Los Angeles Times' Scores

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For 16,550 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 2.2 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: 8,714 out of 16550
  2. Mixed: 5,819 out of 16550
  3. Negative: 2,017 out of 16550
16550 movie reviews
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  1. The Bourne Identity
    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.
  2. The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys
    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.
  3. Bad Company
    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.
  4. Ivansxtc
    Not enough to save ivansxtc from, of all things, dullness.
  5. Cherish
    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.
  6. Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
    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.
  7. Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner
    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.
  8. The Sum of All Fears
    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.
  9. Undercover Brother
    A funkadelic fun ride that shrewdly reinvigorates the eye-popping styles and pulpy veneer of '70s blaxploitation flicks.
  10. Elling
    A witty and sophisticated sensibility brings individuality to the classic odd-couple comedy.
  11. The Next Big Thing
    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.
  12. Bartleby
    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.
  13. Master of the Flying Guillotine (re-release)
    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.
  14. CQ
    The result is stylish but awfully slim.
  15. Thirteen Conversations About One Thing
    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.
  16. Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron
    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.
  17. Enough
    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.
  18. Insomnia
    Insomnia shows an equally welcome ability: a gift of creating intelligent, engrossing popular entertainment.
  19. The Importance of Being Earnest
    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.
  20. Late Marriage
    Late Marriage will assuredly rank as one of the cleverest, most deceptively amusing comedies of the year.
  21. The Believer
    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.
  22. About a Boy
    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.
  23. Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones
    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.
  24. Ultimate X: The Movie
    The film's strengths may actually work against it with younger fans who might be disappointed by the few stomach-churning, white-knuckler moments.
  25. Blackwoods
    Always a welcome presence in any film, Howard, as a simple-minded hick, gives Blackwoods whatever humor and life it has.
  26. The Lady and the Duke
    Just as interesting, if not more so, is how Rohmer integrates his very contemporary concerns into a period drama, how he creates characters who manage to be true to our times as well as their own.
  27. Unfaithful
    Though it is difficult to take Unfaithful as seriously as it takes itself, on its own terms it's quite well done.
  28. The New Guy
    An unintentional parody of every teen movie made in the last five years. Which can be the only rational explanation for making such a mess all over the screen.
  29. Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India
    Raises it to the level of an art film with fully drawn characters, a serious underlying theme, and a sophisticated style and point of view.
  30. Home Movie
    There is something reassuring in seeing free-thinking individuals express their personalities so emphatically yet invitingly in the places they live.
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