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. Mambo italiano
    Patterns itself after the Greek model -- that is, more ethnic humour with a contemporary twist.
  2. Tibet: Cry of the Snow Lion
    The exiled Tibetans who are interviewed display a lack of bitterness, a sympathy for their enemies and hope for the future that is inspiring.
  3. Cabin Fever
    So this is a first-level, unironic fright film, the sort whose tongue is removed from its cheek, coated in gore, and pointed right at the audience.
  4. Matchstick Men
    A movie about con artists that turns out to be a con job, and guess who's getting played for a sucker?
  5. Once Upon a Time in Mexico
    A clear case of huevos con hubris.
  6. Dummy
    A contrived little comedy, Dummy definitely lives down to its name -- you can see the lips moving on this wooden thing.
  7. Lost in Translation
    Arguably, Lost in Translation is the American answer to Wong Kar-wai's masterpiece, "In the Mood for Love," though less about history, more about infatuation.
  8. Millennium Actress
    Millennium Actress is a quest for beauty and truth that is as wonderful to look at as it is gruelling to contemplate.
  9. Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star
    Isn't so much a movie as a 90-minute Trivial Pursuit contest to name bit players from TV's distant past.
  10. Party Monster
    Alig's superficiality seems to have been his only talent. His banality is a problem that the film can't overcome.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 38 Critic Score
    Jeepers Creepers II
    The monster isn't very interesting (or scary) to look at: he's just an oily, overgrown gremlin.
  12. Once Upon a Time in the Midlands
    The film's best players can all be found in the supporting cast.
  13. The Other Side of the Bed
    Even the visions of attractive half-dressed bodies lolling about in various Madrid bedrooms or leaping into spontaneous music videos don't prove compelling for long.
  14. Stoked: The Rise and Fall of Gator
    By the end of the Stoked, the viewer is left with a lot of trivia about the history of skateboarding, and scant insight.
  15. The Medallion
    As for the old and graceful Jackie, he's completely missing in action, his supple talents sacrificed on the high altar of movie technology -- that frenetic place where superheroes are a colossal bore and real ones are sadly impotent.
  16. Thirteen
    A movie that is often as awkward and as filled with mixed impulses as the age it documents.
  17. Freddy vs. Jason
    Too much chatting, not enough chills.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Uptown Girls
    When Uptown Girls isn't trying to play up its wacky high jinks -- and those tend to be so weak they can't possibly float the film -- it stoops to the kind of psychological character development films this shallow should really avoid like the plague.
  19. American Splendor
    The best American movie so far this year.
  20. Open Range
    A better, and more relevant movie, might have left us at the point of troubled introspection, but Costner is compulsive about tying up loose ends and upbeat messages. If the climax of Open Range is disappointing, the ending is almost intolerable.
  21. Grind
    I think the guy who exited the advance screening after less than 15 minutes said it best. "This movie's garbage," he hollered, as the audience members tittered and shuffled their feet, which they continued to do throughout this humourless, hackneyed yawnfest.
  22. Shaolin Soccer
    One of Stephen Chow's extravagant and very funny martial-arts spoof movies.
  23. Step Into Liquid
    If the cinematography lacks the up-close-and-personal drama of "Blue Crush," it's still adequate to the occasion -- after all, like any star worth her salt, the ocean has yet to meet a camera she doesn't like.
  24. Le divorce
    Feels like a period film in clumsy modern-day dressup.
  25. S.W.A.T.
    Lots of buildings and cars explode, but there isn't a spark between any of the characters.
  26. Freaky Friday
    The movie is directed by Mark Waters (responsible for the indie black comedy, "The House of Yes") and mostly, he's workmanlike, but smart enough to get out of the way of the nicely balanced two lead performances.
  27. The Magdalene Sisters
    The film is an attack on religious hypocrisy, mixing melodrama and black humour in a volatile blend.
  28. And Now... Ladies and Gentlemen...
    For those who don't know his (Lelouch's) work, And Now Ladies and Gentlemen will be fun because his style is unique and unpredictable. But for those who have known him in better form, this one is not a must-see.
  29. The Secret Lives of Dentists
    The climax, however, is far superior here, open-ended and ambiguous and neatly linked to this film's recurring metaphor: Teeth, of course, which "outlast everything," which survive the death of the body just as marriage can survive the demise of love. They both endure, yellowed and rootless.
  30. American Wedding
    Speaking personally, I wouldn't voluntarily go to this flick. But for those with a greater gross-out threshold, it's a better film than anyone should normally expect in this genre.
  31. Gigli
    A hypnotic, black hole of a movie that sucks reputations, careers and goodwill down its vortex. Rarely has a movie that doesn't star Madonna achieved such a skin-crawling mixture of deluded preening and bungled humour.
  32. Buffalo Soldiers
    Imperfect, but certainly provocative.
  33. Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over
    Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over, is still offbeat, but more in the sense of unco-ordinated than syncopated.
  34. Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life
    Isn't nearly as much fun as the original. For one thing, Lara having a boyfriend wrecks everything.
  35. Seabiscuit
    Seabiscuit is a good enough movie, in the sense that it's a well-crafted assemblage of pathos and rousing moments, solidly acted and handsomely shot -- but it's far from champion material.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Lucía, Lucía
    Even though the presence of such political and social nuances is largely inconceivable in an American romantic comedy, they only make this busy, blustery film seem more muddled.
  37. Camp
    There's no doubt the cast is driven and talented; some day, it might be interesting to watch a film about what such kids are really like.
  38. Masked and Anonymous
    There are people who find treasures in celebrities' garbage cans so it's a reasonable gamble they might want to buy tickets to watch their throwaway home-movie projects as well.
  39. Dirty Pretty Things
    By its third act, Okwe has found his solution and Dirty Pretty Things comes across as both clever but a little pat, another British drama about the misfits who pool their resources to defy the oppressive system, though it does not precisely leave a warm glow.
  40. Garage Days
    It's scary how unfunny this flick is.
  41. How to Deal
    Just the umpteenth replay of the girl-meets-boy/boy-loses-girl/boy-gets-girl story.
  42. Bad Boys II
    Smith and Lawrence enjoyed some amusing chemistry in the '95 original, but their molecules sure aren't jibing here. It's a full hour into this behemoth before there's anything resembling a belly laugh.
  43. September 11
    The results are not monumental, but they are a variety of sober responses to the tragedy that help place the event in a global context. Some of the films may be, as has been suggested, anti-American in tone, but none come anywhere near defending the attacks.
  44. Johnny English
    Once in a long while, it even comes tantalizingly close to that rarest of modern film commodities -- ribald wit.
  45. The Cuckoo
    A beautifully shot, modest little fable about the misunderstandings between people.
  46. I Capture the Castle
    It is, alas, très twee. A muchness of silliness. Beautifully filmed silliness, and fetchingly acted tweeness. But give me Cruella de Vil any time.
  47. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
    The concept is high but everything else is merely fair to middling, one more or less watchable B-movie in megabucks clothing.
  48. Northfork
    Just when the movie seems set to soar, there's a drag factor -- it keeps getting weighed down, if not sunk, by an anchor of ponderousness.
  49. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
    The movie blows, me hearties, but don't you dare miss it...Why? Johnny Depp, that's why...This has gotta rank among the weirdest performances in the zany annals of the silver screen.
  50. Madame Satã
    Truly strange, and often captivating.
  51. Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas
    Sinbad lacks, alas, the sparkle and inventiveness of the stories that inspired it.
  52. Swimming Pool
    Well-acted, nicely shot, slick and certainly sexy, Swimming Pool may be all foreplay and no climax, but what the heck -- there are worse ways to be teased.
