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. The Reader
    So why, despite everyone's best efforts, does all this bigness seem so small and unfocused and simply not up to the task?
  2. Wendy and Lucy
    This is where the movie excels. In the classic neo-realist tradition, it's scant in plot yet rich in mood and character, offering us a revealing hint here, a poignant glimpse there, with each revelation filtered through Michelle Williams's superbly muted performance, all the more moving for being so restrained.
  3. Frost/Nixon
    Shakespeare would have delighted in the chapter, especially in the antagonist, but not at the expense of the longer and darker and still-unfinished book.
  4. Cadillac Records
    Anyone who likes pop music or wonders how bands like the Rolling Stones got rolling will enjoy the ride.
  5. Hunger
    Hunger -- the disturbing, provocative, brilliant feature debut from British director Steve McQueen -- does for modern film what Caravaggio did to Renaissance painting.
  6. Nobel Son
    The movie is so relentlessly self-congratulatory, you can't help becoming thoroughly sick of it.
  7. Transporter 3
    If you're going to a no-frills action film, though, at least you want the action to be entertaining, which is where Transporter 3 falls down.
  8. Milk
    A worthy docudrama that is solid if not sublime. But, sometimes, a merely good film can brush up against greatness, and this one does so twice – in Sean Penn's magnetic performance and in the cautionary tale's contemporary resonance.
  9. Bolt
    Both original and good; the problem is the original parts aren't good and the good parts aren't original.
  10. Twilight
    Sometimes sensitive and often silly but really, essentially, beneath his pallor and her panting and their intertwined frustrations, it's just two long hours of coitus interruptus.
  11. Australia
    All in all, Australia is so damnably eager to please that it feels like being pinned down by a giant overfriendly dingo and having your face licked for about three hours: theoretically endearing but, honestly, kind of gross.
  12. Quantum of Solace
    A sequel that immediately picks up the plot of its predecessor, and then proceeds to drive the redeemed franchise right off the deep, dark end.
  13. A Christmas Tale
    It sure ain't the Christmas of Dickens's imaginings. Dysfunctional overachievers all, the Vuillards are a family bizarre enough to make the Royal Tenenbaums look like candidates for a Hallmark card.
  14. Slumdog Millionaire
    The story may stretch credibility until it's ready to pop its seams, but Patel conveys the simple confidence of a prodigy who has learned everything important in life, except how to lie.
  15. Role Models
    By the time the film reaches its big mushy climax, in which the slackers discover their inner caring during a dopey medieval role-playing battle, the movie starts to feel something like a pleasure again.
  16. JCVD
    Unlike "Being John Malkovich," which JCVD sometimes resembles, there is no secret portal to the star's head; instead, the audience gets a fleeting glimpse through the smeared window of his soul.
  17. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
    The result isn't meant to be an historical document transmuted into fiction; instead, it's fiction turned into a fable, a dark fable.
  18. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
    The rare sequel that is better than the original.
  19. The Other End of the Line
    The movie is like a glass of Sprite that has been left on the counter too long: transparent, sweet and flat.
  20. Zack and Miri Make a Porno
    Like a lot of things about Zack and Miri, the porn title feels like it's trying too hard.
  21. Pride and Glory
    A talented cast and moments of brutal violence can't dislodge a sense of ho-hum predictability in Pride and Glory.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    High School Musical 3: Senior Year
    Disney raised the stakes by turning its hit TV-movie franchise into a feature film – and the bet has paid off.
  23. Changeling
    No matter how strange it gets, or how distorted for political gain or refined for religious purposes, its essence is hard to pin down, even after a 2 1/2 -hour search.
  24. I've Loved You So Long
    Without Kristin Scott Thomas, I've Loved You So Long would be a watchable but hardly a memorable movie. With her, it's both - she so fully inhabits the character that everyone and everything around her are simply enhanced.
