Seattle Post-Intelligencer's Scores

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For 2,931 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 64% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 33% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 1 point higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 66
Highest review score: 100 Peter Pan
Lowest review score: 0 Mindhunters
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,824 out of 2931
  2. Mixed: 872 out of 2931
  3. Negative: 235 out of 2931
2931 movie reviews
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  1. Die Another Day
    All told, this first Bond of the new millennium may be far from the best of the series, but it's assured, wonderfully respectful of its past and thrilling enough to make it abundantly clear that this movie phenomenon has once again reinvented itself for a new generation, and is very likely to outlive us all.
  2. Friday After Next
    There's nothing sophisticated or inventive about it, but Cube has fun with his characters and first-time director Marcus Raboy drives the film with enough momentum and energy to make the gags flow together almost like a real story. That's enough to carry it through another Friday.
  3. Talk to Her
    The movie is occasionally funny, always very colorful and enjoyably overblown in the traditional Almodóvar style; and the performances -- especially Javier Cámara as the gentle, sweet-spirited Benigno -- are exquisitely tender and moving.
  4. The Quiet American
    The film's real feat may be in its production design, in the sumptuousness and veracity with which it re-creates central Saigon and the Vietnamese countryside of the '50s: an exotic lost world of brothels and opium dens, trishaws and ao-dai dresses, Ming-deco interiors and water buffalos in rice paddies.
  5. Personal Velocity: Three Portraits
    The actors navigate tough characters through emotional mayhem with such intense determination it's a shame they're undercut by the intrusive voice-over.
  6. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
    Best of all, the second Potter movie reunites its adult cast: Harris, Maggie Smith, Robbie Coltrane, John Cleese, Alan Rickman, Julie Walters and others -- a veritable Who's Who of British actors that single-handedly elevates the proceedings out of the kid's movie genre into something special.
  7. Interview with the Assassin
    Director Neil Burger manages to make his technical deficiencies and clumsy interviews work for the credibility of his story rather than against it, and he builds an eerie, naturalistic suspense that's believable enough to raise an authentic goose bump or two.
  8. The Way Home
    It's an uncluttered, resonant gem that relays its universal points without lectures or confrontations.
  9. Ararat
    Ararat is less about history than the necessity of dialogue and debate, and the devastating effects of stifling dialogue.
  10. Half Past Dead
    Call this one "Die Hard" on Alcatraz, and this time the "cuckoo crazy" maverick has got the homeboys on his side.
  11. Standing in the Shadows of Motown
    Everyone who has ever enjoyed the music that came out of Detroit's Motown Records in the 1960s should see Standing in the Shadows of Motown.
  12. The Crime of Padre Amaro
    Carrera's direct, unadorned style has none of the searing imagery or cinematic imagination of "Y Tu Mama," but it bristles with passion, anger and a palpable sense of betrayal.
  13. 8 Mile
    It captures the excitement of a breaking star, it generates a raw and unsettling emotional power and it honors the aesthetic of hip-hop in way that's never quite been done on film before.
  14. Far From Heaven
    It's a daring failure that should delight many devotees of Classic Hollywood.
  15. Femme Fatale
    It's hard to call it thrilling -- these aren't characters you actually care about and De Palma isn't as concerned with building tension as playing visual games -- but it sure sparkles.
  16. Treasure Planet
    There's no mistaking the fact that this hybrid misses the impact of the Disney classic, and even that of the excellent 1934 MGM version. Both of these films are surprisingly hard-edged and every bit as thrilling -- and scary -- as Stevenson's 1883 novel.
  17. The Santa Clause 2
    While it lacks the original's streamlined core, the father-son relationship, the sequel gets by on assembled moments of sentiment
  18. The Weight of Water
    The insistent crosscutting suggests there is something powerful between the two stories, but apart from vague connections of jealousy, emotional tension and conversations that constantly dance around the real issues, they don't resonate across the years.
  19. Tully
    A few scenes are a bit coy and the "big secrets" threaten to pitch into melodrama, but Birmingham keeps bringing the film back to the delicate dynamics of the relationships at its heart.
  20. I Spy
    Too much of the humor falls flat. Thomas' numerous chase sequences through the streets, over the rooftops and through the airways of Budapest seem numbingly repetitive, and the script's reliance on castration gags betrays its overall lack of imagination.
