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. Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
    More than anything, the film lacks a rapport with its audience.
  2. Antichrist
    The trouble is that Antichrist feels progressively symptomatic of a director losing heart.
  3. Where the Wild Things Are
    Less an adaptation of its source material than a therapeutic response to it.
  4. Law Abiding Citizen
    LawAbiding Citizen smells a bit musty these days. Indeed, in an era when the debate has shifted from too little state vigilance to too damn much, this thing seems almost quaint.
  5. The Maid
    A little gem of social realism that makes up in polish what it lacks in consistency.
  6. New York, I Love You
    All of the participating directors – save Balsmeyer and actor Natalie Portman – are known for features. So part of the interest is seeing how the short form puts their strengths, weaknesses, thematic interests or styles into sharp focus.
  7. Couples Retreat
    Here's the title: Couples Retreat. And here's the review: Couples, Retreat. Yep, just find the verb, treat it as a command, and vamoose, unless you harbour an abiding curiosity about how eternally long 100 minutes can feel.
  8. An Education
    Hornby is a fine craftsman and his dialogue sparkles, though occasionally the scenes are too calculated.
  9. Bronson
    Bronson is one of those “based on a true story” dramatizations where the theatrically staged drama only gets in the way of the more interesting truth.
  10. The Damned United
    Like a skill player who just can't score, The Damned United is all dazzle and no finish and, ultimately, damned frustrating.
  11. Good Hair
    Good Hair is also about how African-Americans spend $9-billion annually chemically treating and straightening their hair, buying 80 per cent of America's hair products. It's such a fascinating, complex tale that you hope one day some probing filmmaker will make a conclusive documentary on the subject.
  12. Zombieland
    Modestly clever, this is definitely a little thing. Enjoy.
  13. The Invention of Lying
    The result is an erratically funny but often frustrating comedy, with an interesting premise hobbled by internal inconsistencies and uneven writing.
  14. Whip It
    Boisterous, cloying, simultaneously raunchy and innocent, hip and klutzy.
  15. A Serious Man
    A seriously black comedy. Black, because affliction and angst abound. Comic, because this rampant bleakness is presented as nothing more than an amusing bauble.
  16. More Than a Game
    More Than a Game is less than a movie.
  17. The Horse Boy
    It's a film that will both captivate and divide audiences.
  18. Fame
    Perhaps the young performers are in such a good mood because they're liberated from having to play straight-as-a-ruler teen melodrama.
  19. Coco Before Chanel
    This is the story of the diminutive Coco before she became the fashionable Chanel – in other words, the whole movie is one long first act.
  20. Surrogates
    The questions the movie raises have less to do with science than movie execution: Do the actors sound so robotic because they are playing robots well or humans badly? And did a machine write this dialogue? If so, could we please apply for an upgrade?
  21. Pandorum
    Handsomely mounted, emotionally involving sci-fi movies don't often show up in the darkened galaxies of our theatre chains. So Alvart's English-language debut is definitely a film you want to catch on the big screen. Just don't sit too close, lest you end up with a dose of pandorum.
  22. The Boys Are Back
    For all its generally judicious choices, there's one device in The Boys Are Back that may test the patience of some viewers. Every once in a while, the late Katy pops up in a scene to offer Joe wifely advice.
  23. I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
    Just when you thought this movie had run out of bad ideas, this last-minute outpouring of sanctimony feels like a whole new way of being slimed. Some movies come with parental warnings; this one feels as though it should come with a mandatory biohazard suit.
  24. Capitalism: A Love Story
    As a statement on capitalism or anything else, Capitalism: A Love Story is often embarrassingly simplistic, self-contradictory.
  25. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
    Leaves us with is sporadic showers of laughs for kids under 10. That's a shame, because the film could have been a delight for everyone, if only it hadn't learned to behave.
  26. The Informant!
    The Informant! may be a gadfly of a movie, but it's not without bite.
  27. Love Happens
    Aniston's constituency will enjoy seeing her again in Love Happens . She's lovely and fun to be with, as always.
  28. Jennifer's Body
    Bloody fun is here to be had.
  29. The Burning Plain
    It's possible to admire the performances of stars Charlize Theron and Kim Basinger in The Burning Plain , even as you backpedal from the film, hoping the ponderous megasoap will just go away.
  30. Bright Star
    Mainly, though, it's the exquisite restraint - both of Cornish's performance and Campion's direction - that gives the film its power.
  31. The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
    Those who lived through the Vietnam War era, and paid attention, will find this documentary short on revelation but long on poignant reminders.
  32. 9
    Watching 9 , we know how 8 feels. Sci-fi fans will find heaven in Shane Acker's feature-film debut.
  33. Crude
    What makes Crude worthy of the overused term “epic” is the way the case symbolizes a host of contemporary issues: the iron-fistedness of multinational corporations; environmental despoliation; the disappearance of indigenous cultures; and the power of celebrity and the media to influence justice.