  25. Let the Right One In
    Let the Right One In is a children's film, but you wouldn't want your child to see it. It's a horror film, but the gruesome splatter is the least of its scares. And it's a love story, but the prepubescent kind where sex is a distant idea and loneliness a shared reality. A wicked trick, a cinematic treat, this is some Halloween offering.
  26. Synecdoche, New York
    Here, there's not much that's funny, there's too much that's too clever by half, and there's not a damn thing that's lively - this is a film about Life whose sin is its lifelessness.
  27. W.
    None of it is new, nor is the recycled stuff presented in a newly revealing context.
  28. Filth and Wisdom
    Reportedly, the movie began life as a short film, and if it actually ran for 22 minutes with a few commercial breaks, like a good sitcom should, Filth and Wisdom could be bearable. At 84 minutes, the movie feels both overpadded and underdeveloped.
  29. Max Payne
    Max Payne, game or movie, has precious little to say.
  30. The Secret Life of Bees
    If you like your sentimentality sweet and sticky, then The Secret Life of Bees is definitely your jar of honey.
  31. Sex Drive
    One smart thing Green's character Ezekiel does is split from Sex Drive as soon as his two scenes are over.
  32. Body of Lies
    The sickly feeling that Body of Lies leaves at its conclusion isn't just about the brutality of its subject; it's the realization that real-life barbarism translates so easily into adrenaline kicks for the multiplex.
  33. Quarantine
    Give Quarantine credit: Without resorting to computer-generated monsters or supernatural explanations, it uses consistent logic and confinement to find new ways of being scary.
  34. The Express
    Any one of these narrative components might have made for a worthy picture. But that would have taken a more imaginative writer than Charles Leavitt and a more sensitive director than Gary Fleder.
  35. Dung che sai duk
    Strange and beautiful and transfixing and confusing, it's quite the sight - martial-arts fans may find themselves disappointed, but Wong Kar-wai addicts will be delighted.
  36. City of Ember
    The movie begs for a a third-act showdown but, instead, the dramatic tension is allowed to leak away.
  37. Happy-Go-Lucky
    As refreshing as it is to find a movie that leaves you smiling, it's something much rarer to discover a film that makes you think about what a commitment to happiness really means.
  38. Religulous
    More rant than rollick, it's just ain't funny enough.
  39. How to Lose Friends & Alienate People
    Unfortunately, both Bridges and Anderson are only intermittently in the movie. And when they're not around, How to Lose Friends loses its satirical edge, becoming an alarmingly safe, almost corny romantic comedy.
  40. Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
    The movie's title proves to be not entirely a case of bait-and-switch. The film really is a homage to vintage Hollywood comedy.
  41. Beverly Hills Chihuahua
    Barrymore's charm helps make Beverly Hills Chihuahua a congenial family outing.
  42. Blindness
    It's more like a filmed allegory.
  43. Flash of Genius
    The problem with Flash of Genius is that a windshield wiper is an awfully thin mechanism on which to hang a feature movie.
  44. Rachel Getting Married
    Intriguing, disturbing, uplifting evocation. In fact, to watch this film is to engage in participatory art -- for better and for worse, through sickness and in health, we're drawn deeply in.
  45. Ballast
    Plot isn't what drives the picture; instead, this is a cinematic tone poem, where the dominant mood is a Faulknerian mix of sorrow and endurance.
  46. Eagle Eye
    With less expensive actors, it might just have been called Chase Movie, and played for laughs.
  47. Nights in Rodanthe
    Although I haven't read Nights in Rodanthe, I have to assume there is material in the book that would have helped the movie make hearts thud instead of fingers tap.
  48. Miracle at St. Anna
    Throughout, Terence Blanchard's score swells and sweeps, reminding us, at every moment, what we're supposed to feel. If only we knew what we were supposed to think of this trite mess.
  49. Choke
    Maybe this stuff works on the page, in Chuck Palahniuk's darkly comic novel, but Choke is awfully tough to digest on the screen.
