Village Voice's Scores

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For 11,162 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 40% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 56% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 7.6 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 57
Highest review score: 100 Hooligan Sparrow
Lowest review score: 0 Followers
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4,708 out of 11162
  2. Mixed: 4,553 out of 11162
  3. Negative: 1,901 out of 11162
11162 movie reviews
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  1. Against the Ropes
    As a gloves-off Erin Brockovich, Ryan never makes it into the ring.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Biker Boyz
    Too bad that when the filmmakers aren't busy accommodating cameo models and comedians, they seem to be dozing off at the handlebars. Luckily, we're watching from a different side of the highway.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 40 Reviewed by
      Ed Park
    Abandon
    Hardly a nuanced portrait of a young woman's breakdown, the film nevertheless works up a few scares, particularly a tense call-number hunt in the library stacks.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Inspector Gadget
    Shot mostly in close-up, with nearly every action accompanied by a sound effect, the film itself is slightly hysterical.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 30 Reviewed by
      Ed Park
    Returner
    A shamelessly recycled vision of decrepit high tech.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Jeepers Creepers II
    An apparent Atkins devotee, he eschews the carb-heavy corn fields, opting for protein-rich human flesh, primarily a high school basketball team returning home on a lonely highway.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    A Man Apart
    As limited as Diesel's movie persona may be, the actor has been notable for projecting a certain gentleness and warmth. That, along with logic and any sense of urgency, gets lost here amid the longueurs of a tired vengeance plot.
  8. Shwaas
    Takes a potential hot-button premise--the callous indifference of the Indian medical bureaucracy toward the lower classes--and dramatizes it in the most shameless way possible.
  9. Last Love
    Scene after scene is defined by blunt exposition and gooey maxims, not to mention cornball visual metaphors.
  10. Shanghai
    Cusack's low-simmering performance keeps the drama at a tediously low boil.
  11. Beware the Gonzo
    Too cute by half, Beware the Gonzo will appeal to the 20 people left on earth who insist on broadsheets over iPad apps and/or those bewitched by star Ezra Miller's pretty cheekbones.
  12. Guernsey
    Leopold's movie is superbly shot and restrained, but not economical; the brooding and introversions profitlessly pad out what might've been a leveling featurette.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Reset
    At least Bojack had the decency to bring this turgid, self-indulgent doodle in at a slim 79 minutes.
  14. Uncle Nick
    Posehn, flaunting his insulin-resistant physique and middle-aged dong, is the perfect counterpoint to the wretched American Beauty, providing a way more accurate portrayal of midlife creepiness.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Tollbooth
    How is czarist Russia like modern-day Brooklyn? Touché, but let's say this time the answer's not Brighton Beach. It's not The Tollbooth either, but what with the movie's dramatization of the opposition between tradition and individualism for a Jewish family's three "marrying age" daughters, "Fiddler on the Roof" parallels will inevitably be drawn.
  16. The Canyons
    People who don't understand movies often speak of them as escapism, a kind of passive fantasy. Lohan's performance in The Canyons, so naked in all ways, is the ultimate retort to that kind of idiocy: To watch it is to live in the moment.
  17. Circuit
    Even from deep in a K-hole, you'd need about 10 seconds to figure out the remaining plot twists in this jaded muscle-queen morality tale.
  18. Kedma
    Mesmerizingly bad filmmaking.
  19. Amy's Orgasm
    Davis has energy, but she doesn't bother to make her heroine's book sound convincing, the gender-war ideas original, or the comic scenes fly. Instead, the film is buttressed by song montages and jokey chapter titles.
  20. Thunderbirds
    As the dapper Lady Penelope, Sophia Myles tries to infuse the enterprise with some "Charlie's Angels" verve, but she's only one life vest, and the movie is a downed plane.
  21. Lotus Eaters
    Lotus Eaters, which McGuinness co-wrote with Brendan Grant, is maddeningly shallow—maybe that's the point—but McGuinness does have talent.
