The Observer (UK)'s Scores

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For 1,640 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 46% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 51% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 3.3 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 68
Highest review score: 100 Enys Men
Lowest review score: 20 Book Club: The Next Chapter
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 893 out of 1640
  2. Mixed: 714 out of 1640
  3. Negative: 33 out of 1640
1640 movie reviews
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  1. William Tell
    The famous apple incident is a taut centrepiece for Nick Hamm’s picture, and the action sequences are propulsive. The casting, however, is questionable.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Grass Is Greener
    This flimsy movie about an American millionaire caught up with the English aristocracy is performed with considerable style by Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr, Robert Mitchum and Jean Simmons. [29 Jun 2008, p.18]
    • The Observer (UK)
  3. Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody
    It should be stressed that the problem doesn’t lie with Ackie necessarily, but rather with a leaden, by-numbers screenplay from Anthony McCarten, who brings to this film the same box-ticking approach he employed with Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody.
  4. You're Cordially Invited
    The wildly uneven wedding clash comedy You’re Cordially Invited is certainly in the vicinity of terrible on numerous occasions.
  5. Farming
    Enitan’s trauma is revelled in but for what? Few new truths are learned here. A rushed, redemptive montage towards the film’s end is presented as ickily aspirational.
  6. Death of a Unicorn
    Rather than a slick, high-concept fantasy action picture in the vein of Everything Everywhere All at Once, here is a B-movie throwback with its roots in the pulpy creature features of the 1950s. Viewed from this perspective, the shonky special effects are just part of the fun.
  7. Next Door
    Though Brühl is an affable and witty screen presence, there’s no getting round the fact that the film is a vanity project.
  8. Surge
    Whishaw’s intensity is gripping to watch but the character remains opaque; whether we’re meant to read Joseph as experiencing psychosis or simply suffering the unforgiving conditions of city life under capitalism is ambiguous.
  9. A Forgotten Man
    A handsome period piece, shot in striking black and white, A Forgotten Man tackles an intriguing theme, but it’s a little too airless and inert in approach to bring this murky corner of European history to life.
  10. Dumbo
    Something slightly disingenuous, perhaps, about the glib anti-corporate message of the film jars. The appeal of the original came from its purity and simplicity. This overcomplicated onslaught of manufactured magic could never really compete.
  11. Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre
    And here’s the problem for Statham’s super spy: for all the Ukrainian gangsters he nuts and helicopters he pilots, Orson Fortune is just not particularly interesting or fleshed out as a character. Plaza and Grant, meanwhile, steal every scene they touch.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Dead Reckoning
    Director Cromwell lays on the expressionist style of tilted cameras, graphic shadows and sinister silhouettes with some relish. [31 Jul 2011, p.47]
    • The Observer (UK)
  13. A Man Called Otto
    A Man Called Otto taps into a seemingly unquenchable audience appetite for stories of cantankerous grumps redeemed by the healing embrace of community.
  14. Trolls World Tour
    The only bum note is the music itself, despite the presence of prestige pop stars including Justin Timberlake, Kelly Clarkson and Mary J Blige.
  15. The Six Triple Eight
    Unfortunately, Perry drenches the tale with his trademark syrupy ineptitude, creating a gloopy, turgid plodder.
  16. The Gentlemen
    Guy Ritchie’s latest gangster comedy presents itself as a harmless romp, but behind its wink-wink-nudge-nudge humour is a bitter and dated worldview.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Score
    Electro-folk song interludes (written by Flynn) offer images about rivers and such that might better suit another film – one that doesn’t feel as if it’s waiting for darkness so that it can finally become a noir.
  18. Papillon
    At a slow two hours plus, the film feels stretched.
  19. 21 Bridges
    There’s a pulpy, comic-book noir to this highly enjoyable thriller, whose rules and parameters are clear.
  20. Marry Me
    [A] silly, shallow romcom, which is as thin and predictable as Kat’s tinny pop songs.
  21. Studio 666
    The running time is an issue – a punchy seven-inch single approach would have been preferable, rather than this jam session of a screenplay, which doesn’t know how to end. But the tonal blend of goofy and gory is oddly endearing.
  22. Wolf Man
    The film soon runs out of bite, with a plot that repeatedly chews over the same thumps, bumps and rattled doors, and the same shadowy menace in underlit basements.
  23. La Syndicaliste
    It’s not unusual, unfortunately, for the victims of sexual attacks to find themselves distrusted and even accused. What rankles in the film’s approach is that the audience is also encouraged to question her story.
  24. The Marvels
    Of the cast, it’s only Iman Vellani, as Marvel fangirl turned superhero Kamala Khan, who seems genuinely excited to be in the film.
  25. Bel Canto
    There’s a tepid, cross-cultural romantic comedy trapped inside this televisual hostage drama. The reliable Moore is trapped too. Even she can’t animate the material, leaving the graphic denouement feeling like a bum note.
  26. The Hunt
    It’s not subtle, or particularly clever, though Glow’s Betty Gilpin is fun to watch as an ultra-violent ex-military veteran with a southern drawl.
  27. The Equalizer 2
    A climactic fight that takes place in the eye of a hurricane is appropriately silly but lacks a sense of fun.
  28. Tell It to the Bees
    Grainger (soon to be seen in Sophie Hyde’s brilliant, jagged Animals) is a magnetic and sensual foil to the frowning, reliably expressive Paquin. The flirty tension between the two feels quietly credible, the camera occasionally shuddering with desire. A pity, then, that this sweetness is lost as the film makes a tonal swerve in its final third.
  29. Jungle Cruise
    Director Jaume Collet-Serra creates a romp of a picture booby-trapped with adventure movie tropes (arcane curses, snakes, evil Germans) which, while they might seem familiar to Indiana Jones fans, still combine to make for a decent family flick.
  30. After the Wedding
    This story of motherhood and moral conundrums, of privilege and philanthropy and “worthy causes” is one whose dramatic twists and soapy reveals feel at odds with the cultivated tone of serious, muted elegance.
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