The Globe and Mail (Toronto)'s Scores

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For 7,291 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 48% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 49% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 3 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 62
Highest review score: 100 The Red Turtle
Lowest review score: 0 The Mod Squad
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4,349 out of 7291
  2. Mixed: 1,826 out of 7291
  3. Negative: 1,116 out of 7291
7291 movie reviews
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  1. One Day
    The effort is admirable, the movie not so much, and yet, contrary to most pictures, it does improve towards the end. At least a little.
  2. Senna
    The crash, lethal in an eye-blink, was hard to watch when I saw it live on television, and it's not any easier here. The day was clear – no rain in sight.
  3. Conan the Barbarian
    In today's cultural climate, any remake of Conan the Barbarian can only be considered (a) redundant or (b) a cruel case of rubbing salt in our cinematic wounds. Either way, it ain't a pretty sight – in fact, it's downright barbaric.
  4. Fright Night
    The new version is mildly entertaining with some fun performances.
  5. The Whistleblower
    There is also a parallel subplot following the fate of two Ukrainian girls caught in the sex-slave ring Kathy targets. This storyline isn't dramatically satisfying, but it does provide context and ensures the victims in this story are not portrayed simply as faces in the dark.
  6. 30 Minutes or Less
    Approximate time spent laughing: 30 seconds or fewer.
  7. Final Destination 5
    Periodically, thanks to the 3-D, a long and pointy object emerges from the screen, threatening to impale the viewers through their eyeballs, enhancing the movie's guilty pleasure by reminding us that we, too, are made of vulnerable flesh and bone.
  8. Glee: The 3D Concert Movie
    A high-school talent show, no doubt, but, at its best, well worth glorifying.
  9. The Help
    Typically, this sort of film is an earnest tear-jerker with moments of levity. Instead, what we have here is a raucous rib-tickler with occasional pauses for a little dramatic relief.
  10. El Bulli: Cooking in Progress
    El Bulli barely registers a pulse stronger than a book's. There is no narration, there are no interviews and forget about any apron-ripping drama, as presented nightly on the Food Network.
  11. The Devil's Double
    New Zealand-born director Lee Tamahori (Once Were Warriors, Die Another Day) avoids biopic tropes, filling the screen with the jolts of a violent thriller and exploiting the few comic possibilities.
  12. The Future
    It can definitely grate on your nerves but, at best, it also gets into your mind, and sticks fast.
  13. Viva Riva!
    Martin Scorsese, meet Djo Tunda Wa Munga, because you obviously have a lot in common. Viva Riva! is nothing less than the Congolese Mean Streets, oozing sexual heat and brute violence and powered by a locomotive's worth of raw kinetic energy.
  14. The Change-Up
    While there's some decent fun to be had in this fantasy world, The Change-Up drags on so long you may need to "visit the fountain" before Dave and Mitch become themselves again.
  15. Rise of the Planet of the Apes
    The running time is efficient, the direction is clean, the story is simple but resonant, the effects are understated yet impressive, and the near-wordless star of the show puts on an acting clinic. Damned if the risen one doesn't lift us out of our seats.
  16. Beats Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest
    A combination of timing, access, a visual aesthetic that reflects ATCQ's Afrocentric "surface philosophy" (as the crew's look is described) and, most importantly, story-conscious editing elevates the doc above the norm.
  17. Another Earth
    It's refreshing to see a movie tackling difficult ideas, even if, like the new Earth, it sometimes feels like the filmmakers have their heads up in the clouds.
  18. Life in a Day
    It's the sort of big thought that makes a small point, which is precisely the problem with Life in a Day. A documentary that looks to give this notion visual form, it strives awfully hard for depth but, more often than not, comes off too shallow.
  19. The Smurfs
    Sitcom star Harris puts his smart-aleck chops to good use as Patrick Winslow.
  20. Attack the Block
    Stacked against this summer's CGI-driven blockbusters, Attack the Block is definitely the fastest action ride (clocking under 90 minutes), and quite possibly the most fun.
  21. Crazy, Stupid, Love
    Crazy, Stupid, Love seems at times like a bunch of movies searching for an identity. Happily, some of them are actually worth watching.
  22. Cowboys & Aliens
    Over on the aliens side, it's hard to make out faces, but there's no doubt about their place of origin: These slimy, growling, bug-eyed and distinctly non-scary things are straight from central casting.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Friends with Benefits
    It's a tired formula moviegoers know well, but in the case of Friends With Benefits, it works.
