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. The film is a moving experience for both its subjects and the audience.
  2. If the film’s trio of new screenwriters (replacing series mainstay Ehren Kruger) have seamlessly upheld the crass and juvenile “Transformers” sensibility, then Bay’s visual sensibility has, if anything, matured, to the point of demanding and earning your exasperated surrender.
  3. 47 Meters Down doesn't have the campy sparkle that made “The Shallows” a cult hit, but it's the kind of cheesy thriller that's good for a few jumps and a few chuckles at its own silliness.
  4. More specific sense of time and route (a map, anyone?) and a bit of even basic scientific scrutiny would have improved this otherwise compelling and provocative journey.
  5. It’s a gutsy, often off-putting piece whose eccentric little New York story and experimental vibe might have been better served by a short film.
  6. The drought is ultimately presented as a man-made occurrence, wrapped up in regulations and red tape, rather than a troubling environmental reality. The reality is far more complicated than anything that can be neatly wrapped up within the conventions of genre filmmaking.
  7. Hearing Is Believing could have offered more insight into Rachel’s experience, but instead it invests in the action of its title, including long stretches of witnessing Rachel at the piano and on various other instruments.
  8. A wincingly unfunny comedy caper.
  9. Moscow Never Sleeps is well made but stilted, following too many characters to give any their due.
  10. "Stefan Zweig" is only Schrader's second film as a director, but, armed with clear ideas of what she wanted to convey and how she wanted to convey it, she's made a movie that allows its actors to fully inhabit their characters in a potent but low-key way.
  11. Even when the movie shades too far into the oblique or the obvious, its evocative scenes of urban life and Tobin’s powerful performance provide ample compensation. Plot twists or no, this is a vivid depiction of a lost soul.
  12. Unlike the thick directness in Maud’s work, the movie about her is almost pointillist in detailing the tiny steps that make up an enduring marriage.
  13. At no point do the filmmakers seem to evince any real interest in the emotional misery they inflict on their characters; trauma here is just the quickest means to an uplifting end, or in this case, a montage’s worth of wretched epiphanies.
  14. The title of this strenuously crude and crotch-obsessed movie may be lazy, but it’s also pretty apt.
  15. This warmly sentimental G-rated film about facing new realities and recapturing lost dreams has, despite its relatively adult story line, a beguilingly effortless feeling to it, as if it had nothing to prove.
  16. The thrilling documentary Dawson City: Frozen Time is indescribable not because it's ambiguous (it's totally straightforward) but because it does so many things so beautifully it is hard to know where to begin.
  17. While it’s a cute love letter to a certain strip of L.A., and Annenberg brings a winsomeness to her role, the story is thin and clichéd, relying on tired gags and stereotypes for humor.
  18. It’s an illogical, simple-minded mess in which Stevens is primarily a disembodied voice in a first-person-shooter-style video game movie.
  19. Striking images of sex and violence combine with an often effective sense of dread as these grim story lines unfold. But without sufficient context and psychological underpinning, less proves decidedly less.
  20. Unfortunately, the worst fault in this horror movie isn’t the amateur performances, beginner-level editing or the special effects; it’s the dreadfully dumb script.
  21. It commits the worst comedy crime of all — there’s no punchline.
  22. An ethnically diverse cast and authentic New York locations help to effectively ground Lucky, a palpably gritty, if familiar, take on the immigrant experience.
  23. The costars have good chemistry and bring a sense of desperation to their roles that animates a thin plot.
  24. At its strongest, the movie dissects such pat notions as “closure” and “moving on” with wit and intelligence.
  25. Jalali peppers this darkly funny, often absurdist piece with enough socio-political messaging to add heft but not didacticism. It all makes for a singular, well-observed balancing act.
  26. This mess never knows whether it’s a mob movie or a raunchy comedy.
  27. The affecting work by Almanzar, Rodriguez and the rest of the ensemble in this immersive film tenderly speaks for itself.
  28. It's not every day that you end up rooting for a bank, but the story Abacus: Small Enough to Jail tells is no ordinary tale.
  29. Action movies don’t necessarily need logic, but in the absence of entertainment value, tracking what doesn’t make sense is often the only fun.
  30. Although I Love You Both never quite pays off on its provocative set-up, it proves to be a funny and endearingly quirky comedy about siblings, love and loyalty.

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