  21. All the Queen's Men
    Afraid to pitch into farce, yet only half-hearted in its spy mechanics, All the Queen's Men is finally just one long drag.
  22. Roger Dodger
    Scott owns the film from scene one.
  23. Waking Up in Reno
    This half-baked production sat on Miramax's shelf for a couple of years. It's no more done now than then, merely more stale.
  24. The Truth About Charlie
    Comes across as a fairly weak retooling.
  25. Quai des Orfèvres [re-release]
    Like all great film noir, however, the real delight of this film is in its mood and atmosphere.
  26. Frida
    Hayek throws herself into this dream Hispanic role with a teeth-clenching gusto. She strikes a potent chemistry with Molina and she gradually makes us believe she is Kahlo.
  27. The Bank
    The film is not without its flaws, but it sports a terrific production design that integrates magically into the story -- as well as another top-notch performance by Anthony LaPaglia.
  28. Ghost Ship
    Beck wants to dazzle the audience. I'd settle for a story.
  29. All or Nothing
    All or Nothing has some appealing performances, several scenes of absolutely shattering domestic drama and an uncanny aura of gut-wrenching, documentarylike authenticity.
  30. Abandon
    Holmes ably handles the starring role, but the handsome Bratt doesn't have enough material to cement his film career. The supporting cast is strong.
  31. The Grey Zone
    Explores cloudy, discomforting realities of the Holocaust not usually addressed in such films.
  32. Real Women Have Curves
    If ever a film seemed poised to take over the spot occupied by the surprise indie hit, "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," it's Real Women Have Curves.
  33. Formula 51
    Outrageously confident and wearing a kilt through the mayhem, Jackson proves once again that he has few equals in bringing off a broad, over-the-top lead.
  34. Naqoyqatsi
    It would be very possible for a reasonably intelligent person to sit through its tidal wave of imagery and not get this vision at all.
  35. The Ring
    The Ring, is going to be this year's version of the "Blair Witch" and "Sixth Sense" phenomenon.
  36. Auto Focus
    The film is so explicit (endless swinging parties and porno scenes, more bouncing breasts than a Russ Meyer movie) that it finally becomes the thing it fears.
  37. The Business of Fancydancing
    The anger and betrayal hanging in the wake of shattered relationships and conflicted identities leave an admirable untidiness where most films would force resolution. There are no easy answers here, and it's not for lack of questions.
  38. Brown Sugar
    Hip-hop is not the beat I dance to, but you don't need to be immersed in the culture to understand the heartbeat it sets in the lives of Brown Sugar's main characters.
  39. Below
    An excruciatingly awful thriller.
  40. The Rules of Attraction
    Opens on a display of humiliation and human degradation at its worst and then rewinds, like a video surfer zipping back to replay a favorite scene, to the nominal beginning of the spiral.
  41. Bowling for Columbine
    It's vintage Moore: on one level the courageous act of a gutsy journalist, and, on another, a callously unfair and self-serving spectacle that makes Moore seem like a big bully, and puts his audience into the position of a vigilante mob.
  42. The Transporter
    Will Statham make it as an action hero? Hard to say. His personality makes Vin Diesel look positively debonair.
  43. Tuck Everlasting
    The sentiment smacks of "Titanic" for teens, but that doesn't make it any less valid, or the quietly told coda any less lovely.
  44. Comedian
    Its power and bite come from the contrast Seinfeld makes with Orny Adams, a younger comedian on the verge of success who is everything Seinfeld is not: hungry, vain, petty, mean-spirited, desperate for recognition.
  45. Swept Away
    Madonna herself is not so much terrible as merely uninvolving. She's quite credible as the harpy of the first act, but she can't pull off the transition and the spark that makes a movie star instantly sympathetic.
  46. White Oleander
    Pfeiffer devours every one of her scenes with a ferocious performance.
  47. Punch-Drunk Love
    Sandler and Watson make something out of their underwritten roles, and that they do is testament to their talents: They make this punchy romantic comedy more engaging than it should be.
  48. Family Fundamentals
    Compassionate, potent documentary.