  53. Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde
    Both more and less of the same -- more of that hot-pink couture, a whole lot more of that diminutive doggie, less reason to laugh even if you're a tank-topped 16-year-old.
  54. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
    That's not to say Terminator 3 is terminally awful -- just banal, merely humdrum, more conventional horror flick than science-fiction myth, and a whole lot less than what came before.
  55. 28 Days Later...
    Around about the third act, the picture does what no self-respecting virus ever would -- relents, turns confused, and lets our immune system fight back with thoughts of its own, with distracting cavils about the logic of the plot and the slightness of the themes.
  56. Alex & Emma
    The contrived script is stretched to the breaking point by Reiner's listless direction.
  57. Francis Ford Coppola Presents: The Legend of Suriyothai
    What's singular is that it was funded by the current Thai royal family and directed by a royal prince, Chatrichalerm Yukol.
  58. Hulk
    Whereas the psychology is surreal and wonderfully fluid, the action is too real and surprisingly listless, displaying little of the kinetic zip, or the sheer lyricism, that Lee brought with such memorable effect to "Crouching Tiger."
  59. Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd
    Mind-numbing, soul-testing, character-defiling experience that offers not one nanosecond of comic relief.
  60. Rugrats Go Wild
    Too wildly ambitious in its goal to unite two powerful TV tribes to serve a common goal, but its unsentimental music (hip songs by Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh) and visual delights will capture the imagination of young and old.
  61. Hollywood Homicide
    Ten minutes in, and the verdict is already clear: This is a flick that goes both ways. It's funny, then it's not; it's cooking, then it isn't; it's different, then it ain't.
  62. Jet Lag
    The script is definitely mediocrity mixed with complication.
  63. The Eye
    Conventional and erratic in tone as The Eye is, the film has some real visual (and auditory) style going for it.
  64. 2 Fast 2 Furious
    A movie with a confident sense of its own worthlessness, it speeds by in a flurry of candy-coloured cars, bare midriffs, screaming engines and a pulsing rap soundtrack.
  65. Whale Rider
    The Canadian film "Atanarjuat" travelled back to the past to meet an ancient legend on its own ground and treated the tale realistically. Whale Rider whisks its legend up into the present, and then adds a touch of lyricism.
  66. The Weather Underground
    Stands as an important film, perhaps even a timely one as once again the United States finds itself enmeshed in fending off a guerrilla war in a faraway land.
  67. Capturing the Friedmans
    In the midst of this emotional train wreck in motion, with angry outbursts and accusations, there are moments of levity, jokes and even a song or two. Strangely, it does not seem irreverent or bizarre but, rather, an expression of affection, as if love is tearing them apart.
  68. Together
    If you're in the mood for tears and triumph, with a dash of exoticism, Together may well be the film for you.
  69. The Italian Job
    Sometimes, when you least expect it, Hollywood is so Hollywood good, serving up a flick guaranteed to answer the clarion call of the multitudes. "I just want to be entertained," you say? Well, fork out then, because The Italian Job does the job.
  70. Finding Nemo
    Though the Disney logo is on this movie, there is -- possibly excepting little Nemo himself -- not a single cloying, sentimental Disneyesque creature in it. There is, instead, wit and flair in concept and writing, the trademark of the Pixar people who drove the project.
  71. The In-Laws
    But uneven acting isn't fatal here, since Andrew Bergman's screenplay is strong enough and Andrew Fleming's direction seamless enough to carry it forward.
  72. Bruce Almighty
    From the script to the title character to the direction, the watchwords here are three: Play it safe. The whole thing reeks of the formulaic.
  73. Grazia's Island
    Somewhere along the way, Respiro just seems to run out of breath.
  74. Gigantic (A Tale of Two Johns)
    Adoring, appropriately offbeat documentary.
  75. L'Auberge Espagnole
    A film whose limitations are the same as its appeal: It's a bauble. Running at barely more than 80 minutes, the film is both a travelogue and a commercial for swinging polyglot Europe.
