Los Angeles Times' Scores

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:
16526 movie reviews
  1. It's a grindhouse-inspired concoction that may not contain a shred of originality, but it is executed with unbridled bombast and glee.
  2. Brosnan and Neeson make fine adversaries mining the terse dialogue for veiled dramatic fervor.
  3. While major stars thrust together on screen often end up undercutting each other, one of the pleasures of Becket is how easily and generously these two commanding actors play off each other, each allowing the other the space to make the most of their individual roles.
  4. Once the farce finds its stride, however, it's generally worth the wait.
  5. The film has a weird, surrealistic feel abetted by a lack of conventional structure, keeping the viewer off-balance. On the down side, that means the movie occasionally rambles. The staging tends toward the static, the cast is uneven and the small film is technically limited.
  6. The original film was intellectually engaging as well as tangibly creepy, while the new remake is just plain bad, and boring to boot.
  7. A remarkably compelling presence, Spiridonov commands attention without pandering or appealing to pity. In fact, for a 6-year-old, he is possessed of an uncanny poise.
  8. A magnificent film almost no one knows about, this hidden classic offers a wider variety of pleasures than most contemporary works can even aspire to.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    A pretty engaging tale, and it's refreshing to see a well-acted, suspenseful drama made without a bloated budget or a lot of bloodletting.
  9. In a film with several over-the-top characters bordering on camp, Timberlake's Frankie is the only one who approaches three dimensions, adept at convincingly dishing out some of the movie's disturbing violence as well as registering subtle shifts in Frankie's allegiance.
  10. Strangely self-serious, and without covering the prerequisites of top-shelf nastiness that contemporary horror requires, this giant crocodile movie turns out to be neither fish nor fowl.
  11. Yes, stepping is an age-old tradition at historically African American schools, but this smells of desperation; one more misstep for a film with two left feet.
  12. Quinn discovers an unexpectedly funny, trenchant fish-out-of-water-eye-view of American life.
  13. It is astonishing to realize that the highly confident Tears of the Black Tiger marks the directorial debut of Sasanatieng, after having written two movies hugely successful in Thailand, yet in truth he belongs to a long line of first-rate filmmakers who understand the wisdom of taking big chances the first time at bat.
    • 28 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Putting a spin on classic fairy tales is nothing new, and unfortunately that's just what the "Shrek"-lite animated feature Happily N'Ever After brings to the big screen.
  14. Dramatically, the movie never veers from its predictable course, but Swank's performance renders the point moot. There likely was a better, more original movie to be made focusing more on the Freedom Writers themselves, but if this more conventional direction had to be taken, it's hard to imagine a more affecting version.
  15. Offers no surprises but is good-natured and funny. It's mercifully devoid of car chases, although it does have a truly inane gunfight -- did any of these trained killers ever hear of target practice? -- and some out-of-left-field martial arts.
  16. With Pan's Labyrinth, Del Toro has made his most accomplished film to date, a dark and disturbing fairy tale for adults that's been thought out to the nth degree and resonates with the irresistible inevitability of a timeless myth.
  17. What's missing is less a sense of the protagonist's inner nose (which is very well-trammeled) as a sense of his inner life, motivation or desire.
  18. The movie is at once a flagrant piece of kitsch and an unexpectedly affecting story about an individual overcoming personal tragedy and brutally restrictive circumstances by talent and force of will.
  19. If the segments are uneven, Moncrieff -- with the help of her excellent cast -- nevertheless crafts a gripping overall narrative that exposes a shared dissonance among the protagonists.
  20. It's more like "That Girl" on speed than anything else.
  21. Scotsman not only lacks vision, a true sense of how to mesh Obree's sporting triumphs and personal setbacks, but it also lacks passion. What it needs, as strange and tacky as it may sound, is a bit more madness.
  22. Unconscious is a ribald sex farce of considerable imagination and inspired wackiness and a meticulous period piece of the Art Nouveau era.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Director Luc Besson, best known for "La Femme Nikita" and "The Fifth Element," admits he knew nothing about animation before he started this project, and it shows.
  23. It doesn't seem possible that a film with both the formidable Reno and Waits could be all bad, but The Tiger and the Snow is precisely so.
  24. In bringing Heller's book to the screen, director Richard Eyre ("Iris," "Stage Beauty") and screenwriter Patrick Marber ("Closer") have tossed the book's subtlety out the window, along with its psychological complexity, its running theme of self-deception and its dark, extra-wry sense of humor.
  25. Made with palpable energy, intensity and excitement, it compellingly creates a world gone mad that is uncomfortably close to the one we live in. It is a "Blade Runner" for the 21st century, a worthy successor to that epic of dystopian decay
    • 22 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Like an ugly tie or a pair of slipper socks, Black Christmas is destined to be forgotten the instant it's unwrapped, gathering dust until the season rolls around again.
  26. It's taken a dozen years for Eric Roth's smart, thoughtful, psychologically complicated script to reach the screen under Robert De Niro's careful and methodical direction, and it is easy to see why.

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