  24. Project Nim
    In art there are no rules, just stuff that works. And for the second film in a row, Marsh has created a movie we can't keep our eyes off.
  25. Circo
    Ever so subtly, Schock gradually transports us beyond the exotic and into gripping universal storytelling, aided all the way by the evocative music of Tucson songsmiths Calexico.
  26. The Last Mountain
    For the most part he (Haney) lets the people and images of Coal River Valley speak for themselves – and that's what gives The Last Mountain its eloquent power.
  27. Captain America: The First Avenger
    Is there any doubt Evans' Captain America will do exactly what the character created 70 years ago by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby did in the comics – kick Nazi butt? The real surprise will come next year, when we get to see how the super-square Captain adapts to 21st-century life.
  28. A Better Life
    Speaking of moves, A Better Life is an interesting one for Weitz, who produced "American Pie" and directed "The Golden Compass" and, ahem, "The Twilight Saga: New Moon." Whatever the reason (his grandmother was a Mexican movie actress), this film feels more personal that just a gig.
  29. Life, Above All
    Walks a line between didactic allegory and realistic drama.
  30. Winnie the Pooh
    The narrative, cobbled together from various Pooh stories by an army of writers, is held together reasonably well by John Cleese's soothing narration.
  31. Blank City
    As Blank City proves, the all-night, every-night party was fun while it lasted.
  32. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
    This outing not only doesn't disappoint; it surpasses high expectations. This is a terrific, smartly designed adolescent adventure, visually rich, narratively satisfying, and bound to resonate for years to come.
  33. The Tree
    By the time we reach the climactic ending, the script clearly calls for an exorcist with a chainsaw to trim back this metaphor run amok.
  34. Conan O'Brien Can't Stop
    While a lot of geography is covered, as a concert film, Conan O'Brien Can't Stop is decidedly thin entertainment.
  35. Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times
    Alas, the filmmaker, maybe because he had to account for every week of his more than year-long visit to the Times, has crowded his film with too many subplots and way, way too many cameos of all the usual suspects, wringing their hands over what will become of newspapers.
  36. Zookeeper
    Unfortunately, nobody had the good sense to call the comedy authorities and shut this Zookeeper down.
  37. Horrible Bosses
    What's right about Horrible Bosses is less easy to identify, but it comes down to something like esprit de corps. The three principal actors click. The looseness of the structure actually proves a benefit, allowing Bateman, Sudeikis and Day, all trained on television comedy, to bounce off each other, talk over each other and apparently pull lines out of the air.
  38. Cave of Forgotten Dreams
    It is our tour guide that makes Cave of Forgotten Dreams an often thrilling experience. His producer, Erik Nelson, has joked Herzog is the first filmmaker to use 3-D for good, instead of evil. There is no question that the technology enhances our visit, giving perspective and shape to the jagged Chauvet Cave – an open mouth the size of a football field.
  39. The Tree of Life
    The result actually plays like a divine pronouncement, cosmic in scope and oracular in tone, a cinematic sermon on the mount that shows its creator in exquisite form.
  40. The Names of Love
    The film is sometimes funny and occasionally smart yet never quite what it wants to be – funny and smart at the same time.
  41. Monte Carlo
    Gomez, who turns 20 next year, looks much younger than her age and has the thankless task of playing three roles...It feels like a struggle and the screenplay doesn't help.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Armadillo
    Armadillo is a work of stunningly difficult filmmaking, going out on patrol with the soldiers and diving for cover amid the pop of bullets and blasts of artillery.
  43. Larry Crowne
    Next semester, the stars should drop Speech 217 and enroll in Chemistry 101 – they dearly need some.
  44. The Trip
    Ambitious and brooding, Coogan has the darker nature; lighthearted and affable, Brydon is all sunny-side up. Happily, both possess a devilishly quick wit and the need to go beyond self-impersonation to the more celebrated variety.
  45. Small Town Murder Songs
    Gass-Donnelly is good at capturing stalled rural lives, from church hymn-sings populated by the elderly, their voices fragile as April snow, to dead-end afternoons at corner cafés, where bored patrons stretch lunch hours with coffee and gossip.
  46. Transformers: Dark of the Moon
    But don't worry about remembering the characters - the movie certainly doesn't.
