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. Looser and less obviously formulaic in its fresh approach to our hearts, the brash Lilo & Stitch has an unleashed, subversive sense of humor that's less corporate and more uninhibited than any non-Pixar Disney film.
  2. It's not the kind of work that wins awards, but without Cruise's intensity almost willing our interest in Spielberg's unrelentingly dark world, Minority Report wouldn't have nearly as much life as it does.
  3. Sergio Ballo's costumes have the look of authentic clothing, realistically reflecting the characters' wide range in social status. Rachel Portman's score, at once romantic, majestic and vital, completes this beguiling film.
  4. ZigZag is also richly cinematic. Los Angeles locales have been chosen with a keen eye to freshness and pungent atmosphere, and they have been masterfully photographed by James L. Carter with a notably effective play of dark and light.
  5. Not all it might have been, an oddly old-fashioned film from a director who's usually anything but.
  6. Taut, corrosive and compelling, Gangster No. 1 has the galvanic appeal of "Little Caesar" and "Scarface" in its full-sized portrait of a brilliant but twisted and savage criminal.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    As reformulated by the aggressively mediocre director Raja Gosnell and screenwriter James Gunn, this Scooby-Doo is entertainment more disposable than Hanna-Barbera's half-hour cartoons ever were.
  7. This is an entertainment that really entertains because any number of interesting and unexpected choices were made, starting with the selection of Doug Liman as the director.
  8. The look and feel of the film is entirely beguiling. It is deliberately not a period piece, heavy with dated styles and fads, but instead evokes a sense of timelessness.
  9. Whether you care if they find them (terrorists) or not may depend on how much you've been able to withstand Bad Company's sensory overload of firefights, vehicular mayhem, techno-cool swagger and enough bumptious contrivances to fill several seasons of daffy prime-time soaps.
  10. Not enough to save ivansxtc from, of all things, dullness.
  11. Implausible at every turn, it offers a dab of quirkiness and edge from writer-director Finn Taylor, but otherwise has nothing for audiences to embrace.
  12. This is a work of excess and passion, an untidy sprawl of a motion picture that is sometimes ragged, occasionally uncertain, but -- and this is what's important -- always warm, accessible and rich in emotional life.
  13. Nearly three hours long, and deliberately paced at that, this first feature ever in the Inuit language is a demanding experience. But the rewards for those who risk the journey are simply extraordinary.
  14. Has vast scope, unflagging energy, a rousing Jerry Goldsmith score and a horrendous disaster sequence that conveys much in discreet fashion in keeping with post-Sept. 11 sensibilities yet is needlessly evasive in telling us the precise extent of its magnitude.
  15. A funkadelic fun ride that shrewdly reinvigorates the eye-popping styles and pulpy veneer of '70s blaxploitation flicks.
  16. A witty and sophisticated sensibility brings individuality to the classic odd-couple comedy.
  17. All strained artifice, inhabited by individuals who either lack dimension or are merely stereotypes. The result is a movie not nearly as amusing as its makers may think.
  18. It's not a bad idea, and it has the right cast and the right look. But, sad to say, it lacks the pace and energy to make it come alive and therefore remains more of a literary conceit than a movie.
  19. Called the Holy Grail of the Hong Kong martial arts movies of the '70s, and now that it has been lovingly restored and given a regular theatrical release, it's easy to see why.
  20. CQ
    The result is stylish but awfully slim.
  21. Demands the utmost concentration, for to look away from the screen for even a brief moment is to risk losing a plot line or a crucial bit of information, but its cumulative, transporting impact makes it worth the effort. Above all, it has an overwhelming sense of reality atypical of the American cinema.
  22. Despite its good intentions, Spirit is more self-conscious and uninspiring from a dramatic point of view than one might have wished. Still, whenever it threatens to get bogged down in earnest dramaturgy, a stirring visual sequence -- rouses us.
  23. Lacking a real actress, director Michael Apted is called upon to fudge the facts and make Slim's ordeal as taut as possible. He gets the job done, but the suspense scenes have a generic fright-by-numbers feel that tell us he's wearing his professional hat and knows it.
  24. Insomnia shows an equally welcome ability: a gift of creating intelligent, engrossing popular entertainment.
  25. The result is a film that is at best highly uneven and perversely at odds with itself. Luckily, Wilde's delicious sense of absurdity and peerlessly witty dialogue are pretty indestructible, and "Earnest" itself remains a peerless comedy of manners.
  26. Late Marriage will assuredly rank as one of the cleverest, most deceptively amusing comedies of the year.
  27. Admirably ambitious and utterly unsparing, but as credible as the arc of Danny's odyssey is in itself, the all-important need to evoke a profound sense of the enigmatic and paradoxical in relation to Danny's fate has eluded Bean.
  28. Because a gradually thawing Will plays more to Grant's strengths, the second part of the film, helped as well by Rachel Weisz as a love interest, is much more fun. But it is still hard not to feel that this film is pushing us too hard, slickly trying to seem more honest than it actually is.
  29. Only a teenage boy could find this kind of stuff continually diverting, and only a teenage boy would not notice flimsy emotions and underdeveloped acting. It seems George Lucas, like Peter Pan, has never really grown up.

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