  22. Resident Evil: Apocalypse
    Not without its moments of elemental dread, Apocalypse is also obviously padded, too long on action, and painfully short on irony. The satirical element still packs a minor jolt.
  23. Goodbye World
    The soapy material is at odds with the largely distant catastrophe, which often feels too abstract to be a real threat.
  24. Shottas
    Writer-director Cess Silvera claims he's trying to "show the gritty life of Jamaican immigrants," but Shottas is no more a social-issue film than "Scarface."
  25. Diary of a Mad Black Woman
    Rote melodrama.
  26. Are We Done Yet?
    Fans of the first film can rest assured that a change in the director's chair has done little to curb the overall tone of slapstick desperation.
  27. The Son of No One
    Tatum is touching as the stressed, decent provider trying to make something bad from his past not destroy his future. Yet the real surprise is Tracy Morgan, in a small but transformative role as the heavily medicated adult incarnation of Jonathan's childhood friend.
  28. Underworld: Evolution
    There's no guiding power at work here; it's Evolution without a shred of intelligent design.
  29. The Art of Getting By
    Crafted not to give the slightest offense, The Art of Getting By makes the great - and even the mediocre - teen movies of 30 years ago, like "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," "Fame," and "Foxes," look even more radical in comparison, with their depiction of obnoxious, horny, property-destroying teens.
  30. Sex Tape
    Sex Tape is warmer and more amusing than its ads would lead one to believe. In fact, it’s almost good enough, leaning a little too hard on the innate likability of stars Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel.
  31. Deadgirl
    Has more fantastically blunt, clunky, and downright laughable teen-sex dialogue per minute than anything this side of Larry Clark.
  32. My Uncle Rafael
    An insufferable import indebted to "Mrs. Doubtfire" in which a man in prosthetics helps a family cope with, and overcome, divorce.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    America So Beautiful
    As much as the film would like to blow the lid off immigrant misery, it deals only in caricatures.
  34. Body Shots
    Vomitous.
  35. This Thing of Ours
    Danny Provenzano's mafioso melodrama is the immoral vanity project to end immoral vanity projects.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Maestro
    Would be all but unbearable without the excited testimony of the young men and women of color who'd spent their happiest nights at the Loft or the Gallery or Paradise Garage.
  37. After The Fall
    The movie's flaws — silly plotting and unconvincing psychological groundwork — are Klein's doing.
  38. Pan
    Jackman occasionally wins a laugh, when he manages to impose himself over the movie's restless clamor.
  39. 10th & Wolf
    A hellish and unconvincing celebration of badda-bing-ness.
  40. The Hot Flashes
    The raunchy, feminist-revenge jokes are the best part of this feel-good, you-go-ladies sports comedy.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    I'm Reed Fish
    Short of pulling a Zach Braff, there's one sure way to get known as a screenwriter: Put your actual name in the title of the script.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Fly Me to the Moon 3D
    This sketchily conceived and executed space yarn is one missed opportunity after another.
  43. My Name Is Bruce
    The only things missing from this unfunny Campbell love fest are a passable script, Sam Raimi's inventiveness, and a level of sophistication beyond nose-picking and ass grabs.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Cradle 2 the Grave
    Li barely has enough lines to qualify for a SAG card.
  45. 8 ½ Women
    The deeply ridiculous 8 1/2 Women could have been made only by a cranky dotard.
  46. Assassin's Creed
    The Assassin's Creed movie is about all the parts you might skip in the games.
  47. I Am Happiness on Earth
    I Am Happiness on Earth's script is mostly filler between explicit, intensely choreographed sex acts.
  48. Conan the Barbarian
    Squeamish types may balk, but the gory cruelty on display here is faithful to the source material and deeply thrilling.
  49. Solace
    This paranormal cops-versus-serial-killer procedural is never not ridiculous, but it's often entertaining as well.
