The Irish Times' Scores

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For 1,136 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 53% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 43% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 4.7 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 70
Highest review score: 100 Son of Saul
Lowest review score: 20 The Turning
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 641 out of 1136
  2. Mixed: 469 out of 1136
  3. Negative: 26 out of 1136
1136 movie reviews
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  1. You, Me & Tuscany
    As ever, all these thumping stereotypes would matter less if there was some chemistry between the two leads. Page has sufficient charisma to skirt through the absurdity unscathed. In contrast, Bailey seems dazzled and bemused – neither crafty enough nor ingenuous enough to make sense of the central deceit.
  2. Melania
    No good impression emerges of the former Slovenian model. No bad impression emerges either. Ratner’s film achieves, rather, a sort of passive distance – as you might get by pointing a camera, for close to two hours, at a waterfall or a wheat field.
  3. M3GAN 2.0
    Oh no. The sequel to M3gan is absolutely t3rribl3.
  4. Juliet & Romeo
    The thing is unremittingly dull and bland (not to mention cold, apparently). If it is good for anything it is good for providing deserved paid holidays to venerable older actors and their long johns.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Captain America: Brave New World
    With its cheap action and garish visuals, it’s then that we enter yet another genre altogether: action-figure commercial.
  6. Deadpool & Wolverine
    The creators of Deadpool will argue, lamely in my view, that by admitting the puerile nature of the humour they inure themselves to criticism in that area, but no such excuses are offered for the onanistic self-regard. After two hours of this infantile mugging, one is left longing for the genuinely upending humour of the Batman TV series from 60 years ago. Awful. Just awful.
  7. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
    The reverence for the past here does nobody any favours. It is as if a 1984 kids’ film tried to get them interested in the collected lore and backstory of Abbott and Costello. We all need to move on.
  8. Madame Web
    For all its gimcrack incoherence, Madame Web – which would be nothing without Johnson’s charm – is a darn sight less pompous and up itself than the overstuffed Disney content.
  9. Freelance
    You would get more sparks from rubbing a wet flannel with a wetter rock. But try it anyway. It could hardly be more tedious than waiting for Freelance to crawl to its predictable denouement.
  10. The Marvels
    All involved deserve better.
  11. No Hard Feelings
    Every pratfall, including the naked ones, is joyless and witlessly timed.
  12. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts
    Some loyalists do still give a fig. They will still get something from the volume and the visual clutter. Nostalgia is a powerful drug. Even the most dedicated will, however, surely baulk at one of the stupidest final shots in the history of cinema. That surely doesn’t count as a spoiler.
  13. The Whale
    The director of shockers such as Requiem for a Dream and Mother! has had his mainstream moments, but he has never before been quite so at home to tawdry soap opera.
  14. Survive the Game
    Embarrassingly for a film that actually features a star of Pulp Fiction, Killing Field is still harbouring an undignified passion for early Tarantino.
  15. Deep Water
    Nobody looks to have helped Affleck get to grips with the author’s signature sociopath and, rather than appearing coldly ruthless, this cuboid-headed anti-hero comes across as a bored man queuing for an uninteresting clerical formality.
  16. Fortress
    Almost entirely plotless, it consists mostly of the characters pointing guns and wracking their brains for the next terrible line. Yet they had enough money to pay Willis whatever he asks to sit in two different chairs for a few hours (and he may charge by the chair). Nothing adds up.
  17. The Starling
    There are plenty of reasons to yell at The Starling. The pile-up of dreary sub-country songs eventually takes on the quality of something the CIA would have played outside General Noriega’s compound.
  18. The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard
    Cinemas are finally open; it’s hard to think of a worse way to mark the occasion.
  19. Wild Mountain Thyme
    Viewing the entire film as it finally arrives to video on demand, one remains staggered that sentient human beings who walk upright and use cutlery believed this was a respectable use of their valuable time.
  20. Backtrace
    Time moves so slowly one begins to fear it may turn backwards and return us to the far distant opening credits.
  21. Hellraiser: Judgment
    One for Hellraiser completists only. Assuming there are any left.
  22. Eye for an Eye
    An early contender for turkey of the year.
  23. Inheritance
    Look elsewhere for virtual methadone to hold you over until the real stuff gets back in the supply chain. Just awful.
  24. Sonic the Hedgehog
    It’s not quite as bad as the awful trailer threatened. Just dull, bland and pointless.
  25. The Turning
    The movie doesn’t quite stop mid-sentence, but it comes as close as any film I’ve seen. That can’t be it. Can it? ... A total waste of time.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Man Bites Dog
    For all its cleverness it remains a dubious exercise...If none of this strikes you as very funny, even in the blackest of comedy, just wait for the rape scene later in the movie - not only is this not remotely funny, it is simply repulsive and indefensible whatever the context...Ultimately shallow and unconvincing and the result is a movie that is even more acutely disturbing than it was meant to be. [12 March 1993, p.11]
    • The Irish Times

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