The Globe and Mail (Toronto)'s Scores

Select another publication »
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 2.9 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
view
per page
    • 24 Metascore
    • 12 Critic Score
    Tarzan the Ape Man
    TARZAN The Ape Man, in which Bo Derek (the 10 of 10) is Jane to newcomer Miles O'Keeffe's mute Tarzan (his chests are bigger than hers), takes 45 minutes to get to the reasons the film may have attracted an audience. As nearly as I can figure, based on the soft-core porn of the advertisements, the reasons are three: two belong to Miss Derek, one to O'Keeffe. But although Miss Derek's reasons do receive screen time (O'Keeffe's reason remains unviewed, to the vocal scorn of women in the audience), this topless Tarzan is not soft-core porn, which might justify, on a utilitarian basis, its existence. It's not that good. [25 July 1981]
    • The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
  2. Eye of the Needle
    A well-crafted, well-acted anomaly: a film good enough to raise its aim and our expectations but not to score a direct hit. So one leaves simultaneously pleased and disappointed, asking the right question - "What if?" - but for all the wrong reasons. [25 July 1981]
    • The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
  3. Arthur
    Arthur constantly flirts with the trite and dallies with the excessive. But it goes steady with neither, and so makes for a very pleasant companion on a warm summer eve. [17 July 1981]
    • The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Zorro: The Gay Blade
    The real lesson of Zorro the Gay Blade is that Melvin Simon Production had a huge budget to play with - and a lonely little pun to spend it on. [18 July 1981]
    • The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Fox and the Hound
    The premise, nearly miraculous in its banality, is not failed by the execution, which unblushingly operates at the level of somnambulism. [13 July 1981]
    • The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    • 93 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Decline of Western Civilization
    A movie so pungent and filled with sweaty intensity that you can practically smell the rank body odour of the film's subjects as they hurl their bodies against each other in a frenzy of aggression or perform as if in a trance, soaked with perspiration.
  7. S.O.B.
    It's a satire inferior to the thing it satirizes. [3 July 1981]
    • The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
  8. Stripes
    IN THE BEGINNING, Ivan Reitman begat Animal House and Animal House begat Meatballs and Meatballs begat Stripes. In the end, the box-office deity surveyed this handiwork and pronounced it good. Good and stale. For you can tamper with the setting, you can fiddle with the cast but, by all that's holy in the land of the cash flow, don't ever mess with a lucrative premise. [27 June 1981]
    • The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
  9. Dragonslayer
    Director Robbins is a natural - he has managed to make a movie that is entertaining despite the handicap of having a main character who is at best a black hole. [30 June 1981]
    • The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
  10. The Cannonball Run
    Farrah Fawcett offers to this corrupt "entertainment" a small measure of the fresh innocence Marilyn Monroe used to bring to her movies; watching her work under these circumstances is like watching a maiden being thrown to Moloch. [22 June 1981]
    • The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
  11. Raiders of the Lost Ark
    Raiders of the Lost Ark (at the Eglinton) is a cinematic roller-coaster, thrilling and frightening in equal measure, a heart-pounding slide down greased lightning. [12 June 1981]
    • The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
  12. Clash of the Titans
    Never as spectacular as it promises, often funnier than it intends, Clash of the Titans is a harmless diversion - neither bad enough to annoy nor good enough to admire. [15 June 1981]
    • The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
  13. History of the World: Part I
    Mel Brooks, the writer, director and producer of History of the World, is an ecologically sound filmmaker, a staunch adherent of recycling. If you laugh the second or third time, you defend the repetition as a variation on a theme; if you don't laugh, the charges are self-plagiarism and lack of imagination. [13 June 1981]
    • The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
  14. Polyester
    Waters uses the tawdry in satirical celebration of itself - he's the red satin tassled plush pillow of filmmaking. [17 Sep 1981]
    • The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Four Seasons
    Partly because of Alda's comedy training on television, he has succeeded in making, for two thirds of its length, an amusing and very commercial film. But the last part shows him failing at what he really wanted to do. [23 May 1981]