  49. Welcome to Collinwood
    A diversion so soggy that even the few combustible comic disasters fail to light a flame under the lukewarm laughs.
  50. Heaven
    Touching, transcendent love story.
  51. Pipe Dream
    Donovan makes us totally believe the character and his predicament, co-star Mary-Louise Parker is especially witty and winning as the film's screenwriter.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie
    In the annals of insufferable family entertainment, the VeggieTales set a new standard.
  53. Bloody Sunday
    There's no denying the skill and flair with which director Paul Greengrass has restaged this unhappy event, creating an uncanny sense of immediacy and allowing us to be a fly on the wall at a seminal '70s tragedy.
  54. Red Dragon
    Basically lives up to the old adage that the final work in a trilogy is invariably the weakest.
  55. Just a Kiss
    First-time director Fisher Stevens has a flair for dialogue comedy, the film operates nicely off the element of surprise, and the large cast is solid -- especially Marisa Tomei, who in an extended cameo as a merry dominatrix rarely has been more convincing.
  56. Wasabi
    Does its job colorfully and entertainingly, as long as you don't lean too hard on such niggling details as logic, legality and the laws of physics.
  57. Skins
    This is a film about anger, shame and helplessness, and it offers no answers, merely hard questions and angry challenges.
  58. The Man from Elysian Fields
    Wonderfully cast but underwhelming and never especially believable.
  59. Shanghai Ghetto
    Fascinating.
  60. The Tuxedo
    This ill-fitting Tuxedo is strictly off-the-rack.
  61. Sweet Home Alabama
    Witherspoon shines. She's never looked better, and she carries herself with both her usual comedic flair and a surprising elegance.
  62. Moonlight Mile
    In his determination to lighten the heavy subject matter, Silberling also, to a certain extent, trivializes the movie with too many nervous gags and pratfalls: to the point where his heartfelt drama comes perilously close to tasteless comedy.
  63. The Banger Sisters
    Hawn mows down everything in her path with a giggle. It's great fun to watch her just eat up this movie.
  64. The Four Feathers
    When a filmmaker heavy-handedly imposes his contemporary values on a classic of popular art, it's devilishly hard not to destroy or invalidate the very thing that made it a classic.
  65. Secretary
    Secretary is one of the best of a growing strain of daring films -- "Bliss," "The Lifestyle," "Satin Rouge" -- that argue that any sexual relationship that doesn't hurt anyone and works for its participants is a relationship that is worthy of our respect.
  66. Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever
    Cut down to a frantic 88 minutes, you wonder if all the human moments were trimmed away to get to this abstract, humorless exercise in empty flourish.
  67. 8 Women
    A frothy and deliriously enjoyable souffle.
  68. Spirited Away
    Has the power to transport us to a different place. The spark of special anime magic here is unmistakable and hard to resist.
  69. The Experiment
    There's not enough insight to the social phenomenon presented onscreen, but that doesn't make the utterly human horror of this thriller any less unsettling.
  70. Alias Betty
    In today's cynical cinematic climate, there's something beautiful in Miller's simple poetic justice.
  71. Igby Goes Down
    Its motif is self-pity, Steers displays no particular way with a scene, and, as Igby, Culkin exudes none of the charm or charisma that might keep a more general audience even vaguely interested in his bratty character.
  72. Barbershop
    A cogent, optimistic and mostly entertaining slice of ghetto life.
  73. Quitting
    The total effect is mesmerizing, an eye-opening tour of modern Beijing culture in a journey of rebellion, retreat into oblivion and return.
  74. Stealing Harvard
    Rarely has paper-casting worked as dismally as it does for Jason Lee and Tom Green.
  75. City by the Sea
    For some reason, the emotional payoff of the film -- the healing of a dysfunctional family -- doesn't quite come off. Possibly this is because Franco doesn't generate the necessary sympathy or father-son chemistry with De Niro, possibly because it's just not in the script.
  76. Mad Love
    Ayala gives Joan a fiery, full-blooded passion and Aranda challenges Pedro Almodovar in the arena of self-destructive love, obsessive passion and sweaty cinematic sex. It's the lustiest costume drama in years.
  77. Undisputed
    Stars are particularly strong. Snipes' fatalism is totally appealing, and Rhames makes a curiously compelling antihero.
