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. Donnie Brasco
    What better casting than Al Pacino, whose own career, of course, has reflected all the seasonal changes in the gangster saga. Pacino takes the part and runs with it so boldly that he ends up in Arthur Miller land.
  2. Hard Eight
    The plot is bare-bones stuff, weak in story line and bereft of motivation.
  3. Smilla's Sense of Snow
    Regresses into a lame action-thriller.
  4. Booty Call
    At 70 minutes, this groin and groan comedy seems almost dismissively short, but don't believe the myths you've been told: longer is not always better.
  5. Lost Highway
    David Lynch's eye-popping imagery is buried under an avalanche of self-indulgence.
  6. Rosewood
    Watching this, we should feel an immense amount, but don't, and somehow, decades after this horrible event, that void only seems to compound the tragedy.
  7. Absolute Power
    The content is eminently forgettable but the thing has definitely got style.
  8. Fools Rush In
    Mediocre movie.
  9. Touch
    Simply put, Touch dies, with nary a resurrective hand in sight. [14 Feb 1997, p.C5]
    • The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
  10. That Darn Cat
    There is little here for parents, and not much for the kids. [17 Feb 1997, p.C3]
    • The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
  11. Dante's Peak
    Director Roger Donaldson ("Smash Palace," "No Way Out," "Species"), working from a script by Leslie Bohem ("Daylight"),does a serviceable job, wrapping his narrative around the big kabooms, but the real interest comes from the extraordinary barrage of sound and spectacle.
  12. Waiting for Guffman
    A very funny, very unusual ensemble comedy that falls somewhere between slapdash and brilliant, an improvised comedy with more hits than misses. It's also an oddly touching tribute to the joys of show biz.
  13. Mother
    At least by Hollywood's conservative standards, Mother proves that the wayward son is alive and well -- softer in manner but still a subversive at heart. [10 Jan 1997, p.C1]
    • The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
  14. Albino Alligator
    With its jazzy saxophone noodlings during the opening credits and its bruised black-and-blue look, it's so quaintly and conventionally pulp that you feel like filing a report with the cliché police.
  15. Metro
    Although it always moves and rarely labours, the film truly comes alive only in those fleeting moments when it departs from the safe formula -- that is, only when Murphy draws on his personal talents to kick this baby into something resembling a higher gear. The rest of the time, well, here's the key to your Metro -- a renter with some mileage on it.
  16. The People vs. Larry Flynt
    The result is good dirty fun, flecked with enough wit to help you overlook the relatively barren characterization.
  17. Michael
    But wouldn't it be heavenly if a like proportion of Tinseltown producers believed in an existing need for a good script. Because this one ain't good; in fact, it's hellishly mediocre, the kind that aims for holiday charm and settles for workaday torpor.
  18. Thieves
    Techine has long been a cerebral director (counting Roland Barthes among his admirers), and Thieves certainly steals your complete attention. It's just that, when the picture is over, our involved mind can't resist a concluding thought: Somehow, the theft is more impressive than the compensation. [31 Jan 1997, p.C5]
    • The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
  19. The Portrait of a Lady
    Jane Campion makes a beeline for the repressed sexuality, and loses the nuance. [17 Jan 1997]
    • The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
  20. Scream
    May not be the most scary or the grossest horror film you've ever seen, but it has one distinct feature: it actually talks up to the audience. By the conclusion, you won't be shaking in your seat, but you may enjoy the status of someone who has earned a Master's in Slashology.
  21. My Fellow Americans
    Americans is unimpeachable fun. Peter Segal doesn't aim high in this lampoon of U.S. presidents, but hits the target. [20 Dec 1996, p.C8]
    • The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
  22. Marvin's Room
    Yet, about as often as Marvin's Room strikes a chord of emotional authenticity, it hits a fistful of false notes as well.
  23. Jerry Maguire
    Crowe is too much the good employee to spin the yarn properly, to give the picture the very integrity it endorses. He might have made a more convincing movie had he first convinced himself.
  24. Mars Attacks!
    A flashy nineties flick with a campy fifties feel -- it's playful, naive, clever, silly, often inventive, occasionally uneven and, compared to studio offerings to date, the best present under this year's cinematic tree.
  25. Citizen Ruth
    A screwball comedy about the abortion issue? First-time writer-director Alexander Payne gives it a college try.
  26. Jingle All the Way
    For those who are looking for a Capracornish sentimental tale about the Christmas spirit lost and re-discovered in the harried modern world, this holiday film is far too acerbic and frantic to play the heart strings. [22 Nov 1996, p.D6]
    • The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
  27. Ridicule
    Ridicule is, finally, a movie that shows it understands the mechanism of wit and hierarchy intimately, and rejects it unequivocally in favour of the more inclusive and gentle world of humour. [11 Dec 1996, p.C1]
    • The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
  28. Blue Juice
    The movie seems much, much longer than its 90-minute running time. [15 June 1998]
    • The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
  29. Space Jam
    In the rap-music, slam-dunk, hysterical tumult of visual clutter that makes up most of Space Jam, the traditional Warner Bros. 'toons get scant attention. In this marriage of corporate logos, the manic little characters serve simply as more names to be dropped. What Space Jam really lacks is respect for an irreverent tradition. [15 Nov 1996, p.C4]
    • The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
  30. Ransom
    Since "To pay or not to pay" is banal, the plot takes the popular path of excess to a brain-boggling twist (to be specific would be to ruin what fun there is), then spirals off in a series of ever more unlikely gyrations, until a heretofore decent picture has gone completely south into fantasy-land.
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