  76. The Matrix Reloaded
    Inevitably, the one ingredient that does remain constant are the performances -- once again, there aren't any (the lone exception is Gloria Foster's mommy Oracle, although, even here, the shine is off the joke). Of course, for the hyperactive principals, this gig isn't about acting -- it's about athleticism, which suits Keanu Reeves's talents just fine.
  77. Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary
    A 75-minute tour de force that's often fascinating, sometimes frustrating, but ultimately rewarding. So be patient -- the payoff will come.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Daddy Day Care
    Full of poop and pratfalls, Daddy Day Care's abrasive marketing campaign promises a fresh slice of hell. So for it not to cause physical pain to any viewer over the age of five is a considerable achievement.
  79. The Shape of Things
    Intended as food for thought, but all we really get is a light snack -- the kind that's heavier in presentation than in substance.
  80. Down with Love
    A bit like having a detached retina. One keeps blinking and trying to get it into focus, but it never quite does. What, one wonders, is this movie doing here?
  81. The Dancer Upstairs
    The movie is often both smart and creepy, but it's still a novice effort. After an initially engrossing start, it stumbles through a series of implausible coincidences and murky events, barely held together by the magnetic performance of Javier Bardem.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Owning Mahowny
    Unusual, as such movies go, in its disregard for busy theatricality.
  83. X2: X-Men United
    There's a continuing delicacy to [Singer's] direction that gives the audience room to breathe and reason to linger. This may not be a grownup movie but -- unlike the Star Wars franchise or the Batman sequels -- it is a movie that grownups can watch minus the requisite bottle of Excedrin.
  84. The Lizzie McGuire Movie
    There's not a scrap of imagination in the script.
  85. Blue Car
    Feels like a bit of an emotional mugging.
  86. Spellbound
    Loses its momentum just when you'd expect the suspense to mount -- at the competition itself.
  87. Identity
    Identity opens with its mind nicely intact, suffers a major crisis about 30 minutes in, then bad turns to worse.
  88. It Runs in the Family
    As an actor, Kirk Douglas still has more to give; too bad he didn't have more to work with.
  89. People I Know
    In the midst of material that's dusty and dated, People I Know somehow feels apocalyptic. How is this possible? Easy: When America's liberal conscience is in the sole care of a publicist, you just know the world's going to hell in a handbasket.
  90. City of Ghosts
    If you feel you might already have seen City of Ghosts, but can't quite place it, you'd be forgiven. Hollywood, never afraid of working a cliché to death, has turned out dozens of "City of . . ." films over the years.
  91. House of Fools
    Fables should be succinct, and Konchalovsky lets his run on too long.
  92. The Real Cancun
    The Real Cancun is no crime; at worst, it's a kind of staged tribute to "Porky's" done by amateur actors.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    Malibu's Most Wanted
    So far as I can remember, no such film has ever asked its audience to experience the level of excruciating discomfort an actual fish must feel when it is gored by a sharp hook, yanked into the air, and left to flail in desperation before succumbing to an agonizing death... Until now.
  94. Holes
    A movie that feels a bit like digging a hole in the ground -- an exercise that may build character but doesn't seem to accomplish much else.
  95. Bulletproof Monk
    A plot so preposterous it could only have emerged from the underground comic world.
  96. A Mighty Wind
    The voice that jerks out from Levy's throat suggests Lazarus waking from the dead.
  97. Float Like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Bee
    More about Ali as media star and social figure, less about the quicksilver athlete.
  98. Marion Bridge
    Always engaging and often compelling.
  99. Anger Management
    The important things first: It's always a relief to come out of an Adam Sandler movie without a case of hives, and you can comfortably attend Anger Management without prophylactic antihistamines.
  100. XX/XY
    Rarely does a fine movie like this have so awkward a title, or so off-putting an opening scene. But there is method in both these madnesses, and a searchingly intelligent and moving story to be told.
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