Village Voice's Scores

Select another publication »
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 7.5 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
view
per page
  1. Who Bombed Judi Bari?
    Insult upon injury didn't stop the central figure of Mary Liz Thomson's tough and intriguingly well-told account of the fight between environmentalists and corporate raiders (perhaps abetted, we learn, by the government) from taking the battle to her deathbed.
  2. The Most Unknown
    Much of the film is beautiful — hot springs, the ocean’s depths, and deep space are photogenic — although Cheney preserves a few too many mundane “hello, how do you do”s, and the science isn’t deeply explained.
  3. Hava Nagila: The Movie
    Patronizing from toe to chin, the film opts continually for self-congratulation and cheesy aphorism, and could've-should've been comfortable slotted into a half hour of airtime on TJC.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance
    A revenge tragedy as brutal and Byzantine as "Titus Andronicus," Park Chanwook's Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance accomplishes a miraculous feat by being harrowing and humane in equal measure.
  5. Moonlight
    Not only is the candid (but never prurient) treatment of early-teen sexuality and drug use too hot to handle, but the narrative blend of fairy-tale wonder and nightmare logic feels sui generis.
  6. Limitless
    Without a complex thought about narcissism, merit, or addiction, Limitless is content to be an empty, one-note, satire-free fairy tale of avarice and corporate-political ambition.
  7. Running from Crazy
    The possible hereditary nature of suicide in general and of the seven known Hemingway suicides in particular is lazily poked at; decades of research go unmentioned and unexplored.
  8. Jurassic World
    Jurassic World is pretty good fun. Especially for a here-today, gone-tomorrow summer blockbuster, the picture is better-crafted than it needs to be: If you ignore some extraneous plot threads, and the stop-the-presses revelation that, in the end, “what really matters is family,” Jurassic World hangs together surprisingly well.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    On the Ice
    On the Ice is a marvel of concentrated, classical storytelling. The flat, snowy landscape strips away all but the essentials from its tale.
  10. Realive
    Realive’s greatest strength is that it takes its premise so seriously, engaging with its moral and spiritual questions.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Day Watch
    The worst thing Bekmambetov has picked up from his American models is the tendency of megasequels to aggrandize material grown enervated, to compensate for thinness by spreading out.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Rubber
    An essay on storytelling and spectatorship within When Inanimate Objects Attack schlock - one infused with the haunting aura and disillusionment of a post–"Easy Rider" road movie - Rubber is some kind of miracle.
  13. The Dead
    The Dead, with its vast, pitiless landscapes and moral seriousness, is "Night of the Living Dead" reimagined as a Sergio Leone western. It's a knockout.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    We Are Wizards
    Ignore the scattershot approach, however, and there's considerable pleasure to be had in spending time with these bizarre enthusiasts and watching the creative ways they find to express their obsessions.
  15. Strike a Pose
    The six surviving members of the original seven are always excellent company, though Ester Gould and Reijer Zwaan's film at times seems frustratingly under-researched.
  16. Naqoyqatsi
    Despite some rocking bombast by Philip Glass and reliably wicked cello saws from Yo-Yo Ma, the whole thing plays like a tired Tyco ad.
  17. Madame Satã
    It can feel a bit slight and, given the epic sweep of its subject's life, somewhat underplotted. But there's no denying the incendiary power of Ramos's performance -- he's present in nearly every scene. The movie is as much the story of his transformation into Madame Satã as it is João Francisco's.
  18. The Children of the Century
    It does best when it leaves behind hothouse literary discussions and closes in on these two legendary behemoths, battling for sexual supremacy.
  19. Barbershop 2: Back in Business
    Cube is still adorable, but the potentially poppin' battle between the shop and big-box competitor Nappy Cuts gets obscured by sloppy chronology and flat, cartoonish politicos.
  20. The Shape of Things
    In its costumes, line readings, and structure, the movie faithfully preserves the stage production -- a provocative, if meretricious, evening of theater that ends in a paroxysm of LaButality with a bear swipe to the spectator's head. It is, however, more difficult to rattle a movie audience -- at least with words -- and, despite its streamlined presentation, The Shape of Things is not nearly as effective on-screen.
  21. I, Robot
    If you see it, the sequel will be your fault.
  22. Valley of Love
    Isabelle and Gérard's regrets and laments about their parenting skills betray no bone-deep rue or shame but are delivered with all the conviction of two luminaries merely running their lines.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Mack
    It is almost perfect as escapist entertainment -- as a carefully schematized synthesis of fantasies for black audiences. [03 May 1973, p.81]
    • Village Voice
  24. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
    "We're all mixed bags" is the conclusion of unwieldy mixed bag Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.
  25. Detroit Unleaded
    Director Rola Nashef's visuals can be clunky, and her script's conversational dialogue is occasionally stilted. Nonetheless, she draws her characters in sharp lines, so that the gaggle of customers who frequent Sami's workplace...feel not like types but, rather, like diverse individuals.
  26. In Darkness
    The first third of the story then presents her like a typical Hitchcock ingenue before branching out into a promisingly ambitious mystery. Too bad that story ultimately loses focus and its protagonist’s point of view.
  27. Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back
    Wu and Lin have great chemistry, but only because Chow was smart enough to reimagine Journey to the West as a rare character-driven big-budget action-adventure — the kind of thing Americans might love if they knew it existed.
  28. Heights
    In this study of keeping up appearances while everything falls apart, the stakes never seem as high as the title suggests.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Whistleblower
    Geographic diffusion aside, Kondracki's fact-based thriller remains somewhat focused on its grim subject, though its principled bid to allure and enlighten the VOD-surfing masses results in a surplus of Hollywood-style eye candy and narrative formula.
  30. Miss You Already
    Toni Collette rages through Catherine Hardwicke's cancer weepie Miss You Already like a fire in a chain restaurant. The film around her is good, welcoming fare, the kind that snobs always underestimate.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »