Los Angeles Times' Scores

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For 16,526 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: 8,699 out of 16526
  2. Mixed: 5,810 out of 16526
  3. Negative: 2,017 out of 16526
16526 movie reviews
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  1. The Objective
    The scenes of servicemen feel somehow false, a screenwriter's idea of military life rather than the real thing. Myrick does an admirable job of spinning tension from a group of guys mostly standing around, but too often the film's portentous tone seems more silly than suspenseful.
  2. Taken
    A brisk and violent action programmer that can't help being unintentionally silly at times.
  3. The Uninvited
    Without dwelling on the limited abilities of novice British filmmakers Tom and Charles Guard (a.k.a. the Guard Brothers) -- who seem to have divvied up duties here by having one sibling focus exclusively on close-up shots of doorknobs and the other oversee everything else -- the movie's fatal flaw is the undeveloped relationship between the two sisters.
  4. New in Town
    The new comedy is flat, the romance is listless, the pacing is sluggish, and the fish-out-of-water flops -- flip-flop, flip-flop, I can hear it still.
  5. Luck by Chance
    Where "Slumdog," with its signature "It is written" take on fate, implies that things happen because they must, Luck by Chance concludes that we each have a hand in determining our own destiny.
  6. Blessed Is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh
    Because Senesh died so young, it's hard to fill out a film of nearly 90 minutes that claims her as the subject, so director Grossman has resorted to using newsreel footage as well as re-creations, which, though discreet, add nothing special to the proceedings.
  7. The Lodger
    The biggest mystery, perhaps, is why accomplished actors such as Molina and Hope Davis agreed to be in this.
  8. Underworld: Rise of the Lycans
    Grimly competent.
  9. Donkey Punch
    It's got enough formulaic flair to make it a guilty-pleasure cousin of seaborne nailbiters "Knife in the Water" and "Dead Calm."
  10. Inkheart
    With no unifying sensibility, the magic thuds more often than it soars.
  11. Of Time and the City
    Most of all, Davies proves himself to be a poet of the commonplace whose art is the exalting of the everyday. He may rail against "the British genius for creating the dismal," but his own work is anything but.
  12. Cherry Blossoms
    A stunning reminder of the omnipresence of mortality.
  13. Hotel for Dogs
    What it is packed with is lots of sneaking around, very cool gadgets, excellent stunts and some clever kids.
  14. My Bloody Valentine
    Wooden performances by forgettable, generic actors -- again, just like in the original -- don't aid in making things any less leaden. Perhaps this is the best one can hope for from something like My Bloody Valentine 3-D, that it be just good enough to not be annoying. Or in this specific case, physically painful.
  15. Notorious
    Through it all are the rhymes and the music, hugely enjoyable in their own right, and the long, large shadow of Biggie.
  16. Paul Blart: Mall Cop
    Underneath all the cartoonish mall mayhem and silly slapstick lies a comedy that aspires to be the sort of gentle crowd-pleaser John Hughes used to make.
  17. Bride Wars
    The idea of a revenge comedy isn't necessarily a bad one, Bride Wars simply fails at it despite having the formidable duo of Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway, who in their own distinctive ways usually command the screen.
  18. Not Easily Broken
    The movie may be preaching to the choir -- and every inch of it feels like a sermon -- but it's a pretty decent homily, heartfelt and strongly delivered by a committed cast.
  19. The Unborn
    Mostly, though, the movie is something of a snooze, a gabby PG-13 horror flick whose most shocking image might be the bored look on Gary Oldman's face as he goes through the motions of playing the rabbi in charge of dispatching the film's damnable demon to somewhere over hell's rainbow.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Yonkers Joe
    A mash-up of indie-film tropes.
  21. Defiance
    Defiance has some genuine strengths but also some weaker elements, and these opposing traits battle it out kind of the way the contentious Bielskis fought not only the Germans but each other.
  22. Good
    Regrettably, the long-delayed adaptation from director Vicente Amorim and screenwriter John Wrathall gets crushed by the weight of trying to be something more; it's really just the story of a rather ordinary but disappointing man. The filmmakers reach for metaphor and allegory, but it comes at the expense of an emotional connection.
  23. Revolutionary Road
    Encouraged by Mendes' artful direction, his gift for eliciting naturalness, the core of this film finally cries out to us today, makes us see that the notion of characters struggling with life, with the despair of betraying their best selves because of what society will or won't allow, is as gripping and relevant now as it ever was. Or ever will be.
  24. Waltz with Bashir
    Provocative, hallucinatory, incendiary, this devastating animated documentary is unlike any Israeli film you've seen. More than that, in its seamless mixing of the real and the surreal, the personal and the political, animation and live action, it's unlike any film you've seen, period.
  25. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
    As enervating as it is long -- and at 2 hours and 47 minutes it is quite long -- this version of the F. Scott Fitzgerald fantasy short story is a baffling project, an endurance test of a movie that feels like it was made on a dare.
    • 30 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Spirit
    Miller's flat, humorless yarn is set in Central City, a vacant metropolis whose only residents seem to be cops and crooks.
  27. Last Chance Harvey
    Small and surprisingly hopeful film, with beautifully attenuated performances by Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson.
  28. Marley & Me
    An imperfect, messy and sometimes trying film that has moments of genuine sweetness and humor sprinkled in between the saccharine and the sadness.
  29. Valkyrie
    A perfectly acceptable motion picture. The only thing that keeps it from even greater accomplishments may be inherent in the story itself.
  30. The Secret of the Grain
    Rather than observing this family, we feel we are part of it, and that draws us in as nothing else can.
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