  50. The Lucky Ones
    If this is meant to look fresh while still being sensitive, it doesn't and it isn't.
  51. Ghost Town
    An innovative romantic comedy that is a mixture of British spice and American sugar.
  52. Igor
    One of those non-stop jabbering cartoons in which most of the lines sound like the spontaneous riffs from a couple of comics sitting around a diner.
  53. My Best Friend's Girl
    An ugly, strictly-for-meatheads comedy that can only be recommended to couples who wear matching Tie Domi Toronto Maple Leafs jerseys out on a date.
  54. Lakeview Terrace
    Here's a vote of gratitude for Samuel L. Jackson, who has become a specialist in making mediocre movies far more entertaining than they should be.
  55. Appaloosa
    Appaloosa wobbles and wanders, promising to take a fresh look at those old myths, only to lapse back into weary convention.
  56. Battle in Seattle
    Near the end of the movie, Django jokes that, after the protests, people may still not know what the WTO is, but "they know it's bad." That's a fair summation of how much insight Battle in Seattle provides for its viewers.
  57. The Duchess
    As for true-love Charles, he would ascend to the Prime Minister's office, and then rise again to even greater heights: They named the tea after him. Indeed, that may be the smartest way to see this flick, curled up on your sofa with a cup of Earl Grey -- just make sure it's as decaffeinated as what you're watching.
  58. Burn After Reading
    It's clear that Burn After Reading is a wannabe cult favourite -- some viewers may embrace it; many more will just want to burn after watching.
  59. The Women
    For all its current political incorrectness, the original film at least attacked hypocrisy; this one practises it.
  60. Righteous Kill
    In pairing the two icons, Righteous Kill is definitely an event. What it isn't is much of a movie. Such a waste.
  61. Bangkok Dangerous
    Doesn't work because it isn't much of a ride. The action scenes are strictly by rote. The incidental characters are all incidental.
  62. The Pool
    A miraculous, American-made Hindi film that is every bit as tranquil as the blue-green reservoir that serves as its abiding metaphor.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 38 Critic Score
    Goal II: Living the Dream
    David Beckham may star in Goal II: Living the Dream but calling him an actor is like calling his wife a singer.
    • 15 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    College
    In the battle for the hearts, minds and fat wallets of North American teens, College fights dirtier and sinks lower than most gross-out screen comedies.
    • 26 Metascore
    • 38 Critic Score
    Babylon A.D.
    The storyline is a sinkhole that swallows up any sense and suspense.
  66. I Served the King of England
    Should be a brilliant picture, one last testament to the intertwined sensibilities of two brave artists. Should be, but isn't.
  67. Sukiyaki Western Django
    In the world of pulp movies, where horror, westerns and Asian exploitation borrow and blend with each other, there's a point where the cross-genre mishmash begins to feel like gobbledegook. That's definitely the case with Sukiyaki Western Django.
  68. Traitor
    Traitor becomes too busy, ultimately frustrating, and never delivers on its tantalizing promise of offering a little insight into terrorists' motives – and it's even got an inside man.
  69. Death Race
    Death Race is our unshaven Brit hero's inevitable comeuppance: The Prison Job.
  70. The House Bunny
    Yes, from "Blonde" to "Bunny," it's abundantly evident that the two scribes have mastered, truly mastered, the serious art of self-plagiarism.
  71. The Longshots
    A pleasant flick, more suitable for families than football fans.
  72. Hamlet 2
    Let's just say that, when the parody looks indistinguishable from the parodied, something's gone awry.
  73. Trouble the Water
    Spike Lee's voluminous "When the Levees Broke" proved a thorough indictment, a compilation of tragic and appalling facts encyclopedically catalogued. By contrast, Trouble the Water (on Oscar's short-list in the best doc category) has a more personal focus and, although just as damning, manages to strike a more hopeful chord.
