Los Angeles Times' Scores

For 16,520 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:
16520 movie reviews
  1. Teen Titans Go! To the Movies is loud, cheery and fairly relentless in its assault on your rib cage. The pleasingly rudimentary visual design, all bright colors and madly expressive eyebrows, is no more and no less than what the material requires.
  2. Unfortunately, Hell Mountain lacks basic cohesiveness in its storytelling, taking strange, unnecessary detours and not fully developing its details.
  3. Snapshots nicely shuttles between past and present to tell its affecting, evocative tale of familial and romantic love among several generations of women. But it’s the flashbacks that prove more wholly compelling here, so much so that they could have made for their own standalone film.
  4. A tedious exploitation picture not even sleazy enough to find offensive.
  5. When the movie shifts more toward fright in its final third, Burns and Parker don’t have much new or exciting to offer. But with the help of a strong performance from Mann, they do a good job capturing one family’s feelings of brokenness, and how far they’d go to get back what they lost.
  6. This latest entry in horror’s tradition of sorority-set slashers appears to have been made on a college student’s budget, shot by a horny frat dude and edited by a drunken pledge.
  7. Is it possible to be a great filmmaker and not make great films? Steve Mitchell’s entertaining documentary “King Cohen” makes that case for prolific writer-director-producer Larry Cohen.
  8. Like a wrestler struggling to balance his real-life and in-the-ring personas, the grappling comedy Heels feels torn between its dual personalities, one warm, one coarse. Though individual parts work, this indie film from actor-writer-director Ryan Bottiglieri never fully unites its various elements and disparate tones into a well-crafted whole.
  9. Larger Than Life: The Kevyn Aucoin Story is a rich, deeply dimensional documentary looking back at the legendary makeup artist who died in 2002 at 40.
  10. The cast, including Victoria Carmen Sonne, as the object of both Emil and Johan’s affections, and Lars Mikkelsen, as the quarry boss, is uniformly strong and singular.
  11. The movie is both a painful reminder of how Muslims are most often the victims of terrorism and the kind of behind-the-scenes glimpse at everyday evil...that reveals a confounding bizarro world where the inexplicable and mundane mix.
  12. 38 years after his death, Beaton's name is not so much on everyone's lips, and one of the pleasures of this film is to revisit his gifts beyond his best known work, the Oscar-winning production design and costumes for "My Fair Lady."
  13. The mix of essay, history, critique, laughable spectacle, and reflection starts to feel unwieldy and steered toward easy assessments about the perils of loving money and worshiping appearance over substance.
  14. The serviceable but astonishingly generic Damascus Cover features the usual political-thriller tropes — tough but haunted protagonist, zigzag of foreign locales, rival spies, arcane twists, shifting allegiances, wedged-in romance — without adding much that feels unique or exciting.
  15. The movie’s derivative but lively and has a surprising scope.
  16. Not everything in Equalizer 2 is successful, including a subplot about a Yiddish-speaking Holocaust survivor played by Orson Bean that misses the mark. But the film is effective where it needs to be, and if there is an "Equalizer 3," in line to see it is where you'll find me.
  17. At almost two hours, the film feels a bit long and suffers from multiple endings, but Okada is clearly a talent to watch.
  18. Scanlan is stunning as the odd but fiercely loving Lyn. She regards Iona warily, knowingly, seeing into her future and what she’s walking into, but with no way to stop it.
  19. An initially clever exercise winds up feeling like the wrong kind of hackwork.
  20. Even if the dramas and dictates of couturiers and catwalks mean little to you, it is hard to resist the propulsive energy that director Ian Bonhote and co-director and writer Peter Ettedgui bring to the story of a designer whose background, beliefs and gifts were not what one would expect.
  21. It is a dark and often disturbing, boundary-pushing film, but the detached, almost ironic performance style provides a means to talking about taboo topics.
  22. The situation and the performances are strong, but without a good story to hold everything together, it all falls apart in the end.
  23. Everything old is shockingly, stirringly new again in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, the rare sequel so unexpectedly enchanting that it plays less like a rehash than a reclamation.
  24. There is something about the calculation of Blindspotting, a movie all too aware of its own impressive ambition, that somehow resists the poetic abandon, the electrifying spontaneity that Estrada and his collaborators are trying to pull off.
  25. This is a film that wants you to live in the moment, to enjoy what is on screen when it is there in front of you and not worry how it fits into a plot that can be confusing but clears up in time for the inevitably rousing conclusion.
  26. As long as the world worshiped fame, Hunt realized, that light could be redirected where it was most needed, and in our toxically fused celebrity-political climate, that focused, principled, humane simplicity of purpose feels as resonant as ever.
  27. If the show’s hilarious first half gives way to a more modestly amusing second part, Noble Ape remains good, clean, relatable fun.
  28. It becomes clear that fame isn’t what he’s chasing — it’s perfection in innovation. Anything less is eighty-sixed.
  29. In interposing haunting footage of the destructive wake of the Fukushima tragedy with Sakamoto’s evident, childlike delight in coming up with the perfect tonal combinations, the film serves as a stirringly poetic meditation on the pursuit of creation in the face of mortality.
  30. Despite its frustrating lack of narrative cohesion, there’s something intoxicating about the vibe of Poor Boy. It’s a world you want to explore more, and Pucci’s Romeo is a character worth falling in love with.

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