Paste Magazine's Scores

For 2,243 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 60% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 37% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 3.1 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 68
Highest review score: 100 Young Frankenstein
Lowest review score: 7 Reagan
Score distribution:
2243 movie reviews
  1. Without a strong thesis, cohesive plot or narrative payoff, A24 thriller Opus struggles to communicate the filmmaker’s messy musings.
  2. Honestly, though, Along for the Ride is perfectly cozy, in part due to its formulaic nature. It might not be the most visually stunning work—at times, certain shots feel amateurishly disorienting—but it possesses an undeniable artistic heart.
  3. The film’s other performances aren’t as engaging as Seydoux and young Martins, which means One Fine Morning itself sometimes feels like it’s muddling through with Sandra’s same weariness, too faithfully reproducing the repetitions of real life.
  4. Even with effective individual scenes, Silent Night fails to launch; it sets out to deceive its audience, but only really ends up deceiving itself.
  5. The French Italian is frequently clever and observant, but is it consistently funny? Like laugh-out-loud, forget-the-contrivances, hate-the-sin-love-the-sinner funny? Sadly, no. It’s a little too cluttered with dead-end oddities.
  6. Extremely Unique Dynamic is stream-of-consciousness comedy, feeling every bit like something that was filmed over the course of five days, as was reportedly the shooting schedule.
  7. Two
    Two does a pretty solid job of putting its audience into the shoes of a couple who finds themselves surgically connected against their will and, naturally, it isn’t pretty. It is full of confusion and terror and adrenaline. I only wish the stakes could’ve been somehow raised to avoid a flat final act, but hey, you can’t always stitch up what’s broken.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    The doc has its cake and eats it, too, reaffirming Mendes’ vulnerability without putting much of anything on the line.
  8. Either Ritchie didn’t bring his typical slickness for the ride, or he’s chopped up Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre intentionally to take the piss out of the genre. The effect at least feels more like comfort than boredom.
  9. The opening of the movie has some perfectly timed visually-delivered laughs, like an early car scene involving an accidental failure to reverse, and the bottle-episode staginess of later scenes limits the visual invention. Still, by this point you’ve boarded the ride, and Oh, Hi! keeps you captive in a way that Iris only dreams of: by sheer force of Gordon’s personality.
  10. The good news is if you liked Hocus Pocus, you will definitely like Hocus Pocus 2...because it’s basically the exact same movie except with cell phones, better special effects and a cameo from Hannah Waddingham. Imitation remains the sincerest form of flattery. The bad news is…it’s the exact same movie.
  11. Spirited, with its message of redemption, changing our behavior and doing a little good, arrives at the perfect time. Who better to tell us to start being nice than a singing and dancing Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell?
  12. At times arrestingly suspenseful, at others bitterly funny, but often inert in its transitions, Misericordia is an occasionally confounding mixed bag, but one that stands out for the realistic recriminations of a place where grievances run deep and mercy comes with strings attached.
  13. The film pushes itself to extremes like a broad and black comedy would, but isn’t quite enough of one to come across as anything but cruel.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    Though it’s a slighter production, Oliveros’s film still has plenty to recommend it, with his smart direction and a raft of fun performances making for an engaging hour and half.
  14. If You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah does have the feel of an expensive, well-appointed, but not exactly lushly-made family project – maybe even a coming-of-age gift to the younger Sandler daughter – at least it mounts a charm offensive, rather than treating its audience like a pack of easily manipulated rubes.
  15. Although Morales is an improv queen, the overriding gravitas of Hausmann-Stokes’ direction makes most of the intended comedy wither and land with a dull thud. However, there are some solid performances from the whole cast, and the opportunity to platform this topic is a plus, and in some cases, likely vital to veterans who will watch it.
  16. That’s the true power of Affleck and Bernthal’s collective charm offensive: They can make a junky story about a computer-brained savior of human-trafficking victims resemble a whimsical hangout session.
  17. It’s arguably led astray by an imperative to swing in the direction of pulpier (and sellable) revenge story, backloading its genre goods so deeply that when they finally arrive late in the game, they derail the more contemplative mood that has been established. Tornado is left stranded between tones, set adrift without a rudder.
  18. You won’t find much of this particularly new or enlightening. It’s a little surprising, considering how much thought Leitch (no relation, by the way) has put into the action sequences, how perfunctory and even lackadaisical the rest of the film is.
  19. Hedda is DaCosta’s most direct and purposeful adaptation yet, but like her other films, it’s missing some ineffable push past its beginnings into more expressive territory. The process of adaptation feels more confident than the conclusion.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    If nothing else, The Life of Chuck proves that Flanagan’s control of tone and pacing extends to more than just ghost stories, infecting the rhythms of everyday drama with a haunting, heartfelt doom.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Ferrari is a loud and thrilling race that leaves the figure of Enzo stranded on the side of the road, unknown and lost.
  20. For better and worse, The Inspection seems like the movie Bratton had to make, a story so personal that some of its biggest emotional confrontations start to resemble a therapeutic exercise.
  21. Although it’s clearly tailored for kids to enjoy as its first priority, A New Age leans into the physical comedy and, for lack of a better phrase, crude humor of its predecessor with success, creating a lighthearted, low-ambition romp that kids will love and adults will enjoy.
  22. When all is said and done, storytelling this glaringly flawed cannot be overlooked, and the wonderful elements of Amsterdam can only do so much to glue together this faltering house of cards.
  23. Worlds are squandered, details are overlooked and, yes, there’s a CGI swarm. For better or worse, and much like the MCU at large, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 has a lot going on.
  24. Trap House manages to be fitfully thrilling, pulling off a villain reveal at one point that amusingly but derivatively cribs from Spider-Man: Homecoming in particular, but it stumbles to some degree in its clumsy and tonally scattershot portrayal of American law enforcement.
  25. Joy
    At the very least, it manages to remind us of how miraculous the commitment of human ingenuity can be, when it comes to making a new life possible.
  26. Violent Night isn’t a great action movie, or even a very good one, but George Costanza’s old assessment of Home Alone rings true: “The old man got to me!”

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