role for the actor, however, than there is for us.
  5. My Big Fat Independent Movie
    A big fast bust.
  6. April's Shower
    The movie suffers from a malady common to tiny indies of the let's-put-on-a-show variety -- it strains for irrepressibly nutty, but lands squarely in annoying.
  7. When a Stranger Calls
    Droopy remake.
  8. The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things
    The performances by all three children are scarily convincing. Still, it's a taxing bit of exploitation, which, although you're glad to know it's a work of fiction, doesn't exactly make a case for itself as art.
  9. Evil
    Director Mikael Hafström's dramatic sense is so pedestrian and snail's-pace obvious -- since this 2003 feature, he's made the leap to Hollywood with the plodding thriller "Derailed" -- one starts biding time for the inevitable retributive smackdown that will save our hero from the gantlet of draggy high-mindedness about counteracting fascism with stony resolve.
  10. The Zodiac
    Unfortunately, the film lacks the suspense and drama to carry the psychological burden placed on it by its makers. Plot strands are dropped like so much lint, and it ends so abruptly that you wonder whether the filmmakers ran out of money, ideas or both.
  11. Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector
    You have to be a bit of an arrested adolescent to think "Larry" is funny.
  12. Basic Instinct 2
    What we may very well be looking at here is another "Showgirls," a drag camp-fest for the "Baby Jane" crowd, fabulous fodder for future cabaret acts, and a pleasure probably best enjoyed in a crowd -- preferably a vocal one. Dead serious and stone idiotic, the only basic instinct in evidence here is desperation.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Iowa
    Farnsworth's frenetic, often hysterical first feature tries desperately to find a style, or styles, to call its own, but there's never a moment that doesn't feel as if it's been chewed up and spit out a dozen times before.
  14. Scary Movie 4
    Isn't it amazing to see just how low some people will stoop if you pay them enough?
  15. Abominable
    Schifrin wisely holds off showing the monster -- because once the creature is revealed, the already shaky film takes a turn for the worse. The costume for the monster looks like a cross between a drugstore Halloween mask and leftover molds from the horror chestnut "Leprechaun."
  16. The Celestine Prophecy
    The movie is flatly acted and extremely ill-paced, lacking any sense of urgency, momentum or fun. "Romancing the Stone" it is not.
  17. RV
    The bedraggled movie limps along to its phony hogwash of an ending, adding the ignominy of sentimentality to its previous sin of being so derivative.
  18. See No Evil
    A flavorless snack, time filler until "Saw III" and "Hostel 2" are served up.
  19. Little Man
    Devoid of verbal wit, instead relying on a relentless stream of Looney Tunes-inspired violence.
  20. Lady in the Water
    There is something bizarrely compelling about the movie. It's slower than watching a train wreck but invokes that same level of disbelief.
  21. Barnyard
    It's always dispiriting to see children's movies succumb to desperate pandering to the coolness imperative, especially since, given the marketing muscle they tend to have behind them, the bigger trick seems to be in getting people not to see them.
    • 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.
  23. The Quiet
    It never quite settles on whether it's a "Mean Girls" burlesque of teen life, an "American Beauty"-style bad-things-in-the-suburbs drama, or a wayward horror film. And it certainly never reconciles itself to successfully pulling off a hybrid of the three.
  24. The Covenant
    As boredom sets in, the viewer realizes that "The Covenant" does possess one magical power: It afflicts its audience with restless leg syndrome.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Unknown
    The movie's disinterest in character might be forgivable were its plot not riddled with holes.
  26. Meet the Family
    Good-natured and exuberantly politically - socially is more like it - incorrect, but it is woefully under-inspired and amateurish.
  27. Night of the Living Dead 3D
    Even for ultra-low-budget, grade-Z horror movies, this is a truly incompetent film.
  28. Living the Dream
    This is a bitter, occasionally farcical drama with the most hostile cinematic view of Los Angeles since "Crash."
    • 22 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Black Christmas
    Like an ugly tie or a pair of slipper socks, Black Christmas is destined to be forgotten the instant it's unwrapped, gathering dust until the season rolls around again.
  30. Factory Girl
    It's more like "That Girl" on speed than anything else.
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