  34. Extract
    A larger discomfort with Extract is an ambivalent attitude about comedy and social class. Mocking an officious middle-manager is always fair game; ridiculing blue-collar workers who resent their mindless jobs just feels mean.
    • 17 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    All About Steve
    Bullock, easing into her mid-40s with box-office mojo intact, remains the star attraction as the annoyingly endearing Mary. You simply can't imagine another actor of her stature pulling it off.
  36. Amreeka
    A kind of stealth political film that confronts issues of ethnic tension and American xenophobia.
  37. Big Fan
    This is a flick whose failures are at least as interesting as the successes.
  38. The September Issue
    For all its ballyhoo'd full access to Vogue's inner workings, the movie's cinéma-vérité approach feels perilously close to advertorial.
  39. Taking Woodstock
    Ultimately, even Lee appears to lose interest, flashing none of his usual visual panache and, at the end, content to forego any considered conclusion for a hunk of lumpy irony.
  40. Shorts
    Rodriguez, is a hack in the best sense of the term, often serving as producer, director, writer, shooter and composer – all of which come into play for Shorts .
    • 35 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    Post Grad
    A promising premise simply devolves into just another "Definitely, Maybe" or "The Proposal."
  42. Inglourious Basterds
    Let's start with this certainty: No one but Quentin Tarantino could possibly have made Inglourious Basterds . Now add another: No one but his most ardent fans will be entirely glad that Quentin Tarantino did make Inglourious Basterds .
  43. Fifty Dead Men Walking
    It's a pretty fine film, thanks largely to the performances (and look) of its crackerjack cast, as well as Jonathan Freeman's restless, gritty cinematography and a lickety-split script.
  44. District 9
    Yes, the premise is delightful; no, the delight doesn't last.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Ponyo
    In short, it's very much a charming kids' film, created by a master of animation.
  46. The Time Traveler's Wife
    The Time Traveler's Wife slips the romance cards into a stacked deck – read 'em if you will, but no need to weep.
  47. The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard
    A raunchy, fast-paced comedy that, nevertheless, is as flat as the tires on the old Volvo gathering dust in my garage.
  48. It Might Get Loud
    The trouble is, once you get past the historical information and chummy interviews, you have to put up with the inevitable risk of any ad-hoc jam session: It Might Get Boring.
  49. Bandslam
    Lack of sparkling teen chatter prevent this movie from being a slam dunk.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Spread
    One of the best things about this film is that ultimately nobody in it is attractive.
  51. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
    The plot feels both familiar and far-fetched.
  52. Julie & Julia
    The film is at its best in scenes set in Europe in the 1950s – the protracted genesis of "Mastering the Art" provides the drama here.
  53. Paper Heart
    This breach with the audience does matter, for it is one thing to seduce your viewers and quite another to trick them. Love is all about trust, after all.
  54. A Perfect Getaway
    Benefits from one standout performance: Timothy Olyphant ( Deadwood ) plays the part of Nick with ingratiating comic relish.
  55. Bliss
    The result is infotainment dressed up as an art flick. Turkish society is fascinatingly complex and its East/West tensions give rise not to easy allegories but to hard ambiguities. To explore that truth, read any novel by Orhan Pamuk. To escape it, watch Bliss.
  56. Cold Souls
    Cold Souls begins to lose its comic focus, however, when Giamatti comes to realize that he needs his soul back.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Funny People
    Apatow wants to be taken seriously. Funny People is the attempt to raise his game a notch – and it fails.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    The Cove
    Hopefully, after seeing this film, interest in places like Sea World will begin to decline.
  59. Flame and Citron
    A satisfying thriller interestingly complicated by its study of character and compromise.
  60. Lorna's Silence
    Upbeat it ain't, but when the light fades from the final frame, there remains something unusual in the Dardennes canon – the possibility of an escape from futility's clutches, and a reason for hope that might, just might, be more than an illusion.
  61. Thirst
    The summer's most lip-smacking movie treat.
  62. Adam
    Were it not for the fine engaging performances of both Dancy and Byrne, Adam would be sickly sweet.
  63. The Ugly Truth
    Veers between crude and cloying.
  64. G-Force
    It's an action-comedy. It's in 3-D. There's a video-game tie-in. Throw in a fluorescent Slushie from the candy counter and your eight-year-old will be in heaven.
  65. Orphan
    Orphan descends into a formulaic bloodbath that barely registers a pulse.
  66. In the Loop
    The best satire implicates the audience; this stuff keeps our sense of superiority smugly intact.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Shrink
    No one knows why bad things happen to good people. But we do know why bad things happen to good film ideas. They get ruined by poor scripts and indifferent direction. The evidence desemaine– Shrink.
  68. (500) Days of Summer
    Ultimately, the best thing about (500) Days of Summer isn't its gimmicky script. It's the constant performance of Gordon-Levitt, who shifts, scene-by-scene, from moments of ebullience to abject dejection.
  69. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
    The movie's climax takes Harry Potter into territory that is much more like epic horror than most of what the series has seen before. There is more obvious religious symbolism and apocalyptic violence as Harry emerges into his role as “the chosen one.”
  70. I Love You, Beth Cooper
    The movie feels like something parents want their kids to see. Harold and Kumar wouldn't want anything to do with Beth Cooper or Denis Cooverman. You're probably not going to like them much either.
  71. Bruno
    Brüno is likely to be the funniest thing you'll see on a screen this summer. Which is precisely its problem: it's a thing , not a movie – if, that is, you believe a movie should be more than an accumulation of prankish set-pieces flimsily strung over 80 skimpy minutes.
  72. Humpday
    Humpday is mostly foreplay. But isn't that usually the most fun anyway? It certainly is in this film.
  73. Soul Power
    Pretty much a non-stop head-bobbing knee-bouncer.
  74. Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg
    Well-spoken but humorously self-deprecating, Berg admits that, between the hours spent writing, rehearsing and performing, she spends more of her life as Molly than she does as herself.
  75. The Girl from Monaco
    Accepting the final twist of The Girl From Monaco depends on whether you're in the mood.
  76. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
    Every character is like the hyperactive rat-squirrel Scrat, and the audience is bounced around like his elusive acorn.
  77. Public Enemies
    Perhaps the most regrettable crime here is the way that Mann, trying to do too much, robs himself of a great opportunity. Here was a chance to capture the drama of the Thirties.
  78. The Beaches of Agnès
    This is a lovely, quirky and not a little poignant film from Agnès Varda.
  79. My Sister's Keeper
    Finally, it's more a cautionary tale about the dangers of what can happen when a bad movie happens to a popular novelist than a keeper for the ages.
  80. The Hurt Locker
    There's something about this story, and this war, that brings out the stripped-down conceptual artist in her (Bigelow): Against blank canvases of desert sand and rubble, explosive wires are linked to nerve ends, and everything that matters depends on the twitch of a muscle or a finger on a button.
  81. Chéri
    What's so distressing about Michelle Pfeiffer taking a mooning calf for a lover, though, is that it robs her of the quality that has always made her such an interesting actress.
  82. The Stoning of Soraya M.
    Though The Stoning of Soraya M.'s heart is in the right place, its head is lost in storm clouds of anger.
  83. Surveillance
    Whether madcap parody – the "American Psycho" of G-man flicks – or walk on the wild side of Lynch's obsessions, the film's a failure.
  84. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
    Taken on its own, this is a masterful little slice of computer-generated animation, but it gets lost here in the visual racket.
  85. Year One
    Perhaps the best that can be said for Year One is that it aims low and hits the mark.
  86. The Proposal
    May be well-trod territory, but worth a walk down the movie aisle.
  87. Dead Snow
    So Dead Snow fulfills one zombie-movie prerequisite. It's different.
  88. The End of the Line
    The End of the Line's most topical hook is its exploration of bluefin tuna, which, as a sushi delicacy, is sometimes called the "most expensive meat on the planet."
  89. Whatever Works
    As Whatever Works creaks along, the attention-getting nastiness of the first half dissipates and it turns into just another Woody Allen overacted sex farce. Of all the insults hurled about in the film, perhaps the worst is its pandering conclusion. What exactly does Allen take his audience for? A bunch of mindless zombies?
  90. The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3
    An efficiently engineered piece of studio product, enjoyable enough at times, but with an unmistakable assembly-line quality.
  91. Food, Inc.
    In many areas, Food Inc. could be accused of being a fast-food version of a documentary – it's everywhere at once, skipping across the surface of a vast subject, and adding nuggets of sweetness to the scary filler.
  92. Imagine That
    An Eddie Murphy comedy that's actually endearing.
  93. Moon
    Watching Moon is kind of like seeing a booster rocket thrust seventies' sci-fi films deeper into orbit.
  94. Tetro
    Tetro is Coppola's best film since Apocalypse Now because the filmmaker has abandoned conventional drama – what for him had become a straightjacket – indulging in a collage style that allows him to honour favourite filmmakers.
  95. The Hangover
    Rude, lewd and occasionally in the nude, The Hangover brings a collection of fresh faces to the familiar raucous male-bonding comedy.
  96. My Life in Ruins
    This paint-by-numbers romantic comedy is chock-a-block with jokey stereotypes – Americans are obnoxious, Canadians polite, and the Greeks just dance – yet lacking in any real drama, only occasionally mustering enough charm or humour to rise above a predictable formula.
  97. Away We Go
    There's something genuinely exploratory and original here in the depiction of people being pushed into adulthood before they're ready.
  98. Land of the Lost
    Land of the Lost is one of those films so caught up in its concept it has forgotten its audience.
  99. Séraphine
    We don't get a good look at a painting until 35 minutes into the film biography of Séraphine de Senlis, the early 20th-century French painter discovered by German art collector Wilhelm Uhde. The film Séraphine is not about paintings.
  100. Unmistaken Child
    This documentary is only partly a story of the chosen one; mainly, and more intriguingly, it's a chronicle of the choosing one, of the nervous young monk charged with the job of leading the search party.
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