Los Angeles Times' Scores

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For 16,532 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: 8,702 out of 16532
  2. Mixed: 5,813 out of 16532
  3. Negative: 2,017 out of 16532
16532 movie reviews
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  1. Species
    Species is a pretty good Boo! movie. It's not the kind of sci-fi film that's going to give Stanley Kubrick any sleepless nights, and it may not give the rest of us much sleeplessness either. Its primary purpose in life is to unleash a lot of gloppy morphing and mutating and make us go -- all together now -- eeeuuuh. [07 July 1995, p.F8]
    • Los Angeles Times
  2. First Knight
    Aside from Gere, First Knight acquits itself honorably enough.
  3. Apollo 13
    Self-conscious about its heroism with portrayals that lean toward the glib and the professionally uplifting, the film milks our sympathies too readily to be emotionally convincing.
  4. Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie
    Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie brings the popular TV series to the screen with a barrage of spectacular special effects, a slew of fantastic monsters, a ferociously funny villain--and, most important, a refreshing lack of pretentiousness.
    • Los Angeles Times
  5. Pocahontas
    Directed by Mike Gabriel and Eric Goldberg, Pocahontas is on the formulaic side, a copy that duplicates what its predecessors have done, only a little less adroitly and with a little less style. [16Jun1995 Pg. F.01]
    • Los Angeles Times
  6. Safe
    Insidious and provocative, Safe refuses to lend a hand, avoids taking sides or pointing the way. Everything that happens in this beautifully controlled enigma is open to multiple interpretations, and that extends finally to the title's meaning as well.
  7. Batman Forever
    Working as much like a circus ringmaster as a director, Joel Schumacher has brought several critical qualities to the mix, starting with much more of a pop culture sensibility and a sense of fun than Tim Burton, who directed the first two pictures, and he has a stylish visual sensibility as well.
  8. Il Postino: The Postman
    Made under unique and wrenching circumstances, it gained poignancy and a kind of purity from its troubles, and an already affecting film ended up suffused with emotion.
  9. Congo
    Not only have bothersome plot changes been made, but the entire tone of the book has been transformed from tension to tongue-in-cheek with dismal results.
  10. Party Girl
    Party Girl has the courage of its own no-braininess.
  11. The Bridges of Madison County
    LaGravenese... has understood that the worst of Bridges is not in its dialogue but in the silent musings that occupy its characters' minds. By keeping those thoughts unspoken, by allowing the camera to show instead of having words tell, much has been accomplished.
  12. Fluke
    Maybe if "Fluke," which might have been better as an animated feature, weren't such a lavish, big-deal production and closer to the modest level of the recent -- and pleasant little -- pig movie "Gordy," it wouldn't seem so overwhelmingly, at times even laughably, foolish. [02 Jun 1995, p.F6]
    • Los Angeles Times
  13. Casper
    Director Brad Silberling and screenwriters Sherri Stoner and Deanna Oliver can't figure out how to play a lot of this material. They pour on the sentiment and then they pour on the dopiness. The ghosts in this movie aren't the only ones who lack resolution. So do the filmmakers.
  14. Johnny Mnemonic
    Considering the void at the center of his character, Reeves isn't bad. He's worked up some tricky robotic movements but his dialogue can't match their invention. [26 May 1995, p.F1]
    • Los Angeles Times
  15. Braveheart
    Never tries to confuse our loyalties or question the strategies of our hero or bring home the all-embracing soul-destroying horrors of war for all sides. Braveheart may be rip-roaring, but it isn't all that brave.
  16. A Little Princess
    Cuaron perfectly understands how a combination of simplicity and restraint help to create a sense of wonder on screen. Under his sure, quiet direction, A Little Princess casts the type of spell most family films can only dream about. [10 May 1995, p.1]
    • Los Angeles Times
  17. Die Hard: With a Vengeance
    The "Die Hard" series was never exactly big on nuance, but this new installment relentlessly zeros in on sensation. It's almost sadistically single-minded. [19May1995 Pg.F.01]
    • Los Angeles Times
  18. Amateur
    Hartley turns what might have been a lurid pulp thriller into a freeze-dried art thing. He squeezes all the juice out of pulp. [19 May 1995]
    • Los Angeles Times
  19. Little Odessa
    Gray hasn't filled out the emotional terrain he's surveyed here. He hasn't quite grown into the emotions he wants to put on screen. When he does, he'll come up with something lasting.
  20. Crimson Tide
    Crisp as the creases in its naval officers' uniforms, this tale of seething conflicts aboard an American submarine on the eve of nuclear war is strictly by-the-numbers, but hardly ever are traditional elements executed with such panache.
  21. Wild Reeds
    The film perfectly understands the tentative experimentation and frequent self-loathing of adolescence, the difficulty of knowing whom to trust and how much to trust them, as well as how incendiary an age this can be, with uncertain psyches ready to explode at minimal provocation.
  22. French Kiss
    French Kiss tries to be a glass of pink champagne, but some of the fizz has gone out of the bottle. But director Lawrence Kasdan and screenwriter Adam Brooks cram so many potshots into the piece that, after a while, it makes you laugh anyway.
  23. Crumb
    When it comes to unflinching, riveting looks at a compulsive artist who can't be other than who he is, nothing comes close to Crumb.
  24. The Underneath
    The Underneath doesn't add up. Made with polish and assurance, capably acted and intricately constructed, its overall impact is less than these parts would indicate. It is good but, against all logic, it is not good enough.
  25. Village of the Damned
    Village of the Damned is a good-looking, well-wrought film with some knockout special effects, some dark humor and crisp portrayals.
  26. Friday
    It's the right format for this scattershot jokefest, which at times resembles a vaudeville act crossed with the kind of goofy bludgeoning antics that sometimes make it into gangsta MTV videos. [26 Apr 1995]
    • Los Angeles Times
  27. While You Were Sleeping
    It's a movie about the warm feeling you get when you belong to a family, and, throughout, the thermostat is turned up high.
  28. The Basketball Diaries
    The Basketball Diaries is a lose-lose proposition. Although it masquerades as a cautionary tale about the horrors of heroin, this epic of teen-age * Angst is more accurately seen as a reverential wallow in the gutter of self-absorption.
  29. Swimming with Sharks
    Swimming With Sharks, the latest Tinseltown dig at Tinseltown, is being advertised as a jokey spoof, but it's something quite different: a dark slice of retribution that recalls Stephen King in his Misery mode.
  30. Kiss of Death
    With a fine piece of work in his hands, Schroeder has brought all his skill to bear on Kiss of Death, and it has made all the difference.
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