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 3.1 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. A Home at the End of the World
    Farrell looks so stymied we feel for the guy -- and when the door closes on A Home at the End of the World, that's the only feeling in town.
  2. Ju-on: The Grudge
    At least as perplexing as it is creepy, with a time-jumping narrative, a chain of barely connected characters and an enraged shape-shifting ghost.
    • 25 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    A Cinderella Story
    A Cinderella Story has little of the smarts that distinguished this spring's big teen hit, "Mean Girls", which starred Duff's arch-rival, Lindsay Lohan. Whereas that film presented a genuinely complex and enjoyably snarky portrait of modern teen life, this effort is content to be another candy-coloured fantasy.
  4. I, Robot
    A movie of its kind and of its time -- functional, professional, slickly manufactured and slouching toward consciousness -- I, Robot is a perfect slave to mechanical convention.
  5. Maria Full of Grace
    A fantastic film.
  6. Touch of Pink
    Tasty and sweet, if a little on the mild side.
  7. Zhou Yu de huo che
    Lyrical, dreamy and too complicated for its own good.
  8. The Door in the Floor
    Single-handedly, Bridges gives the film what it otherwise lacks -- energy and emotion invested in this damaged man, naked beneath his ballooning caftan, at once sadly ridiculous and ridiculously sad.
  9. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
    Will Ferrell is a scream, no doubt about it. And Anchorman contains some of his best work. But, Knights of Columbus! Wouldn't it be great if TV-based comedians weren't afraid of making movies that were funnier than they are?
  10. Sleepover
    Think of Sleepover as a girl gang movie with training wheels.
  11. Riding Giants
    Too long by about 20 minutes, and arguably too obsessed with the lineage of names only of interest to other surfers, this is a vicarious kick.
  12. King Arthur
    There, in its midst, stands a freeze-dried Arthur -- stripped of his legend, shivering in the cold and wondering, like the rest of us, where in hell the magic went.
  13. Before Sunset
    This is a sequel just as intriguing as the original.
  14. Spider-Man 2
    Raimi doesn't make the mistake of over-thinking the flimsy psychology of the genre. All this conflicted-hero stuff isn't meant to be profound; instead, it's there for the same reason as everything else -- to give the action (the interior action in this case) a healthy shot of pop energy.
  15. The Notebook
    The Notebook is meant to be a romantic weepy, and you will shed tears - but only from the consistent and exhausting effort of trying to control your gag reflex. Even a body that welcomes a sugar fix will repel a sugar invasion.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Two Brothers
    The kind of movie that kids used to flock to on Saturday afternoons in the forties and fifties.
  17. White Chicks
    White Chicks could and should be a much more mischievous movie. A half-dozen writers have managed to create a succession of thin sketches that add up to "Some Like It Warmed Over," with a touch of stink.
  18. Fahrenheit 9/11
    Aesthetically, this isn't a great documentary, although, during the first half, there are great moments in it. But the latter part is scattered and frenzied, rather like an excited dog tearing off after too many rabbits at once -- a thematic hunt that's all chase and scant context.
  19. Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
    Much of Dodgeball feels competent but lazy. The nerds are barely distinguishable, except for one who thinks he's a pirate and says arghh a lot to no humorous effect.
  20. The Terminal
    The net result is a few shaky laughs and one unwavering sensation -- that The Terminal is interminable.
  21. What the #$*! Do We (K)now!?
    Apparently, the faith that can move mountains is detectable in the microscopes that can track electrons. If so, the metaphoric is real and, to me, that thought is as scary as it is thrilling -- but what the bleep do I know?
  22. Facing Windows
    Girotti is especially evocative, his face an alternating current that switches from emptiness to alarm and back again.
  23. Around the World in 80 Days
    The major problem with Around the World is that there's just not quite enough Chan, or at least the Chan we want to see, which is the acrobatic clown.
  24. The Chronicles of Riddick
    The script is terrible - a confounding mish-mash of action-thriller chases, sci-fi travelogue and phony political intrigue.
