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. Whatever license the word “fable” grants Hamilton, it doesn’t redeem the narrative muddle. But there’s an undeniable gutsiness to her filmmaking. The American dreamscape she creates is memorably unsettling.
  2. The terrors we see in A Cure for Wellness are never as scary as they are beautiful, but they are never so beautiful as they are arbitrary.
  3. While you don’t have to be crazy about cats to enjoy this documentary, it would certainly help.
  4. For much of its fast-paced running time, the film, which involves an after-school fight between two polar-opposite teachers, is just amusing enough to make up for its sheer preposterousness.
  5. If ever a film was made with more money than sense, this is it.
  6. Just when you think the film has gratefully escaped its most inevitable turn, it goes there, adding one final kernel of corn to this ho-hum horse tale.
  7. Growing Up Smith is a well-intentioned fizzle that misses what should have been an easily reachable mark.
  8. Tighter pacing, more dimensional and compelling characters, and twistier consequences could have helped better propel this dark, semi-intriguing tale.
  9. It’s an overwhelming, and sometimes disorganized firehose of information.... Ultimately, however, I Am Jane Doe is a powerful call to action to protect children over profit.
  10. Plenty of first-time feature filmmakers have combined grubby genre kicks with more personal concerns; but there’s a confidence and energy to “Stray Bullets” that compensates for the rather rudimentary, over-familiar story.
  11. This is a surprisingly dull and tedious affair where nothing is even remotely plausible, the romance and the sex least of all.
  12. The film can’t quite figure out how to wrap up, overstaying its welcome with multiple resolutions, but its heart is in the right place, using fantasy to reveal poignant truths about empathy and redemption.
  13. Filmmaker and Columbia professor Joseph, and playwright Beaty, in his feature writing and acting debut, infuse the movie with an intense New York City realism and an evocative street poetry that conjure up early John Cassavetes and Spike Lee.
  14. Unfortunately, the film doesn’t fully explore its big ideas or give its talented cast dialogue to match.
  15. The Adventure Club is a remarkably dull Canadian tween caper about a sought-after magical ancient box with wish-making powers.
  16. This movie is still, ultimately, a generic shocker. But the amount of care lavished on the character-building and scene-setting is impressive, even if it doesn’t add up to much.
  17. It’s a taut, if somewhat hysterical, cycle of bait and switch, twists and turns, retribution, vengeance and mental torture payback for immature mind games with deadly results.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    A reveal about the nature of the building and its violence works initially, but is never fully explored. There are some truly disgusting kills, making sure that horror fans who thirst for blood will get their fill.
  18. The movie may look like disposable goods — it’s a sequel, a shoot-’em-up, starring an actor too often treated as a punchline — but it is also a connoisseur’s delight, a down-and-dirty B-picture with a lustrous A-picture soul.
  19. If you are familiar with his mesmerizing work, nothing more need be said; if you’re not, this feast of dance illustrates why others are.
  20. A United Kingdom is traditional, well-made cinema, with a taste for the obvious at certain points, but it has some powerful advantages. These include its remarkable story (Susan Williams’' book "Colour Bar" was a primary source), plus a director who knows how to convey its essence and a superior cast whose presence elevates the material.
  21. In its best moments, this gag-a-minute Bat-roast serves as a reminder that, in the right hands, a sharp comic scalpel can be an instrument of revelation as well as ridicule.
  22. Sutton’s vision is unsettling and immersive, his technical precision immaculate. The sound design alone — long, ambient silences disrupted by a flashbulb-popping hallucination or a sudden scream — is reason enough to see the movie in a theater, whatever unpleasant associations the ending may conjure.
  23. The film's maximalist storytelling, both expansive and precise, snatching specific emotions from its torrid swirl, is best exemplified by the fact that the title card doesn't appear until an hour in.
  24. At no point does the movie manage even a single sequence of sustained tension, or a frisson of genuine terror.
  25. The pacing of the individual scenes and the direction of the actors feel so clunky and amateurish, you may wonder after a while if “The Space Between Us” is meant to indicate the yawning emotional chasm between the actors, struggling to connect across a galaxy’s worth of wretched dialogue.
  26. Intriguing in concept but problematic in execution.
  27. It’s crisply shot but suffers from poor, amateurish editing, an overwrought dramatic score and the storytelling fails to compel. The acting, writing and directing of American Violence indicate this flick is strictly a B-movie, but its tone is far too self-serious to have any fun with at all.
  28. A shrill but often funny anti-romantic comedy from L.A. filmmakers Alex Kavutskiy and Ariel Gardner.
  29. Made with taste, skill and discretion, The Daughter demonstrates both the staying power of classic material and the risks inherent in bringing it up to date.

Top Trailers