    • The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
  16. Outland
    Even without a chronological point of reference, Outland has an intriguingly realistic look. Unfortunately, both the realism and the intrigue begin and end with the sets. [25 May 1981]
    • The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
  17. Death Hunt
    What Death Hunt is a piece of is neither entertaining nor educational. [18 Apr 1981]
    • The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
  18. Friday the 13th Part 2
    The same covey of kids assemble at a summer camp to meet their predictable fate. Once again, their thespian talents defy assessment, since most hang around just long enough to take off the limited clothes of the American teen-ager and take on the limited role of the bloody victim - both acts performed just once, always in that order. [04 May 1981]
    • The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    • 59 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    The Hand
    There are some genuinely witty lines, but The Hand is no comedy. In the end, it must rank as one of the more original efforts to find danger in mundane places. [18 May 1981]
    • The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
  20. Caveman
    A happy surprise, a sweet and silly combination of the cheesy special effects of Japanese sci-fi movies and the witty slapstick of American silent films. [20 Apr 1981]
    • The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
  21. Knightriders
    Because it attempts so much more than Excalibur, the disappointment of Knightriders cuts deeper. Romero wants to tell the tale, to comment on it and to relate it to the present; he wants to bring contemporary satirical life to the myth, a service he performed cannily for the Dracula legend in Martin. [18 April 1981]
    • The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
  22. Excalibur
    It must be said that the closing sequence, in which Arthur meets the misbegotten Mordred on an orange battlefield illuminated by a shield-sized red sun, is an epic, Oedipal masterpiece of authentic mythic power, a sequence so strong it shakes the torpor from one's shoulders and induces regret that the rest of the saga has been so juvenile, so lifeless and so lacking poetry or Shakespearean sweep. [11 April 1981]
    • The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
  23. Nighthawks
    Nighthawks, a cops 'n' robbers thriller with terrorists where the robbers should be and cops as counter-terrorists, has a dirty job to do and does it. That is not an endorsement. Thumbscrews and cattle prods are real good at what they do, too. [11 Apr 1981]
    • The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    • 68 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    The Howling
    The ironic use of every seventies psychological cliche in an unapologetic, unabashed B-movie elevates The Howling to irresistible silliness. Written and directed by Joe Dante, who comes to us straight from the horror-movie forge of Roger Corman, The Howling pays enthusiastic scenic homage to B-movies while remaining faithful to the exploitation formula of the genre. [15 May 1981]
    • The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
  25. This Is Elvis
    This Is Elvis could have been called This Is America: it's a portrait of a face full of wounds, warts and wonders. [09 May 1981]
    • The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
  26. Atlantic City
    As Lou, an almost prissily natty numbers runner certain that everything - even the ocean - has deteriorated, Burt Lancaster gives the performance of his life. [17 Apr 1981]
    • The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
  27. Thief
    Realism by nature offends the dogmatic, and Michael Mann, in a writing-directing debut that makes one want to see his next movie instantly, is a devotee of the realistic in factual essentials, if not in esthetics. [27 Mar 1981]
    • The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
  28. The Postman Always Rings Twice
    More frightening than most horror movies, more erotic than most pornography, The Postman Always Rings Twice (at the Imperial) is a sour slice of bona fide Americana, a relentlessly pessimistic melodrama that conjures memories of They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, Bonnie and Clyde, The Godfather and Chinatown. [21 March 1981]
    • The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
  29. The Final Conflict
    Graham Baker, a British director of television commercials, makes a debut that is technically auspicious, and Robert Paynter and Phil Meheux, the cinematographers, have approximated the rich, chocolaty chiaroscuro of The Godfather saga. Does anyone care? [24 Mar 1981]
    • The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
  30. Cutter's Way
    The performances in Cutter's Way are devastated by the script. [18 Sept 1981]
    • The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »