Joshua Rothkopf
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For 686 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 43% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 54% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 3.1 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Joshua Rothkopf's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 63
Highest review score: 100 How to Survive a Plague
Lowest review score: 20 Passion Play
Score distribution:
  1. Negative: 44 out of 686
686 movie reviews
    • 61 Metascore
    • 40 Joshua Rothkopf
    The whole film seems dead set against offering up any kind of salaciousness. Like the overly arty "Zoo" and other indie experiments, it misses the point in a disturbing way.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 40 Joshua Rothkopf
    The director has made disappointing films before — a more generous word might be transitional — but never one so slight.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 40 Joshua Rothkopf
    Neither as subversively fun as last year’s megadestructive "Project X," nor as creative as "The Hangover" (on which these codirectors broke through as screenwriters), this further installment in the millennials-acting-badly genre serves as a distinctly average placeholder.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 40 Joshua Rothkopf
    Director Peter Webber, who once mined social unease from the painterly "Girl with a Pearl Earring," is out of his depth; this is a movie in desperate need of a no-nonsense Howard Hawks.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 40 Joshua Rothkopf
    Only Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani, directors of 2009’s stylish Amer, emerge intact with “O Is for Orgasm,” a surging montage of fluid colors and moans.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 40 Joshua Rothkopf
    Admission’s comedy has walls built around it; director Paul Weitz (About a Boy), normally a softener of harsh edges, might have been stymied by Fey’s snappy persona.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 40 Joshua Rothkopf
    The film plays like something Boyle could kick out in his sleep, all his supercool devices listlessly deployed in service of a mediocre wet dream.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 40 Joshua Rothkopf
    The whole movie feels like a case of the sweats, putting you in desperate need of the chicken soup of recognizable human behavior.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 40 Joshua Rothkopf
    A soundtrack of churning rock songs by the Kills is as close as this misfire gets to authentic grrrl power, borrowed as it is.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 40 Joshua Rothkopf
    The film’s cutesy vibe is closer to "Glee" than "Election" or "Waiting for Guffman," with Nathan Lane’s exuberant drama teacher pitching several yards of camp tent.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 40 Joshua Rothkopf
    The movie sags after Mary’s weak-willed acquiescence to crime, instantly turning her into a dull-eyed monster. You know her procedures are bound to stray from elective, but it’s hard to care.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 40 Joshua Rothkopf
    When Mark Ruffalo shows up as a crumpled detective, you expect a dose of reality, yet on his heels come twin hams Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman, whose solemn presences (as Christopher Nolan knows well) prove wonderful distractions from silliness.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 40 Joshua Rothkopf
    The filmmakers are too much in love with their made-up holiday to observe it to the fullest.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 40 Joshua Rothkopf
    The better actors — Kevin Costner, chiefly, as the adoptive Earth father — strain to supply warmth, but mostly, the minutes stretch into great expanses of blahness, much of them filled with Transformers-grade skyscraper snapping and bloodless catastrophe.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 40 Joshua Rothkopf
    Less a master class in inappropriate high-school relationships than the CliffsNotes version, A Teacher isn’t going to tell you anything Nabokov or "Election" didn’t.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 40 Joshua Rothkopf
    The movie leans on symbolic imagery that’s alternately tired and ridiculous: Hunt’s impatiently flicked cigarette lighter (yes, he’s a candle waiting to be lit) or a black-widow spider crawling up the stands of one particularly dangerous course. These are classic frenemies; their tale deserves more gas in the tank.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 40 Joshua Rothkopf
    Who will survive the night in order to deflower her? Mysteriously, the film has a hard time functioning on even this level, introducing complications for Mandy that the actor can’t pull off, adorable though she is.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Joshua Rothkopf
    Where the book had a kernel of intellectual irony to it — words betray a nation — this drama goes shamelessly for the heart.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 40 Joshua Rothkopf
    Why introduce two female characters — played by Kate Bosworth and Winona Ryder, both excelling at trashy desperation — if the script’s ultimately going to forget them? The worst sin is visited upon Statham: Sure, those fists fly, but his poetry has become a chopped-up hash.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 40 Joshua Rothkopf
    You’re going to find it all either enormously empowering or deeply calculated: an Arcade Fire–scored TV commercial for instant spirituality.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Joshua Rothkopf
    The film lacks any kind of human interest, relying instead on our inferred love of lengthy strategy sessions and displays of ruffled pride. When it comes to yakuza cinema, you can do better.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 40 Joshua Rothkopf
    Just as you're reeling from the tackiness of this premise, set within such an explosive context, the plot doubles down on it.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Joshua Rothkopf
    The film will do until "Fifty Shades of Grey" turns up. The more you think about Labor Day, the more calculating it gets.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 40 Joshua Rothkopf
    Brief yet underdeveloped, Interior. Leather Bar. has a faux-documentary vibe about it.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 40 Joshua Rothkopf
    One would be better off experiencing Woodley via her heartbreaking turn in last year's "The Spectacular Now," a drama that actually has more to say about nightmarish cliques and individuality than any lackadaisical slide into future schlock.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 40 Joshua Rothkopf
    While Transcendence has tons of money to spend on unpersuasive digital effects and dronelike music, it shows little interest in exploring the potentially tricky benefits of a computer-enhanced intellect; it’s not even in the enjoyable realm of starkly ridiculous Cold War thrillers like "Colossus: The Forbin" Project.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 40 Joshua Rothkopf
    Closer to a special episode of "Diff’rent Strokes" than to "12 Years a Slave," the movie seems to exist to give its white characters belated moments of conscience.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 40 Joshua Rothkopf
    It’s crushing, then, that the movie’s big reveal is the kind of narrative do-over that could only spring from the mind of an almighty writer in love with playing God — or with himself.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 40 Joshua Rothkopf
    Some will find the director’s toothless brand of epiphany comforting (and download his mixtape), but the vast majority will find it tired.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 40 Joshua Rothkopf
    Mainly, though, this is a humorless film that skimps on the delicious opportunity for spousal retribution.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 40 Joshua Rothkopf
    Ultimately, for all its running around in the middle of the night, Sex Tape plays it remarkably coy, reaffirming love, not lust. It’s the cinematic equivalent of sleeping in the wet spot.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 40 Joshua Rothkopf
    Utterly inessential, this slightly cheap-looking reboot of the Turtles franchise is froth too — it might even be too tame for the kids who make up the target audience.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 40 Joshua Rothkopf
    [Eva] Green is the only one able to excite this silly material into the spiky shape it’s supposed to take. You wish the rest of the cast was as clued in.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 40 Joshua Rothkopf
    The first Reitman film to make the 36-year-old director seem about 400 years old.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 40 Joshua Rothkopf
    Centrally, the title character remains an impressive piece of propwork, and Leonetti's restraint in never animating it (à la Chucky) is the only thing worth appreciating here.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Joshua Rothkopf
    The main flaw — twirling farm girls and grunting oxen aside — is an utter lack of insight into the future leader’s character.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 40 Joshua Rothkopf
    Something, Anything doesn’t really engage with issues of faith or materialism.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 40 Joshua Rothkopf
    Still Life constantly threatens to become a better movie: John’s scrutiny of photos feels vaguely serial-killer–esque, and there’s a late-inning love interest (Downton Abbey’s Joanne Froggatt) that you privately cheer for.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 40 Joshua Rothkopf
    Cake chokes you on its self-seriousness, even as it trots out potentially interesting supporting players.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 40 Joshua Rothkopf
    For a movie with a critique of mediocrity well within its grasp, this one settles for an embrace of it, barely breaking a sweat.
    • 29 Metascore
    • 40 Joshua Rothkopf
    Look, the movie didn't have to cure cancer or anything. But sans the original's redemptive nostalgia or any newfound cleverness, it's just a manic, flop-sweat-drenched mess.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Joshua Rothkopf
    Never once does the film feel sharp on black identity (as did Bill Gunn’s original), and the terror is theoretical only.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    The new movie is a joke, a toxic cocktail of banal psychobabble, laughably arty slo-mo flourishes and unmotivated sexual violence that only brain-in-jar types could take as a serious statement.
    • 27 Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    The little action here will disappoint fans; it’s way too choppy.
    • 25 Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    Keep your coin far away from this toxic fountain of crap.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    This sex thriller is trapped in a tepid zone between quality trash and pretentious psychodrama.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    Watching people play a board game ain’t ever going to be scary, and that’s essentially what we have here.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    The only aspects marking The Back-Up Plan as modern (not fresh) are its skanky wallowings in hormonal urges and an equally sour penchant for potshots at the target audience: women who want to be mothers.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    Excruciatingly stupid movie.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    Even on its own limited terms, the jokes are sub–"Friday" sequel, and a last-act grab for "Boyz n the Hood" pathos is seriously reaching.
    • 27 Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    Harsh-voiced Sarah Butler lends zero personality to her avenging antiheroine, and the retributive torture sequences approach "Saw" levels of unlikelihood.
    • 24 Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    A distinctly shameless and shoddily made family comedy.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    A tiresome mess that's completely bereft of a quiet moment in speech or manner, The Tempest aches for the wisdom of discipline.
    • 26 Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    So bland it's easy to forget the title only minutes after exiting, this Emmerich-by-numbers invasion movie exists only to offer you the cutting edge in unconvincing special effects.