  47. To Die Like a Man
    The title leaves no doubt about the ending but, thanks to Santos's unflinching performance and Rodrigues's continued audaciousness, the climax still takes us aback.
  48. Cars 2
    Just who is Pixar aiming this movie at? Contemporary children or their great-grandparents?
  49. Bad Teacher
    Bad Teacher should be a hoot. But it isn't. Love the theory here, hate the practice.
  50. Beautiful Boy
    The whole project labours towards an importance it never earns. In Beautiful Boy, the themes are vast but the picture is small, and the ensuing emptiness is what the characters are meant to feel – not us.
  51. Beginners
    Ultimately, the result is identical to Mills's debut effort in "Thumbsucker." Once again, clever insight vies with misty-eyed sentimentality, honesty with artifice, real humour with bogus gravity, the genuinely affecting with the merely quirky. But "Thumbsucker" was at least a promising start; Beginners is just a frustrating continuation.
  52. The Art of Getting By
    The Art of Getting By is distinguished by a dullness that's almost akin to being in high school again.
  53. Mr. Popper's Penguins
    By happy coincidence, their names – Bitey, Loudy, Stinky, Lovey and Nimrod – pretty much double as a plot summary.
  54. Green Lantern
    What gets sacrificed on the altar of this new franchise launch is any real sense of fun.
  55. Submarine
    One of the most irresistible films of the year so far.
  56. Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer
    Brings on a wave of nostalgia accompanied, unfortunately, by a great big yawn that will surely be experienced by parents hoping for a spark of irreverence à la Pippi or the broad comic appeal found in most theatrical family fare these days.
  57. Super 8
    All the kids here are terrific, significantly better than the actual movie that surrounds them. Although ostensibly fashioned by Abrams, it's really a summer-weight Spielberg yarn.
  58. The Princess of Montpensier
    Swords cross, blood spurts and bosoms heave in The Princess of Montpensier, French director Bertrand Tavernier's thoroughly ravishing drama.
  59. Midnight in Paris
    Certainly, his (Allen) work here feels effortless, and that feather-light touch gives the picture its charm – modest but real.
  60. X-Men: First Class
    That's partly why X-Men: First Class is such fanboy fun, as the script departs from official Marvel lore to invent a whole new "origin story" for the mutant ensemble.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    L'amour fou
    Despite its name, L'Amour Fou, a documentary about the late fashion genius Yves Saint Laurent and his partner Pierre Bergé, is not entirely a love story. Really, it's a story of loneliness and loss.
  62. Kung Fu Panda 2
    There just isn't the same zingy rapport. Seth Rogen's praying mantis and Jackie Chan's monkey have no more than a dozen lines between them. Even Jack Black's Po is more subdued.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Hangover Part II
    Undeniably funny in parts, but the salacious spark and brilliant pacing of the original is off.
  64. Last Night
    Last Night is a New York morality play: A film in love with (lower) Manhattan that is suspicious of real romance. What it lacks is Allen's sense of horseplay; his appetite for lunatic adventure. When you take a bite of the Big Apple, you're not supposed to nibble.
  65. Forks Over Knives
    A middling documentary but a magnificent indictment.
  66. The First Grader
    This is potentially compelling, but truncated flashbacks are far too crude a mechanism for exploring not only the intricacies of that tumultuous period in Kenyan history but also its ongoing legacy.
  67. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
    Judi Dench is much more of a challenge. Drenched in powder and pomp, the grand old Dame pops up in a London carriage. She's there in a flash and then, as quickly, gone, and her fleeting presence is exactly like the fleeting merit of this fourth galleon in the portly franchise: It prompts stirrings, not quite all the way to feelings.
  68. Potiche
    Without its star, this picture would float off forgettably into the ether.
  69. Meek's Cutoff
    En route, what emerges is the kind of film, rich in paradox, that's common to Reichardt but so rare anywhere else – a film ponderously slow in pace yet kinetically charged with insight; starkly realistic yet allegorical too; psychologically astute yet politically resonant.
  70. The Strange Case of Angelica
    An uneven but intriguing piece of whimsy that veers from powerfully symbolic cinematography into self parody.
  71. Meet Monica Velour
    Poor Cattrall is caught in a script that, much like the white teddy, is an impossibly tight squeeze, obliging her to hit the farcical laughs while still playing the cellulite realism.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Bridesmaids
    Like Apatow's best work, this is about friendships – only this group of loveable misfits wear matching purple gowns.