  50. Lady in the Water
    It's as if on some semiconscious level, Shyamalan, who I do not doubt is a serious and self-serious pop-creative original, is calling his own success into question and daring his audience to gulp down larger and spikier clusters of manure, just to see if they will. Or he's lost his mind.
  51. That Awkward Moment
    While it's easy to tease first-time writer-director Tom Gormican's raunchy rom-com, the trio has a shaggy chemistry, and most of the jokes hit.
  52. Blind
    Moore’s and Baldwin’s forceful personalities power their performances, and these evenly matched partners have now invigorated both a convoluted thriller (The Juror) and a predictable romance (Blind).
    • 36 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    A Tale of Two Pizzas
    Writer-director Vincent Sassone makes your mouth water with his lovingly photographed images of freshly baked pizza but turns your stomach with extra-cheesy dialogue and an inconsistent narrative.
  54. Serena
    Screenwriter Christopher Kyle touches on hot-button issues of class conflict, land use, and no-holds-barred capitalism. He also strips Serena of moral ambiguity, turning deeply twisted relationships into a doomed romance where transgressors punish themselves.
  55. Bounce: Behind the Velvet Rope
    Mindless, shoddy (lurching zooms, no color correction, an entire reel out of sync) depiction of some very big guys who work as bouncers.
  56. Buddy Boy
    Mark Hanlon's ridiculous and repellent hash of "Repulsion" and "Psycho," with scenic elements of "Seven" thrown in for good measure.
  57. Who Is Cletis Tout?
    This charmless nonsense ensues amid clanging film references that make "Jay and Silent Bob's Excellent Adventure" seem understated.
  58. Captain Corelli's Mandolin
    Ms. Cruz...once again proves her inability to give a bad performance even under the worst of circumstances.
  59. Party Monster
    Party never gets rolling.
  60. Standoff
    Standoff holds up as a welcome alternative to its more strident brethren.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Holding Trevor
    There's nothing to fill up the 88 minutes of the film except for the idle bitchery spewed by nearly every character.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Human Error
    On a spare stage set, Dresser's clever script is allowed breadth for contemplation; here it's sodden with animated sludge. Watch it with your eyes closed.
  63. Commitment
    When Commitment isn't a perfectly forgettable action film, it's either an oil-thin melodrama or a charbroiled treat for meatheads.
  64. Red Lights
    Much as I want to believe in Cortés, who is clearly talented and ambitious, there is just too much in Red Lights that encourages agnosticism.
  65. Forever My Girl
    Wolf establishes only a half-formed idea of the decisions, fights, and silences that have shaped these characters’ lives, so the cast often seems to be shouting into a vacuum.
  66. Fast Food Fast Women
    In his film's better moments, Kollek makes us laugh at these visions while also revealing their grace and frailty.
  67. Phantom
    Easily the artiest queer stroke movie of the year.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star
    Obtuse and creepy.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Poster Boy
    Rather than creating believable characters engaged in nuanced conflict, Boy proffers a pair of obvious symbols and hopes that they'll make a statement about the personal and the political.
  70. Fired!
    While "maybe it's for the best" proved happily prophetic for her actor pals, those words of comfort sound more like a clueless bromide when you consider the 30,000 people laid off in Lansing after the film wrapped.
  71. Swing
    Repeatedly assuring us that its titular subject is really "a metaphor for life," Swing attempts unsuccessfully to liven up a tired scenario with a touch of Twilight Zone fantasy.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Turistas
    Turistas eventually bogs down in an underlit mess.
  73. Serious Moonlight
    Serious Moonlight has a backstory much more intriguingly dramatic than what's onscreen.
  74. The Captive
    When it isn't TV-movie familiar, Egoyan's film is bughouse crazy, mixing in campy pulp elements that bleed pressure away from the story.