  25. The Stepford Wives
    There is no tonal consistency from scene to scene, swinging from domestic drama to farce. Most of the actors -- especially Matthew Broderick -- look lost.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There
    It takes more than a fan to analyze the legacy of a period. But a fan is just what it takes to indulge in that legacy, which is exactly what Broadway: The Golden Age is all about.
  27. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
    From my doddering perspective - rheumy with a view - Volume 3 puts plenty of cinema into the picture but leeches all the charm out of the tale.
  28. The Story of the Weeping Camel
    Plays like a sophisticated children's story.
  29. The Day After Tomorrow
    I'm not saying that a date with this picture is all pleasure; but it's not all guilt either.
  30. Soul Plane
    A third of the way into Soul Plane, maybe earlier if you're in the right mood or with the wrong company, you might actually start to enjoy disliking the movie. Like, say, Prince's "Purple Rain," certain Joan Crawford movies, and Leslie Nielsen at his best worst, the film inspires cathartic ridicule.
  31. Baadasssss!
    Both an homage to his dad and a backstage story rich in Hollywood lore.
  32. The Mother
    The complications of its story are found in the deep complexities of emotions and family relationships.
  33. Saved!
    Neither outrageous nor subtle as a religious satire, but here's the good news for modern viewers: With it's unusual Christian backdrop, this is one of the most intriguing rite-of-passage teen comedies in a long time.
  34. Raising Helen
    The actors are all better than the material, just as the script's occasionally amusing tangents are far superior to its mundane narrative arc.
  35. Love Me If You Dare
    Apparently, the idea of their passion is enough to save them from a life of boredom - if only it had the same happy effect on us.
  36. Control Room
    More illuminating than not.
  37. My Mother Likes Women
    Wants keenly to be hip and modern, but really it's just an old-fashioned drawing-room comedy.
  38. Twist
    It's a mini-masterwork of acting. Stahl is definitely one to watch closely -- he's the real deal. But the emerging plot isn't.
  39. The Rage in Placid Lake
    A welcome rarity: an amiable film comedy that leaves you feeling good as opposed to feeling for your wallet.
  40. Shrek 2
    The Shrek franchise is alive and well -- Model 2 is zippier, sleeker, with ever-improving graphics, vast commercial potential and the same sly ability to reach out and hook the whole family.
  41. Breakin' All the Rules
    A story only slightly more complex than your average episode of "Friends."
  42. Troy
    All costume and scant drama, the result is a curiously flat spectacle, neither offensive nor compelling.
  43. Carandiru
    A sprawling prison drama that seeks, by turns, to endear itself and then traumatize its audience.
  44. Coffee and Cigarettes
    Odd but engaging film.
  45. Valentin
    A well-cast drama that switches between sweetness and menace, the film goes down easily, thanks to a talented cast.
  46. New York Minute
    As coy sleaze goes, the new Olsen twins' movie doesn't match Britney Spears's "Crossroads," but it comes close.
  47. Van Helsing
    To be fair, the movie is nothing if not consistent -- the idea is every bit as dumb as the execution.
  48. Super Size Me
    Watching Morgan Spurlock commit slow suicide in Super Size Me is rather like watching Nic Cage do the same in "Leaving Las Vegas," except here the "preferred" instruments of destruction are hamburgers and vanilla milkshakes instead of booze and cigarettes.
  49. Superstar in a Housedress
    The film extends Jackie's fame beyond her allotted New York 15 minutes and keeps it alive 30 years later, thanks to a mixture of fond high-profile interviews and grainy archival clips.
  50. Envy
    [Walken's] every minute on screen is filled with that level of jittery invention, and, watching him at play, not even the flintiest temper could resist a wide grin. Envy can surely be a trial, but Saint Christopher is there to ease our troubled journey and see us smilingly home.
  51. Laws of Attraction
    What with two women sitting on the U.S. Supreme Court, you'd think that Hollywood would have graduated past the idea of a female lawyer being a "cute concept," but apparently not. Laws of Attraction is stuck in a time warp that pre-dates Doris Day and Sandra Day O'Conner.