  73. Even the Rain (Tambien la Lluvia)
    It's all a bit too schematic, yet the ambition is admirable and the message powerful: Today, no less than yesterday, the weak must be strong to survive, and their strength is endlessly tested.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold
    The problem is that the film, despite an attempt to examine the intellectual pollution of pervasive marketing, can't help coming off as one big smirk.
  75. The Bang Bang Club
    Ultimately, his (Silver) film settles for a queasy mix of high-toned intentions and commercial compromises.
  76. Something Borrowed
    The sisterhood is already grumbling about a movie that suggests women will happily choose a mate over friendship, but actually it's the stereotypes of good behaviour rather than bad that bring this rom com crashing down.
  77. Jumping the Broom
    Jumping the Broom also benefits from a great soundtrack (Al Green, Aretha, El DeBarge, Curtis Mayfield).
  78. The Beaver
    Clearly, the screenplay is looking for some black comedy here, but Foster's direction is too earnest to locate it.
  79. Thor
    Alas, the news is mixed: Thor ain't much of a movie but it's a great career move. Both movie and move belong to director Kenneth Branagh.
  80. Hobo with a Shotgun
    In its mocking but acutely observed style, Hobo is a well-designed cinematic mess: There are whiplash jump cuts, patches where the sound almost disappears, and the whole thing is projected in a queasy, faded Technicolor.
  81. The Conspirator
    Redford hasn't moved too far here from an earlier political-thriller template: With its skulduggery, late-night meetings and the contemptuous political cabal out to thwart justice, The Conspirator can be thought of as "All the President's Men – The Lincoln Edition."
  82. Hoodwinked Too! Hood VS. Evil
    It's outstandingly obnoxious.
  83. Prom
    More interestingly, it's also kind of sweet in a contrived and fumbling first-kiss sort of way.
  84. Fast Five
    The 131-minute, car-racing film is adolescent guy date histrionics – screaming tires, snappy putdowns and, because we're in Rio, an occasional influx of bodies beautiful in Band-Aid bikinis.
  85. Bill Cunningham New York
    Not surprisingly, it's a cinematic mash note, but apparently a deserved one.
  86. African Cats
    No doubt, life is tough in the wild but, this being a Disney flick, it's loving too and even comes with a kiddie-friendly narrative that's easy to summarize and hard to dispute.
  87. Water for Elephants
    When the tent folds and the dust settles, the question is not whether the movie is good – sorry, not a chance – but whether it's garish enough, sappy enough, Hollywood enough to rise to the level of being likeably bad. Is it, in short, a guilty pleasure?
  88. In a Better World
    Give director Susanne Bier full marks: Her encasing parable is brand new and immediately provocative.
  89. Kaboom
    A film with enough sexy one-liners to tempt Mae West from the grave.
  90. Rubber
    Though it's undoubtedly ingenious, for such a clever movie, it's a shame Rubber couldn't be more fun.
  91. Soul Surfer
    Soul Surfer is a true story that plays like bad fiction.
  92. Born to Be Wild
    While the visuals aren't nearly as eye-popping as those of the underwater movies, the film is more inspiring thanks to its human heroines.
  93. Your Highness
    By comparison to this effort, "Pineapple Express" seems like a model of thoughtful maturity.
  94. Hanna
    It's one of those imperfect pictures that manages to command and hold our attention straight from the opening frames.
  95. Arthur
    Apparently, somebody thought it was time for a remake. Clearly, somebody was dead wrong.
  96. Wrecked
    It's Adrien Brody's turn to find himself the lone and immobilized star of an emerging new genre: Call it the anti-action flick.
  97. Winter in Wartime
    View the Second World War through a child's eyes and the result isn't hard to predict: a loss-of-innocence tale. Winter in Wartime is the boilerplate version, with the already dramatic facts of the era ramped up to melodramatic levels. Little wonder it rings so false.
  98. Insidious
    Throughout, Wilson and Byrne play these parts straightforward and there's an undercurrent of real anguish in the struggle of parents coping with a child's long-term care.
  99. Hop
    In this Willy Wonka-like animated world where multihued candies move about on assembly lines, the constant introduction to Rube Goldberg-style devices and slapstick action grows increasingly tiresome.
  100. Source Code
    Michelle Monaghan's clowning response to her boyfriend's sudden histrionics lends the drama a giddy fizz.
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