  75. Big Sky
    Jorge Michel Grau's Big Sky masquerades as a psychological thriller, but underneath it's a meditation on the worthlessness of men.
  76. Stardom
    With a few exceptions, most of the laughs in Stardom are cheap...and worse, the ideas beyond platitudinous.
  77. The Thirteenth Floor
    It'll make you cyberlaugh, it'll make you cybercry, just like cyberlife -- One thing is certain: your boredom
  78. The Reaping
    Those two age-old foes--science and blind faith--tango yet again in this noxious slice of Biblical horror about a series of Old Testament plagues being visited upon a Louisiana bayou backwater.
  79. Dumb and Dumber To
    The misfires, including a strange menstruation gag, far outnumber the hits. Dumb and Dumber To is mostly just a kick in the nuts, and not the good kind -- provided there is a good kind.
  80. I Am Number Four
    Nothing but a million little pieces from prior superhero series and the "Twilight" saga.
  81. The Pink Panther 2
    It's Garcia, Molina, and Tomlin who give you momentary hope that the film might settle into a witty, irreverent romp. Unfortunately, their efforts are ultimately defeated.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Tony N' Tina's Wedding
    The not-exactly-long-awaited movie version is here, trading in stereotypes just as ineptly as the original.
  83. Something Borrowed
    It's clear that Something Borrowed finds it easier to tell us about relationships than to show us them under way.
  84. Archaeology of a Woman
    Sharon Greytak's Archaeology of a Woman is a decidedly well-made, unnerving film.
  85. Ithaca
    It's the rare film to miss its every mark.
  86. This Revolution
    A clever but aesthetically murky remake of Haskell Wexler's scorching McLuhan pastiche "Medium Cool" (1969).
  87. Art History
    Swanberg has discovered lighting and mood-to occasionally stunning effect. Perhaps in some future memo from the front lines of indie-sploitation, he will unite them with story and more than a superficial nod to character.
  88. A Promise
    No bodices were harmed in veteran French filmmaker Patrice Leconte's chaste and bloodless English-language debut.
  89. Father of Invention
    The rather unappealing character of Axel is indulged with every opportunity for redemption, as Spacey is indulged with every opportunity to showboat.
  90. Revenge of the Green Dragons
    Green Dragons wants to be spaghetti with marinara, but it's closer to egg noodles and ketchup.
  91. Stolen Summer
    Made with no discernible craft and monstrously sanctimonious in dealing with childhood loss, it might as well be called "Pray It Forward."
  92. On_Line
    Indifferently written, passably acted, resourcefully shot in video with enlivening splashes of local color.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    The Anarchist Cookbook
    Cookbook banks on the humor of its caricatures and the heft of its moral dilemma, but because it never develops its characters beyond types, it comes off as flat and forced throughout.
  94. No Such Thing
    Thematic muddle aside, the film's appeal lies in Burke's ranting charisma, Julie Christie's thankless turn as a sympathetic doctor, and Michael Spiller's radiant cinematography, which frequently captures the mythic grandeur that eludes Hartley's narrative grasp.
  95. Beloved/Friend
    More exciting and truthful than most better-looking films dare to be.
  96. Walter
    Walter's self-conscious efforts at quirkiness...and cartoonishly drawn characters...try too hard while falling far short of their marks.
  97. We'll Never Have Paris
    Throughout, Helberg's awkward-anxious routine proves insufferable, and it's made no more tolerable by supporting turns from Zachary Quinto, Alfred Molina, and Judith Light, who are given so little to do that their presence in this mess feels downright cruel to both them and us.
  98. Push
    Seems to have been made up as it was being filmed.
  99. Hôtel Normandy
    There isn't a moment in Hôtel Normandy that isn't painfully contrived, yet, worse still, its mix-ups boast all the inspiration and excitement of a weekend getaway at the local mall.
  100. Lucky Bastard
    The film is most successful when humanizing the people behind the objectification, with lives beyond the smut.
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