  52. Mean Girls
    Lohan, in her third lead role in a year, is a good reactive young actress, and London, Ont., native Rachel McAdams is excellently evil, a dose of poison in a pretty lacquered container.
  53. Since Otar Left
    Shows how our family fictions sustain us, and how some truths are better left unspoken.
  54. The Saddest Music in the World
    The best Canadian beer movie since "Strange Brew," and the best 1930s musical of the year, The Saddest Music in the World is the kind of exhaustingly delirious film that only Winnipeg director Guy Maddin could make.
  55. 13 Going on 30
    The lanky action star of the cult television series "Alias" is assigned a tired playbook in this film, but she finds room to manoeuvre in a performance that exceeds expectations.
  56. Man on Fire
    If your idea of a bargain is two bad movies for the price of one, then shell out for Man on Fire. And don't fret about that incendiary title because this thing is all fuse.
  57. The Agronomist
    Not an extraordinary portrait, but it does portray an extraordinary man.
  58. Kill Bill: Vol. 2
    So much cinematic majesty perched precariously atop so little common sense. But, hell, maybe Quentin's right; relax, enjoy -- a castle with a shaky foundation is still quite a sight.
  59. Connie and Carla
    Vardalos has a talent, and there is one sequence in the movie that works. In the romantic subplot, Connie falls for Peaches' brother Jeff (David Duchovny, as Vardalos's sleepy, hunk replacement for John Corbett in Greek Wedding).
  60. The Punisher
    An overemphatic revenge fantasy devoid of even a trace of excitement or wit.
  61. Young Adam
    In the Scotland of Young Adam, love is getting dragged through the mud.
  62. The Alamo
    Rousing? Sort of. Never before, one feels, have so few given so much for so much real estate.
  63. Ella Enchanted
    Hathaway may be in a royal rut, but the tiara seems to fit.
  64. The Girl Next Door
    The mainstream prominence of pornography gets a shove forward with the teen comedy, The Girl Next Door, an improbably-not-terrible teen sex comedy.
  65. The Whole Ten Yards
    The obvious problem with The Whole Ten Yards is that it begins with the wrong kidnapping. Instead of taking Oz's wife, the criminals should have grabbed the authors of the original movie.
  66. I'm Not Scared
    A film that appeared exceptional turns mundane.
  67. Johnson Family Vacation
    If laughs are the currency of any comedy, then this one pays minimum wage and, worse, makes you work damn hard even for that pittance.
  68. Hellboy
    It's a treat because, making no apologies for the source material, director Guillermo del Toro lets his picture gorge on power bars of pop energy, sugared with sprinkles of playful humour, and, at least twice, laced with a visual style so piercingly keen that horror morphs into beauty. Not bad for a pulpy outing.
  69. Home on the Range
    Whatever the narrative shortcomings, these characters have the warmth of antique painted storybooks, unlike the eerie plastic simulation of Pixar characters.
  70. The Prince and Me
    In its nearly two-hour running time, in its always lugubrious pace, in its almost complete absence of laughs, The Prince & Me is a comedy that plays like a tragedy. No stricken bodies, though, unless you count the ones in the audience slumped back in their seats -- perchance they slept.
  71. Walking Tall
    Okay, it's just a movie, but his "reward" just doesn't cut it, even on a basic storytelling level. A crooked casino and a nephew's experiment with drugs are not enough justification for the hero's violent acts of vengeance.
  72. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring
    Looking like some gorgeous fan painting come to life, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter . . . and Spring is pictorially spellbinding.
  73. The United States of Leland
    The United States of Leland has a resonance of "Elephant" without the visual poetry or structural sophistication, or "American Beauty" without the leavening comedy, but it's neither an insightful nor well-made film.
  74. Jersey Girl
    Mainly bad, and a shockingly bland departure from a hitherto spunky guy.
  75. The Ladykillers
    The overstuffed farce remains, but the caustic leanness and meanness of the original are gone with the Mississippi wind. That leaves us to settle for occasionally funny moments in an otherwise uneven picture.
  76. Dogville
    If nothing else can be said of Dogville, it's a film that is like nothing else.
