Time Out's Scores

  • Movies
For 6,418 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 41% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 56% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 3.4 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 62
Highest review score: 100 Pain and Glory
Lowest review score: 0 Surf Nazis Must Die
Score distribution:
6418 movie reviews
  1. Director Bill Condon (Gods and Monsters) can do this stuff with his eyes closed, and sometimes it feels like he might be doing that as the plot chugs from London to Berlin and secrets are duly uncovered. But there’s enough visual flair to elevate things above standard genre fare.
  2. If Frozen was about coming to terms with who you are, Frozen II is about transformation. Does it offer further evidence for those who saw "Let It Go" as Elsa’s covert coming-out anthem? Sadly not, though she remains an intriguingly elliptical canvas on which to project genuinely groundbreaking ideas about empowerment and identity.
  3. If you’ve ever wondered what the boredom threshold is for watching a musician tuning a hurdy-gurdy, you’ll find the answer here.
  4. For all of its #MeToo heavy lifting, though, the film still doesn’t work, mainly for the same reasons as before: Constructed as symbols (not human beings), these characters have too much spy stuff to do and yet, not quite enough.
  5. If Last Christmas isn’t quite irresistible in its emotional moments and the cheesiest bits are borderline indigestible, its effervescence makes it a fun enough watch. At the very least, it’ll make you fall hard for its other romantic lead: London.
  6. Steel battleships and raining fire are Midway’s primary colors; the movie flaunts its hugeness at every turn. You’ll never mistake it for the real thing, but Emmerich’s eye for historical detail is scary.
  7. Widows' Cynthia Erivo supplies dramatic weight to a project that squanders it on awkward action moments and simplistic showdowns.
  8. Yet it’s rare that we get a movie this municipally minded and Chinatown-ish, and Norton invents new elements with a free hand, including a Harlem turf war, a skittering jazz undercurrent (the music is by Daniel Pemberton) and a love interest in Gugu Mbatha-Raw. Alec Baldwin, playing a powerful urban planner, makes for a ferocious Robert Moses stand-in.
  9. The predictable fish-out-of-water comedy gradually gives way to something deeper, as conflicting world views are exchanged, homespun wisdom dispensed and minds broadened.
  10. You could call it fan service, if the service is to teach fans that mimicking Stanley Kubrick’s chilly elegance—and even reshooting scenes from the original film with lookalike actors, a crime bordering on sacrilege—doesn’t make your take nearly as scary.
  11. As proven by Mary Elizabeth Winstead in Final Destination 3 or the spunky Jessica Rothe in Happy Death Day, these fate-driven, high-concept horror flicks can be redeemed by a committed central performance. Countdown’s Elizabeth Lail, as a nurse who wants to get to the bottom of things, joins their company; she’s got a certain Jennifer Lawrence scrappiness.
  12. It has a kernel of raw torment and an unforgiving streak that hints at still-unreconciled wounds, too. It’s not the best film of the year, but it’s definitely one of the most personal.
  13. It’s all a lot of effort for very little output, sadly. The Current War has lots of flashy lights and whizzy features, but it remains fatally underpowered.
  14. The potentially interesting material is suffocated by a B-movie story and a C-grade script.
  15. Even with the original stars returning, the sequel feels weightless, disposable and hardly the stuff of Skynet nightmares.
  16. Heroically, Double Tap’s new actors, rare though they are, save it from being completely brain-dead.
  17. It’s bewitching stuff when it doesn’t feel like a waste of invitations.
  18. To be fair, pulling off complex action sequences in such unforgivingly high definition is a ballsy move—it’s much harder to hide the joins between what was captured in camera and what was added later. But as impressive as the action is—and a Smith-vs.-Smith motorcycle chase in Colombia is a superb sequence worthy of peak Bond—the high-definition format just doesn’t work.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    VS.
    It’s exciting to see this underground scene finding an outlet on screen. As an exploration of contemporary youth culture, masculinity, identity and sexuality, as well as life at the margins, VS. is topical and energising.
  19. It’s made with so much love, care and enthusiasm—plus no small amount of risk—you thrill to think that they’re just getting started.
  20. Philippe earns his keep, not only by mounting a crisp, elegant production well above the standard of your typical video-lensed making-of, but by skewing toward anecdotes that most corporate clients would frown upon.
  21. While it’s based on the bizarre 2007 story of the female astronaut who drove 900 miles in adult diapers to confront an ex-boyfriend, Lucy in the Sky doesn’t include that intimate detail. Then again, the movie shits the bed in so many other ways, it may have been overkill. Director Noah Hawley (TV’s Fargo) omits the headline-making undergarment, instead stocking up on paper-thin observations about workplace misogyny and mental health in a cloying feature debut that begs to be scorned.
  22. After a while, you adjust, or rather, you get tired of probing the slightly-off evidence of your eyes and the headache it produces. There’s a lot of fun to distract you.
  23. Its trump card, of course, is Zellweger, who blows through the film in a gust of jittery energy, wounded ego and half-buried star quality. The transformation is startling.
  24. There’s comfort to be had in executing on such a durable formula, and—life lessons accompanied by Coldplay’s treacly “Fix You” aside—Abominable usually resembles the swift adventure it wants to be.
  25. None of the care that Stallone imparted to his recent Rocky reboots—Creed and Creed II (both of which were produced by him)—is in evidence; it’s as if he were admitting that the Rambo movies were always trash. He may not be the best custodian of his own legacy. Graying, splotchy and barely intelligible, Stallone turns in a self-negating performance, just as ugly on the inside.
  26. Yes, it’s basically an episode of the show stretched out to two hours, but like the Crawley family silver, it’s so polished you can practically see your face in it.
  27. Damon and Bale are unfailingly enjoyable company to be among, steering the psychology away from alpha-male dominance to something more complex and occasionally mystical.
  28. If Wu is compelling as Destiny, Lopez is magnetic as her savvy mentor. It’s her most authoritative role since Out of Sight. The plot, in contrast to the stars, sags in the middle and there are a few more celebratory hang-out scenes than we need, but the gang is so charismatic, it’s no great chore to spend extra time with them. Some people would pay thousands for just a few minutes.
  29. The tonal lurches – from jokey to earnest and back again – will have whiplash setting in by the time its eccentric fourth-wall-breaking coda comes around, while some odd casting choices (and accents) drain gravity from the serious moments.

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