Los Angeles Times' Scores

For 16,524 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:
16524 movie reviews
  1. It's exasperating -- a near-parody of bad French comedy.
  2. Raw and wretchedly current, it is a story that packs a cruel emotional wallop.
  3. As deliberately silly as the film is, it is very knowing and carefully thought out.
  4. Powered by an excellent Kurt Russell performance, Miracle treats old-fashioned, emotional material with an intelligence that respects both the story and the audience.
  5. Pleasing blend of humor, sentiment and commentary.
  6. Serviceable trash. It looks and moves like a low-end action movie, complete with thumping soundtrack, nanosecond-fast edits, stunts that probably look scary to anyone who doesn't know better and even a third-act police chase through downtown L.A. In other words, it's Bruckheimer for babies.
  7. While most films are fortunate if they succeed on any level, The Return works easily on several, making as powerful a mark emotionally as it does visually and even allegorically. Yet the film so catches you up in its compelling story, you're almost not aware of how masterful a piece of cinema you're watching.
  8. Does have its pleasures, but the feeling is inescapable that the person most pleased is Bertolucci himself. In essence he is the dreamer of the title, as eager to retreat into this hermetic world of his own creation as his characters are into theirs. Fair enough, but why does he have to drag us along with him?
  9. Heartfelt and deeply moving.
  10. Makes for gripping, merciless drama.
  11. Reveals its secrets slowly and with coy deliberation. The storytelling has the quality of a striptease, so that by the end of the film, Le Roux looks radically different from how he appears at the start.
  12. As forgettable as the humor is the film's predictable portrayal of adults as clueless, overbearing cretins.
  13. At once romantic, earthy and socially critical, Latter Days is a dynamic film filled with humor and pathos.
  14. There may once have been a real movie rattling inside the empty studio package known as The Big Bounce, but no longer.
  15. The heart of the movie, however, is the dancing, which is as spontaneous as it is spectacular, incorporating considerable gymnastics.
  16. A sweet-natured romantic comedy that's easy viewing but could have used a little more energy and a little less unalloyed niceness to put it over with more punch.
  17. It's a nervy, quasi-documentary scheme that's often successful, perhaps more so than you'd expect for this kind of a hybrid endeavor. But Macdonald's technique eventually turns out to be as distancing as it is involving, paradoxically undercutting the reality as often as it enhances it.
  18. As the requisite love interest, Amy Smart gives the film's only professional performance, while co-star Eric Stoltz, as the story's villain, walks somnolent through the scenery with what seems to be barely suppressed mirth. Given the deeply unpleasant plot machinations and amateurish direction, the actor's amusement is understandable.
  19. In working with Lynne Adams' script, Shalhoub, the esteemed star of the current USA series "Monk," gives his cast the inspiration and confidence to express the characters' many facets and seeming contradictions.
  20. Smart and stylish, Disney's Teacher's Pet is one family film that has appeal for adults as well as children.
  21. A terrific action picture, fast-moving, studded with great stunts and smart enough not to take itself too seriously. Amid a plethora of high-minded, big-deal, year-end Oscar contenders, it offers a welcome contrast (and respite).
  22. If there is one moment in The Language of Music that will thrill old rock fans, it's watching Dowd, his fluid hands moving with a surgeon's grace, remix for the film's benefit the 24-track sub-master of "Layla."
  23. Redeemed by its adherence to a simple yet distinctive approach to storytelling and its uniformly strong acting.
  24. On paper it has every advantage, from gifted stars Ben Stiller and Jennifer Aniston to an established comedy writer-director with a promising idea about a romance between a carefree woman and a worried man. But instead of maximizing those pluses, Along Came Polly so completely fritters them away that even its brief 90 minutes feels unhappily long.
  25. As with the greatest animated films, the triumph of Kon's work lies not just in its beauty and singularly sophisticated storytelling but in how that beauty and storytelling combine to give the films a sting so human you can forget you're watching a cartoon.
  26. A tedious comedy... It's not the worst premise for humor dashed with a little wisdom, but the script, written by the film's star Eddie Griffin and others, is less than inspired and tends to blur the line between immaturity and just plain stupidity.
  27. She was guilty, no doubt, but as this immensely moving film makes clear, Aileen Wuornos was also heartbreakingly human.
  28. The film means to be an unpretentious, engaging romantic comedy but stretches its charm awfully thin with a 110-minute running time.
  29. Achieves its success through a combination of attitude and technique, uniting, to exceptional effect, a way of viewing the world morally while looking at it physically.
  30. Engrossing and illuminating.

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