The Playlist's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
For 4,828 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 56% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 41% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 1.8 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 67
Highest review score: 100 Days of Being Wild (re-release)
Lowest review score: 0 Oh, Ramona!
Score distribution:
4828 movie reviews
  1. Theron can survive almost anything onscreen. Apex proves, once again, that she can carry weak material farther than most actors. It also proves that even she cannot quite drag a dull survival programmer up the mountain.
  2. The scattershot Mother Mary can never effectively find the connective tissue between different modes of storytelling. To put it in musical terms, this is less a mixtape and more of a playlist on a chaotic shuffle.
  3. The problems are many, the ease with which it goes down is high, and whether Thrash set out to craft a solid thriller or a purposeful schlockfest, it lands squarely in the middle, destined to be forgotten.
  4. Super Mario Galaxy is nice to look at and dead inside, a committee-made franchise object masquerading as an adventure, and ultimately little more than an empty commercial for Super Mario branding.
  5. In the end, “Rhythm Is A Dancer” remains a classic banger, but Pretty Lethal never finds any remotely memorable rhythms of its own.
  6. Its lack of visual cohesion and bizarre finale get in the way of enjoying the whirlwind of fists, bullets, fantastical fights, and a sword with katana-like powers of cutting bodies in half. No one can accuse this film of becoming boring, but its over-stuffed narrative never quite delivers on its promising start.
  7. It seems like Over Your Dead Body is caught between deconstructing itself and just going through the motions.
  8. Even with some perfectly fine comedic gags, Power Ballad can never overcome the emptiness of its characters and the equally flat, overlit visuals that make the entire thing look more like a bad TV episode than an actual film.
  9. For a film so fixated on provoking fear and dread through the medium of audio, it’s naturally strongest when it does not bother to stimulate the eyes at all.
  10. As Coppola teases Jacobs’ brilliance over the decades, you realize he may not have gotten his due as one of the most influential designers of the past 50 years. He may have been taken for granted both inside the insular fashion world and by the public at large. And, at worst, you just hope sometime soon, another filmmaker tackles an extended film or docu-series about him and really gives him his due.
  11. There’s a floor for entertainment with a cast this strong, especially two leads who can contort themselves bodily and emotionally with such dexterity. But “The Bride!” spends too long operating at that level because it cannot escape the mire of confusion about its own identity.
  12. Once the basic parameters of Franco’s thought experiment in Dreams are grasped, what’s left is an obvious parable about immigration with little to offer beyond spitefulness and a smugly superior sense of self-loathing.
  13. The material’s dualities trap Ford between continents, not to mention genres and tones.
  14. Frank & Louis slips into being a film that’s observed and admired from a distance, not experienced emotionally.
  15. “American Pachuo” is just a nice movie about a visionary guy. Entertaining and educational, to be sure, but so frictionless it barely sticks.
  16. The downside is that Lagos is a more interesting character in this film than Lady herself, who Nwosu outlines with far less finesse. Such a glaring imbalance is symptomatic of the script’s overall flimsiness, which stands in contrast to this debut’s heartfelt performances and staggering visuals.
  17. There’s a good movie about therapy and PTSD inside Jay Duplass’ See You When I See You. The trouble is, it’s buried in a so-so family ensemble film about shared grief and recovery.
  18. Beyond some obvious pot shots and on-the-nose metaphors, it begins to feel more and more like a missed opportunity than smart satire.
  19. Even the most hair-brained of Wain’s films have some quality elements, and Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass is certainly no exception to that rule. But it’s nevertheless a slight disappointment to see a luminary operating at the lower end of his power and promise.
  20. Wilde toils feverishly to create the illusion of momentum and communicates to the audience that they must be feeling such a sensation. But for all the belabored artistry of this choppily cut enterprise, little in “The Invite” actually moves. It’s potential energy, unconvincingly trying to pass itself off as kinetic.
  21. What’s fresh and compelling are Wilde and Hoffman. They are so stellar together that the film’s multiple endings work because they are front and center in them. In the end, almost despite Araki’s efforts, they make having “Sex” worth it
  22. It leaves almost nothing but questions as the credits roll, but from which it’s also just as easy to move on, a film with a title one may be thankful to say aloud as the realization that the runtime has concluded sets in.
  23. Mirren is magnificent as the fading mother losing her fight against the inevitable, and Winslet wisely leans on this, as well as the other reliable performances from her overqualified cast.
  24. Another romantic comedy in a long list of contemporaries which, despite scant traces of effort, fails in making its title character anything more than second fiddle to the couple who should rightfully take his place.
  25. With a film like Anniversary, any ideas formed from the jump best take occupancy at the door. This is not meant to establish an unexpectedly entertaining journey or incredible third-act twist, but rather something far more frustrating.
  26. If the people on screen only feel like characters, then no amount of creepy creature design or surprising twist can make a venture such as Perkins’ here register as anything other than an antiseptic experience.
  27. The film ultimately feels like little more than hired hand work from Wright. What he lacks in compositional vision, he tries to make up for in clever casting (Colman Domingo, William H. Macy, and Lee Pace all deliver their best), as well as some simple gags. But like the people in Ben Richards’ fictional dystopia discover, amusing ourselves to death can only go so far. “The Running Man” settles for being good when, if the topline talent had leaned into their fortes, it could have been truly great.
  28. The Plague is a movie-movie, rather than a genuinely searching or affecting film about that most awkward age when fitting in with a group can seem like the most important thing in the world.
  29. A curious, half-successful mutation in the “Predator” bloodline, ‘Badlands’ wants to transcend the franchise’s primal instincts. Instead, it proves that sometimes survival means knowing what not to evolve. Or at least, pushing the envelope with greater execution and story conviction.
  30. Like so many straight-to-streaming releases, there are sparks of life here, but it all feels like a yawning afterthought that any strengths won’t so much be overlooked due to the flaws, but forgotten altogether because there’s simply not enough here to latch onto, good or bad.

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