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. Maybe if "Fluke," which might have been better as an animated feature, weren't such a lavish, big-deal production and closer to the modest level of the recent -- and pleasant little -- pig movie "Gordy," it wouldn't seem so overwhelmingly, at times even laughably, foolish. [02 Jun 1995, p.F6]
    • Los Angeles Times
  2. Director Brad Silberling and screenwriters Sherri Stoner and Deanna Oliver can't figure out how to play a lot of this material. They pour on the sentiment and then they pour on the dopiness. The ghosts in this movie aren't the only ones who lack resolution. So do the filmmakers.
  3. Considering the void at the center of his character, Reeves isn't bad. He's worked up some tricky robotic movements but his dialogue can't match their invention. [26 May 1995, p.F1]
    • Los Angeles Times
  4. Never tries to confuse our loyalties or question the strategies of our hero or bring home the all-embracing soul-destroying horrors of war for all sides. Braveheart may be rip-roaring, but it isn't all that brave.
  5. Cuaron perfectly understands how a combination of simplicity and restraint help to create a sense of wonder on screen. Under his sure, quiet direction, A Little Princess casts the type of spell most family films can only dream about. [10 May 1995, p.1]
    • Los Angeles Times
  6. The "Die Hard" series was never exactly big on nuance, but this new installment relentlessly zeros in on sensation. It's almost sadistically single-minded. [19May1995 Pg.F.01]
    • Los Angeles Times
  7. Hartley turns what might have been a lurid pulp thriller into a freeze-dried art thing. He squeezes all the juice out of pulp. [19 May 1995]
    • Los Angeles Times
  8. Gray hasn't filled out the emotional terrain he's surveyed here. He hasn't quite grown into the emotions he wants to put on screen. When he does, he'll come up with something lasting.
  9. Crisp as the creases in its naval officers' uniforms, this tale of seething conflicts aboard an American submarine on the eve of nuclear war is strictly by-the-numbers, but hardly ever are traditional elements executed with such panache.
  10. The film perfectly understands the tentative experimentation and frequent self-loathing of adolescence, the difficulty of knowing whom to trust and how much to trust them, as well as how incendiary an age this can be, with uncertain psyches ready to explode at minimal provocation.
  11. French Kiss tries to be a glass of pink champagne, but some of the fizz has gone out of the bottle. But director Lawrence Kasdan and screenwriter Adam Brooks cram so many potshots into the piece that, after a while, it makes you laugh anyway.
  12. When it comes to unflinching, riveting looks at a compulsive artist who can't be other than who he is, nothing comes close to Crumb.
  13. The Underneath doesn't add up. Made with polish and assurance, capably acted and intricately constructed, its overall impact is less than these parts would indicate. It is good but, against all logic, it is not good enough.
  14. Village of the Damned is a good-looking, well-wrought film with some knockout special effects, some dark humor and crisp portrayals.
  15. It's the right format for this scattershot jokefest, which at times resembles a vaudeville act crossed with the kind of goofy bludgeoning antics that sometimes make it into gangsta MTV videos. [26 Apr 1995]
    • Los Angeles Times
  16. It's a movie about the warm feeling you get when you belong to a family, and, throughout, the thermostat is turned up high.
  17. The Basketball Diaries is a lose-lose proposition. Although it masquerades as a cautionary tale about the horrors of heroin, this epic of teen-age * Angst is more accurately seen as a reverential wallow in the gutter of self-absorption.
  18. Swimming With Sharks, the latest Tinseltown dig at Tinseltown, is being advertised as a jokey spoof, but it's something quite different: a dark slice of retribution that recalls Stephen King in his Misery mode.
  19. With a fine piece of work in his hands, Schroeder has brought all his skill to bear on Kiss of Death, and it has made all the difference.
  20. Al Franken is good enough, he's certainly smart enough. So, doggone it, why is "Stuart Saves His Family" so mediocre?
  21. Though audiences will leave theaters with an increased appreciation of this pair's talents, they will also leave pondering the perennial Hollywood question: How come so little of interest could be found for performers who are capable of so much more?
  22. Depp is rather sweet in portraying Don Juan's self-delusions, but his performance is hampered by the role.
  23. Working with cinematographer Karl Walter Lindenlaub, director Caton-Jones has givenRob Roy a beautiful wide-screen look, filled with gorgeous vistas. But this film is like a color Xerox copy of the real thing: hard to tell from an original until you look closely at the details.
  24. The martial-arts sequences are zesty, a description that applies to this well-crafted movie as a whole.
  25. Directed by Kevin Lima and produced by Dan Rounds, it moves briskly, and, if it doesn’t make a star out of Goofy, it doesn’t trash him either. It lets Goofy be Goofy.
  26. A wax-museum movie that is both bland and reverential despite its focus on the great man's love life, Jefferson is hampered by its disconnected protagonist.
  27. Farley reminds us just how liberating an agile, uninhibited, out-sized comedian can be in these times of caloric restraint...Tommy Boy is a good belly laugh of a movie.
  28. Watching Tank Girl is as disorienting as waking up in someone else's bad dream. You want to get out as fast as possible, but all the exits seem to be blocked.
  29. Director Taylor Hackford brings an appropriate level of pulpy energy to the telling, and star Kathy Bates... gives a better performance than the film deserves as the grumpy and possibly homicidal title character.
  30. While Major Payne is too predictable for most adults, it's an ideal entertainment for youthful audiences that allows Damon Wayans to be at his best in a dream part.

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