The Observer (UK)'s Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
  1. Heart of Stone
    The screenplay is a rudimentary thing – scaffolding to support the set pieces – that starts to creak whenever it attempts any depth of character. But the action is terrific, with a screaming, tyre-shredding extended car chase around Lisbon’s tight, cobbled alleys a breathless and exhilarating highlight.
  2. Murder Mystery 2
    This crime caper has a certain frenzied energy, but it’s sloppily plotted, crass and so dumb, you wouldn’t trust it to use cutlery unsupervised.
  3. Brightburn
    In its attempts to provide an antidote to the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s catalogue of liberal fantasies, the film swings too far in the other direction.
  4. Pain Hustlers
    It’s predictable but glossily watchable. The main redeeming feature is the crackling charisma of Emily Blunt, in the central role of a down-on-her-luck single mum turned pharma marketing genius.
  5. Swimming with Men
    Based on the true story of a group of Swedish men who competed in the synchronised swimming world championship, Swimming With Men is reminiscent of The Full Monty, its feelgood climax landing with a welcome, if gentle, splash.
  6. The King's Man
    The film can’t resist revelling in a conservative conclusion outside Buckingham Palace, with a victory banner fluttering against a smattering of St George’s flags.
  7. Foe
    Mescal and Ronan are captivating: her watchful, raw-nerved longing; his stinging sense of betrayal. It almost eases us past an overwrought final twist. Almost, but not quite.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Breakout
    Engagingly wry thriller starring Charles Bronson as a Texas adventurer hired by Jill Ireland to spring her innocent husband (Robert Duvall) from a Mexican jail. [08 Oct 2000, p.10]
    • The Observer (UK)
  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. Next Goal Wins
    Even when he’s not mugging on screen, Waititi’s personality is evident in every frame, which suggests that he is rather overestimating the level of audience goodwill towards him, which has been depleted by the divisive Jojo Rabbit and the mediocre Thor: Love and Thunder.
  11. Mortal Engines
    The film’s critiques are unimaginative, tutting at how territories attack first in order to consolidate power, as well as the spectacle of war itself, bystanders crowding the balconies of the ship-like city, shrieking as guns and lasers fire at the wastelands below.
  12. The Almond and the Seahorse
    A film so grating that you long for the sweet release of amnesia.
  13. Bob Marley: One Love
    What becomes painfully clear is the fact that Bob Marley deserves a better biopic. Still, Lynch’s magnetic presence, and a heartstopping rendition of Redemption Song, almost justify the price of admission.
  14. The Girl in the Spider's Web
    This glum crime franchise, unfolding against a backdrop of blighted concrete chill and semi-derelict industrial spaces, is evolving into Scandinavia’s anti-hygge.
  15. Night School
    The film is a vehicle for Haddish, whose timing and delivery make the jokes jump off the page.
  16. Vita & Virginia
    Debicki (The Tale, Widows) is wonderful as Woolf, a wry and solemn observer, but the rest of the film is all too literal.
  17. Where the Crawdads Sing
    Like the backdrop – marsh or swamp – it’s all a bit soggy.
  18. Back to Black
    There are moments when Abela disappears and Winehouse bursts on to the screen, like a magic eye picture blinked fleetingly into focus. But the film is wildly uneven and prone to catastrophic misjudgments – in that at least it’s true to Winehouse’s spirit.
  19. Dark Phoenix
    For all the energetic hurling around of heavy machinery, the movie feels inert and lazy.
  20. Glass
    The metaphors are messy (trauma makes people extraordinary?) and the pacing’s off, but it’s fun to see the individual films’ universes crossing over.
  21. The Art of Racing in the Rain
    It’s laughably contrived and shamelessly calculating. Dog’s bollocks, but not in a good way.
  22. Four Kids and It
    This should amuse the younger members of the family, but it's unlikely to offer much more to parents than a couple of hours' respite.
  23. Stuber
    In the absence of sharp writing, Bautista and Nanjiani adopt the blunt-weapon approach, shrieking their lines at each other as if they’re trying to hold a conversation from opposite sides of an eight-lane motorway. It’s painfully unfunny stuff.
  24. Locked Down
    The film busts a gut attempting to free itself from the confines of the couple’s home. In this, it’s at least true to the spirit of lockdown, but it feels like a missed opportunity.
  25. 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.
  26. Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom
    The lazily generic plot devices (yet again, an ancient evil artefact offers unlimited powers to its holder); performances so thuddingly clunky that much of the dialogue sinks like a boulder in the sea; the lack of any humour whatsoever: these are all minor irritations compared with the picture’s glib trivialisation of the climate crisis.
  27. Mrs. Lowry & Son
    What starts out as a flinty portrait of the influence of a domineering mother over her unworldly son soon loses momentum.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Lady Vanishes
    A rather charmless remake of Hitchcock's classic 1938 comedy thriller, adding nothing of value and subtracting everything of significance. [04 Dec 2005, p.119]
    • The Observer (UK)
  29. In from the Side
    This one almost makes it, but a boggy script slows it down.
  30. Captain America: Brave New World
    It’s a humourless drag of a picture, overreliant on clunky exposition and naive geopolitical posturing. Plus it’s ugly, with a greasy murkiness that looks as though the lens was smeared with lard.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »