The Observer (UK)'s Scores

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For 1,641 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 3.1 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: 894 out of 1641
  2. Mixed: 714 out of 1641
  3. Negative: 33 out of 1641
1641 movie reviews
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    • 47 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Mephisto Waltz
    A confusing, unintentionally funny movie starring Jacqueline Bisset and a young Alan Alda. [23 Jun 2002, p.8]
    • The Observer (UK)
  2. Tolkien
    There are moments that catch – a cafe date between Tolkien and his future wife (Lily Collins) is one, and a knockout scene with the mother of his closest friend is another – but for the most part this is stolid film-making that lacks the imagination and creativity of its subject.
  3. The Exorcism
    Despite Crowe’s commitment to going balls-out nutso in the role, the film unravels, a casualty of slap-dash plotting, lazy directing and a reliance on tired Catholic horror tropes.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    From Russia with Love
    Much of it borders on the inept and the embarrassing, and that goes for the title song sung by Matt Monro, the "singing bus-driver".
  5. Something in the Water
    Something in the Water is competently filmed, with lots of propulsive underwater shark’s eye shots of the flailing legs of the bridesmaids. But there’s rather too much time spent watching the girls bobbing and bickering in the middle of the ocean as they wait for the next assault from the circling fish.
  6. Belfast
    Kenneth Branagh’s unabashedly feelgood memoir of growing up in Belfast as the Troubles erupted in the late 1960s suffers from a problem of perspective.
  7. Welcome To Marwen
    The film fetishises female strength, but only in its ability to prop up men; its women remain prettified empty shells.
  8. Downhill
    The performances, especially the brittle Louis-Dreyfus, are admirably grounded, but the script’s comedy wastes time with lazy barbs about European brusqueness and American exceptionalism abroad.
  9. Ricky Stanicky
    Despite the best efforts of a game John Cena in the title role, the laughs are a little thin on the ground.
  10. The Enforcer
    It’s thuddingly predictable stuff that limps through a plot involving nefarious sex traffickers, treachery and a liberal smearing of Miami sleaze.
  11. Empire of Light
    This is the first film that Mendes has directed from his own screenplay (he had a co-writing credit on 1917), and for all its visual flair, courtesy of veteran cinematographer Roger Deakins, there’s little to suggest that Mendes has the writing chops to match his directing skill.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Treasure
    The truth about Treasure: it’s too conventional to satisfy devotees of Lena Dunham and too much of a vehicle for Dunham to please anyone else.
  13. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts
    Plus points include a punchy soundtrack of 90s hip-hop, and Anthony Ramos and Dominique Fishback, heroically holding their own as the hapless humans roped into the Transformers’ thunderous mess.
  14. Underwater
    The murky cinematography further hinders a picture that looks as though it was shot through raw sewage.
  15. 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.
  16. A Journal for Jordan
    Adams is a vivacious screen presence with a twinkle in her eye, and Jordan can’t quite match her, unable to draw out any real inner turmoil in a character who is respectable to a fault.
  17. King of Thieves
    There are a few rascally moments, such as Jim Broadbent settingoff roman candles in his back garden, but mostly it’s a staid affair, laden with dragged-outscenes of the gang doing thejob.
  18. The Other Fellow
    It’s an intriguing idea that might, perhaps, have sustained a short film.
    • 21 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Choirboys
    Aldrich is at his most crudely anarchic and macho celebrating the saintly community service and childish off-duty antics of Los Angeles's hard-nosed uniformed cops, starring Charles Durning, Perry King et al. [25 Feb 2007, p.6]
    • The Observer (UK)
  20. The Last Bus
    The journey is a nice excuse to paint Tom into a cheerily cosmopolitan portrait of the UK.
  21. Jumbo
    Merlant’s performance is committed, and the film takes her romantic and sexual fixation with the ride seriously, immersing the viewer in her dazzling, neon-lit world.
  22. Aladdin
    Mena Massoud’s boyband haircut brings a certain charm, but like the rest of the film, he’s blandly competent.
  23. On the Basis of Sex
    This brilliant original thinker is crowbarred into a stolidly conventional “triumph against the odds” narrative. It’s not an entirely terrible film. It’s just not the film that RBG deserves.
  24. Wild Mountain Thyme
    Shanley has an Oscar and a Pulitzer (he wrote the sublime Moonstruck, and the stage and screen versions of Doubt). Here, that’s easy to forget, given the cartoon accents and overblown metaphors about horses destined to jump the fence.
  25. Venom
    At least the CGI is clever, the consistency of Venom’s viscous, hostless form moving between molten metal and melted chewing gum.
  26. Medusa Deluxe
    Mainly, though, the problem lies with a screenplay that fails to create suspense, or even to persuade us to care who killed a brilliant but unpopular hair stylist. Still, credit to the hair and costume design team for a collection of extravagantly silly creations.
  27. Bohemian Rhapsody
    Fans of the band might enjoy watching the movie cycle through their hits (and there are many), but those, like me, hoping for a more robust appraisal of the late Freddie Mercury may find themselves disappointed.
  28. Sunray: Fallen Soldier
    The combat sequences and SUV shootouts are grimly efficient, but the picture is baggily paced.
  29. Searching
    The film doesn’t understand what mode it wants to operate in; serious thriller with emotional stakes or contrived, cynical satire (a set piece around a Twitter hashtag seems to suggest the latter).
  30. Action Point
    You could make the argument that this film is effective enough as a series of stunt gags in 70s costume, and an alcoholic bear certainly made me crack a smile. But the subplot involving DC’s attempts to bring up his 14-year-old daughter is a saccharine afterthought, and feels oddly out of step with the vacuous nature of the rest of the film’s throwaway laughs.
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