  77. Never Die Alone
    Ironically, the only good thing about Never Die Alone is its rap-retro soundtrack (God bless Curtis Mayfield!). Otherwise the film is so full of crap they should name a Port-a-San after it.
  78. Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed
    The plot's not so hot -- it feels like it was jotted down by someone on an after-dinner napkin.
  79. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
    You'll be rewarded with a terrific finale. The twists here are the rare sort that seem both narratively surprising and emotionally engaging.
  80. Taking Lives
    If only Taking Lives had given Jolie a greater foil than Ethan Hawke -- a young Kevin Spacey or Jack Nicholson say -- the film might have been a B-movie classic.
  81. Dawn of the Dead
    This time the script makes scant metaphoric use of the mall. In fact, metaphors are generally in short supply here. Scares too.
  82. Intermission
    It's a bright, busy imitation of independent moviemaking. But it's hardly an independent film. Hopefully, next time out, director Crowley, a promising storyteller, will find his own story to tell.
  83. Bon voyage
    The result is nothing if not a curiosity piece.
  84. Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London
    After 90 minutes of diligently searching the premises of ACB2, no evidence of mass entertainment can be found. Recommend cancellation of all future similar missions.
  85. Secret Window
    A poet is not a pirate (except in his dreams), and, minus the gold in his teeth and kohl over his eyes and trinkets in his tresses, Depp is handicapped here -- for all his deft brushwork, he can only do so much with a flat character on a small canvas.
  86. Spartan
    Spartan is all good. Then it isn't. Then it isn't at all good. Not at all.
  87. Knafayim Shvurot
    A believable, tender story of how a terrible crisis can turn out to have a positive, transforming effect on a family as long as there is love.
  88. NASCAR: The IMAX Experience
    First a bit about the movie, which really isn't one -- more like a 48-minute press release promoting the glories of NASCAR.
  89. Starsky & Hutch
    There's a surprising sweetness in the bond between the two cops. The gay subtext of the partnership is used for humour but it's never sniggering or mean.
  90. Hidalgo
    The beautifully photographed film is quite stylized at times...But it manages to steer clear of the stereotypes one might expect of a movie set in this time and place, thanks in part to the underlying and, mostly, underplayed themes of spirituality and the search for identity.
  91. The Reckoning
    Seems overstuffed and, in its own way, preachy.
  92. Club Dread
    A splatter of scenes that relocate the funny-bone in the lower anatomical regions -- sometimes hitting the mark, occasionally a glancing blow, often missing completely.
  93. Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights
    Despite being set in 1958 Cuba, Havana Nights sticks to the formula. This would be perfectly acceptable if the dancing was "dirtier" and if there was a spark between the young couple.
  94. Twisted
    It's always rather sad to watch gifted performers stranded in a tepid thriller. You can see them, as professional pretenders, trying to believe that they're creating a character, but the lie is transparent -- all they're really doing is advancing a retarded plot.
  95. Alila
    Almost a comedy, though not an entirely successful one: It's too acerbic to be funny and too detached to be really moving.
  96. Goodbye Lenin!
    It's mainly a hunt for ironies, usually playful but occasionally poignant, and the search is definitely successful enough to merit our attention -- although maybe not the two-hour running time.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Greendale
    With its grainy images, amateurish acting and homemade sets, there's nothing slick about Neil Young's new movie. Then again, that's the beauty of it.
  98. The Passion of the Christ
    The visual big top is the scourging and the crucifixion -- again and again, Gibson returns to the blood-letting. Again and again, we're exposed to the clinical repetition of a single act, until an alleged act of passion comes to seem boring and passionless. Is that not a definition of pornography?
  99. Kitchen Stories
    Serves to champion human irrepressibility and unpredictability. It's the flip side to the defeatism of "Distant," but with parallels, both in the very deliberate pacing and moments of visual wit.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Against the Ropes
    Wobbles like a punch-drunk fighter. It never finds its legs, but allows Ryan -- whose wardrobe looks like Erin Brockovich crossed with Barbarella -- the space to do what she does best: turn on the charm, and make audiences wonder why she's slumming in such a lame storyline.
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