Los Angeles Times' Scores

For 16,520 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:
16520 movie reviews
  1. Dares to take a different tack, taking its young people seriously in a more realistic context. If ever there was a director ready to graduate from genre films, it surely is Shea. [12 March, 1999, Calendar, p.F-6]
    • Los Angeles Times
  2. The Corruptor manages to make a meat-and-potatoes action flick into a cunning little meditation on personal loyalty and situational morality. [12 Mar 1999]
    • Los Angeles Times
  3. Both too unfocused and overly familiar. It has enough comic energy to generate some chuckles, but even when we laugh we're always wondering why the jokes aren't funnier. [5 Mar 1999]
    • Los Angeles Times
  4. Dark, dangerous and a great deal of wicked, amoral fun. A film that manages to be as clever, playful and mock violent as its title, Lock, Stock was a major hit in its native Britain and its cheeky tone, simultaneously calculated and off the cuff, is as hip as anyone could want. [5 Mar 1999]
    • Los Angeles Times
  5. A strained and overly obvious battle-of-the-sexes tale.
  6. A handsome work of authoritative yet understated style, responsive to mood, subtleties and nuance in exploring its especially well-drawn and intelligent lovers.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    A laugh-out-loud chronicle of the struggling filmmaker's hunt for a girlfriend.
  7. A light comedy, pure and simple (and hardly unfamiliar), but its makers sustain its energy through the unraveling of an intricate plot and bring to it a certain edge through a witty, sharp sense of observation.
  8. By coddling viewers and micromanaging our responses, The Other Sister shows almost as little respect for the audience as Elizabeth does for her feisty, underappreciated daughter.
  9. 8MM
    Those foolhardy enough to place themselves at the mercy of 8MM can expect the following emotions: disgust and revulsion, then anger, followed by a profound and disheartening sadness. There are some films whose existence makes the world a worse place to live, and this is one of them.
  10. Bristling with shrewd observation, inspired humor and all-around smarts, Office Space is a winner about a guy who's beginning to feel like a loser.
  11. One of the most unfashionable movies of the new year, and one of the more appealing. [19 February 1999, Calendar, p.F-10]
    • Los Angeles Times
  12. Wickedly hilarious. [19 Feb 1999]
    • Los Angeles Times
  13. Intermittently appealing movie romance.
  14. The result is exposition overkill and a dragged-out finale that turns what should have been a Tear Duct Special into a deflating experience, making what worked in the book unacceptable on the screen.
  15. The film is loud and labored--its sense of adventure kicking in so late that it scarcely matters. [12 Feb 1999, p.F15]
    • Los Angeles Times
  16. The two leads are unappealing, the story is dragged on for days and the rather random magical element renders any human factor irrelevant..
  17. Has the makings of that rarest of ventures, an adaptation that is true to the spirit of the original as well as its own time and place. But as Payback wends its way toward its conclusion, its promise dissipates and its pleasures wane.
  18. A teen comedy that actually puts a priority on intelligence and values and spans generations in its appeal, emerging as a special delight for anyone for whom high school was something less than nirvana. [29 Jan 1999, p.6]
    • Los Angeles Times
  19. Not so much a remake of a film as it is a remake of an overcooked performance--a case of ham imitating ham.
  20. An unpretentious, amusing thrill-a-minute sci-fi horror thriller / monster movie that plugs right into fears of a Y2K crisis.
  21. A trashy little movie about drinking, football and drinking, is also one of those films that pretends to moralize about the very behavior it milks for every giggle it can get.
  22. An exceptionally touching and provocative love story. [15 January 1999, Calendar, p. F-4]
    • Los Angeles Times
  23. An art film to the core. If it's an epic, it's an intimate, dream-time epic, an elliptical, episodic film, dependent on images and reveries, that treats war as the ultimate nightmare, the one you just cannot awaken from no matter how hard you try.
  24. Rarely have a novelist and filmmaker been better matched.
  25. It takes two to be sisters, two to have a rivalry, and two exceptional actresses to turn Hilary and Jackie into a compelling look at the most intimate and troubling of family dynamics.
  26. A smart, lively and unpretentious exploitation picture...Consistently funny and clever.
  27. It may be unfair to ask a film like this not to be shamelessly manipulative, but wouldn't it be nice if audiences could be trusted to feel things more or less on their own without layers of unnecessary hokum entering the picture?
  28. Comes close, achingly close, to greatness.
  29. Williams knows when material is working, and he knows the sound of an honestly aroused crowd. This ain't it!

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