    • 18 Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    Russian-born schlockmeister Andrei Konchalovsky has flirted with the good kind of bad in the past (Tango & Cash), but here, he's finally made his disaster-piece. Unclean.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    Yogi Bear on the big screen feels not just needless, but wasteful.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    Hollywood's hocus-pocus machine has turned out swill like this before, but even ultra-observant Catholics will find their interest waning. Hammy acting should make nonbelievers of the rest.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    Skip this one, even if your hipster significant other whines a blue streak.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    The whole movie aches from tired blood.
    • 22 Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    You can take the phoenix-rising actor out of straight-to-video trash, but-well, you know the rest of it.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    Puiu offers zero insight into his character; only suckers will find the pose artful or nourishing. Skip it.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    Lacking a single serious scare or sly idea, the movie dies in ways that merely mediocre horror films can't even dream of.
    • 17 Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    The question remains: Exploitative films are a dime a dozen, but how low will two-faced art-film distributor IFC go?
    • 58 Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    Dropping on top of the heap is Lucky McKee's barely competent domestic thriller, bound to make you groan more than think.
    • 26 Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    An excruciatingly awkward stab at generational sympathy, I Melt with You presents a quartet of thickening college buddies gathering at a Big Sur rental house to mourn their lost ambition.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    Charmless and histrionic, this mean-spirited movie takes place in the toyscape of McG (Charlie's Angels), a monomonikered director who makes Michael Bay seem thoughtful.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    From the auteur of "Torque" (2004) comes this instant headache: a panicky snark-schlock horror-comedy that reduces everything to a hyperactive squall of white noise.
    • 9 Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    A last-minute twist implicating the audience in the bloodlust isn't clever so much as hypocritical.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    Never do you sense an overriding intelligence; Cortés once found laughs and shocks within the coffin-confined Buried, but here's he's got too much room to wander into realms of the ridiculous.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    Let your mind wander during this painfully generic teen-sex dramedy (trust us, it will), and there might be emotions worse than frustration in store.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    Unlike a truly daring movie like Lars von Trier's "The Idiots" - about a gang of clever jerks who pretend to be mentally retarded - The Comedy never musters an articulate indictment, nor does it have much to say on the subject of free-floating fatigue.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    Time to fire up the critical Black & Decker: Somebody-there are six credited screenwriters-really wasn't clear on the concept.
    • 18 Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    As sick-making sketch comedies go, this stupefyingly bad one-somehow rife with A-list talent-must rank near the very bottom.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    The smidgen of dramatic color offered by Jennifer Lopez, as a divorced real-estate broker drawn into Parker's payback scheme, is offset by her character's shocking naïveté, shedding her clothes on command (as if she still couldn't hide a wire somewhere) and falling unconvincingly for Statham's featureless cipher.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    Waiting for Inescapable to finally reach its unearned, sentimental conclusion is a tiresome experience, but seeing Tomei submit to its badness is several measures worse.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    Smitten to a fault with high-art predecessors, Eric Atlan’s excruciatingly bad drama takes place in an abstract Buñuelian hotel room, glows luminously like Last Year at Marienbad and concludes with a Bergmanesque card game on which the fate of souls rests.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    All the solemnity is deadly: Not one of these superhuman gang members registers in memory, and you feel stiffed on gory giggles. Talk about having your chain yanked.
    • 25 Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    Tired byplay between Reynolds’s mystified straight man and Bridges’s supernatural old pro will kill off any fond memories you have of zesty buddy films past and present.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    She (Lohan) isn’t the best thing about this awful, lounged-out drama — it has no best thing — but in her defense, Lohan has been atrociously directed, allowed to get away with the worst aspects of her vocal-fry laziness, and trotted out like a symbolic objet d’art.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    Technically cruddy and tiresome in its we’ve-seen-a-lot-of-movies dialogue.
    • 25 Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    Where, exactly, is Dario Argento? He’s up there in the title, but none of the horror maestro’s former genius (Suspiria) is evident in this silly, Stoker-by-numbers slog, rife with cheesy digital blood spurts but not a single moment of deep-red gorgeousness.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    If mean-spirited snarksters had set out to trash the reputation of "Juno" screenwriter Diablo Cody, they couldn’t have done a more vicious job than the Oscar winner herself does with her directorial debut.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    Since this marks the directorial debut of Hollywood hack Akiva Goldsman (A Beautiful Mind), there’s a heavy foot applied to the era-skipping leaps made by source novelist Mark Helprin.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    There’s not enough villainy—nor lip-smacking comeuppance—to justify a smiting by ash or falling column. The movie in your head melts ten times better.
    • 30 Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    From "Police Academy" to "Hot Fuzz," there are satires to be made about undisciplined law enforcement; this will not join their ranks, try as it might.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 20 Joshua Rothkopf
    The Equalizer is a stone-dumb movie.

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