  74. I.O.U.S.A.
    George W. Bush is hammered for doubling the debt load with his high-spending, low-taxing ways.
  75. The Rocker
    Silly, and unashamedly second-hand, the movie is essentially a Jack Black movie without Jack Black, which is, arguably, an improvement.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 38 Critic Score
    Star Wars: The Clone Wars
    While the movie and the accompanying series are being pitched to a younger audience than most new Star Wars ventures, parents may be perturbed by the film's relentless violence.
  77. Vicky Cristina Barcelona
    Gotham gives way to Gaudi and the Met to Miro, but the sensibility is the same, the city as a precious treasure, and so is the message: Life may be hard and short, love may be flawed or doomed, but, my, aren't we blessed with lovely distractions.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Henry Poole Is Here
    While his sincerity is admirable, Pellington is reluctant to offer any ideas that are more theologically complex than 'Faith is valuable' and 'Life is for living.'
  79. Fly Me to the Moon 3D
    All of this is interesting, but not all that entertaining.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Mirrors
    An occasionally inventive but ultimately plodding horror film.
  81. Tropic Thunder
    Tropic Thunder is an assault in the guise of a comedy – watching it is like getting mugged by a clown.
  82. Elegy
    The result, Elegy, isn't a great film but it is a good one, and better for Coixet's perspective, her ability to interpret Roth's world from the other side of the gender fence.
  83. Pineapple Express
    Perversely enough, the comedy is what keeps the picture rolling; it's the so-called action that persists in bringing the thing to a screeching halt.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Bottle Shock
    For all of its intermittent, crowd-pleasing charm, oenophiles (and cinephiles, for that matter) might be better off putting their money toward a good bottle of Robert Mondavi.
  85. Patti Smith: Dream of Life
    This intimate portrait of the so-called godmother of punk is aimed at viewers who are keenly fascinated by Smith.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2
    Watchable as ever.
  87. The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
    It's kind of fun but the twists and turns are all too familiar.
  88. Swing Vote
    As in so many essentially childish movies, it's an actual child who's always the smartest pants in the room.
  89. Frozen River
    The film's greatest achievement is that it allows us to know Ray.
  90. The X Files: I Want to Believe
    The story is shockingly ordinary. The movie plays like an extended mediocre episode of the X-Files TV show or, for that matter, even a contemporary crime series such as CSI.
  91. Step Brothers
    A meagre, occasionally funny affair.
  92. American Teen
    So is the result just a case of life imitating pop art, or has the director shaped the footage to enhance the imitation?
  93. Baghead
    A late summer treat. And in case you are wondering, yes, there is mumbling.
  94. Brideshead Revisited
    Overnuanced, a world of delicate cruelty, where most of the wounds take place without breaking the skin or even a sweat.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Man on Wire
    Marsh's most remarkable directorial achievement, however, is preserving the original sense of amazement and awe when watching historical footage and still photographs of Petit walking that tightrope up in the sky.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Boy A
    Even its structurally weaker moments give Garfield an opportunity to expand on Jack's physical and mental dislocation. Given Boy A's final floating reel, it's an anchoring performance in every sense of the word.
  97. The Dark Knight
    Mixing bravura filmmaking with flat clichés in about equal amounts, The Dark Knight is all about dualism. Appropriately, the movie's half-inspired, half-frustrating.
  98. Mamma Mia!
    Taken for what it is – a fluffy, intergenerational farce as a frame for some seventies musical nostalgia – Mamma Mia! just gets away with it, in spite of director Lloyd's lack of cinematic inexperience.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    Space Chimps
    Space Chimps might have been saved, in fact, by using real monkeys in the astronaut roles. Or, better yet, by having a monkey in the director's chair.
  100. Hellboy II: The Golden Army
    Like a lot of well-staged parties, though, the affair peaks shortly after the introductions, and then devolves into intrigues, fights and mayhem.
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