  78. Little Secrets
    Treu's sweet-spirited vision of life, and the winning performances of his ensemble of kid actors, gradually broke down most of my resistance.
  79. Serving Sara
    For all the hot air expended, this film ends up all smoke and no heat.
  80. S1m0ne
    Darkly funny.
  81. Red Satin
    Movie is so hip-swingingly infectious and leaves us with such a high that it's hard not to suspect that -- handled right -- it could well become the fall version of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding."
  82. One Hour Photo
    It marks an impressive debut for first-time writer-director Mark Romanek, especially considering his background is in music video. His script is uncluttered and potent, and his direction manipulates a devastating climax that ties the photo/voyeuristic theme together very effectively.
  83. Blue Crush
    A summer movie that knows it's a summer movie. You don't go to this film for the story, but for the scenery: Bikini-clad girls riding waves, surf photography as beautiful as it is breathtaking, sun, surf, sand, even a little PG-13 romance.
  84. Possession
    The film wants to be "The English Patient" but doesn't have the elements that made that film a classic: sensitivity, perfect casting, a unique visual style and, underlying its grand action romance, a stubborn sense of honesty.
  85. Mostly Martha
    Nettelbeck has created a movie recipe that ladles great dollops of dessertlike joy and equally dark tragedy around her strong-willed heroine. It wouldn't work without actors capable of finding vulnerability, humanity and kindness in sometimes inaccessible characters.
  86. Katakuri-ke no kôfuku
    The biggest surprise for Miike fans and musical lovers alike is that for all the black humor of this deliriously bizarre fantasy "Happiness" is a warmhearted film about sacrifice, support and four generations of family togetherness.
  87. I'm Going Home
    Oliviera's mastery is a joy to experience and his bittersweet comic touch adds a loving absurdity to what could have turned maudlin or morose.
  88. 24 Hour Party People
    At times, the self-congratulatory tone makes for smug viewing and slow going. In spots, the pace is so all-exclusive that not every viewer will be able to get up and dance to it.
  89. The Château
    Barely substantial enough for a feature but just light and tasty enough to satisfy.
  90. xXx
    Momentum, motivation and story are all swallowed by simple sensation, and the film finally exhausts itself for lack of stylistic imagination.
  91. Blood Work
    It lets down in the last act and is probably too mired in serial-murderer-movie formulaics to garner Oscar attention. But it's his tightest, best film since "Unforgiven."
  92. Secret Ballot
    Secret Ballot is an education hiding in a comedy, a parablelike portrait of the irresistible forces of modernization and democracy meeting the immovable inertia of tradition, culture and power relations written in the blood of the past.
  93. The Good Girl
    At its best, The Good Girl is a refreshingly adult take on adultery, where the dark humor and offbeat fringe characters don't get in the way of the consequences or the quiet declarations of devotion slipped between the words.
  94. Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams
    Rodriguez has the chops of a smart-aleck film school brat and the imagination of a big kid, and they come together to remake the world in the image of its young audience. It's more amusement park ride than adventure, which in this case is exactly the demographic he's reaching for.
  95. Full Frontal
    For an ostensibly personal film, this plodding portrait of the self-involved flailing for meaning in a mercenary world has little of Soderbergh's insight, empathy or generous personality.
  96. Martin Lawrence Live: Runteldat
    Lawrence uses the stand-up forum less as a weapon to blast us with his incisive, razor sharp insights into life, sex and ethnicity than as a pulpit or confessional to chronicle his rehabilitation and reformation.
  97. Signs
    Shyamalan has learned the lessons that so many horror directors ignore: Suggestion is scarier than revelation.
  98. The Master of Disguise
    Feels like nothing less than Dana Carvey's desperate bid for his own "Austin Powers"-like franchise, but with a harmless humor far less crude. Carvey favors whoopee cushion punch lines to toilet gags and references to big butts over sexual double-entendres.
  99. Merci Pour Le Chocolat
    This bloodless, nuanced little thriller carries small weight save for Huppert's enigmatic, thrifty performance.
  100. The Kid Stays in the Picture
    An imaginative self-profile of producer Robert Evans, could well be the most totally irresistible movie of the summer.
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