For 84 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 58% higher than the average critic
  • 1% same as the average critic
  • 41% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 2.6 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Scott Bowles' Scores

  • Movies
Average review score: 57
Highest review score:
Critic Score 100
Lowest review score:
Critic Score 12
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 42 out of 84
  2. Negative: 18 out of 84
84 movie reviews
    • Metascore: 81
    • Scott Bowles 100
    It's an apt title. As divisive as the issue has become, it's hard to deny the power of Guggenheim's lingering shots on these children, waiting on a superhero who isn't going to come.
    • Metascore: 79
    • Scott Bowles 88
    Let Me In is going to lure and please fans of the original; like the first, the remake is graphically violent but as tense as good horror gets.
    • Metascore: 65
    • Scott Bowles 88
    Menacing and meditative, Hallows is arguably the best installment of the planned eight-film franchise, though audiences who haven't kept up with previous chapters will be hopelessly lost.
    • Metascore: 73
    • Scott Bowles 88
    Unapologetically brutal and unencumbered by much plot, Raid is the year's most turbo-charged film.
    • Metascore: 82
    • Scott Bowles 88
    Sprinkled with riffs, concert footage and home videos, the family-authorized documentary does what the artist usually did: When in doubt, return to the beat.
    • Metascore: 53
    • Scott Bowles 75
    The film is surprisingly deft and entertains at both the adult and juvenile levels. If something in Guardians catches your eye, trust your gizzard.
    • Metascore: 69
    • Scott Bowles 75
    Scott paces the film like its mechanized star: deliberately and, ultimately, with enough speed to keep its passengers satisfied.
    • Metascore: 69
    • Scott Bowles 75
    It's simple stuff, but the movie's heart is in the right place.
    • Metascore: 65
    • Scott Bowles 75
    As he did in "Stranger Than Fiction," Ferrell displays surprising range when he ratchets down the volume.
    • Metascore: 67
    • Scott Bowles 75
    Black is clearly suited for the role of a modern-day Inspector Clouseau, a hero clown who can't help but save the day.
    • Metascore: 57
    • Scott Bowles 75
    It's over-the-top stuff, to be sure. But Bosses never crosses that line into the macabre.
    • Metascore: 74
    • Scott Bowles 75
    Pooh succeeds by embracing much of what modern films (including Potter's) have largely forgotten: old-fashioned movie pleasures.
    • Metascore: 59
    • Scott Bowles 75
    Sarah's Key is, for the most part, an exercise in reserve. We never see Hitler, never enter battle. Paquet-Brenner (Pretty Things, Walled In), rightly tells his Holocaust story as it now lives: through survivors and descendants.
    • Metascore: 64
    • Scott Bowles 75
    Fright is way too quick on its feet to be slowed by clichés. David Tennant seizes McDowall's role as Peter Vincent, now a Criss Angel-style clown vampire slayer. Christopher Mintz-Plasse was born to play a high school nerd.
    • Metascore: 45
    • Scott Bowles 75
    Even by today's standards, some scenes are jaw-dropping in their bloodshed. To that end, Lurie accomplishes some of what Peckinpah evoked 40 years ago.
    • Metascore: 45
    • Scott Bowles 75
    It is in many respects the best installment of the franchise as its stars go from sullen kids to sullen young adults, where their expressions look more natural.
    • Metascore: 69
    • Scott Bowles 75
    Crisply shot and voiced by a legion of Brits, the animated Arthur seems aimed at the Scrooge and caroler in all of us.
    • Metascore: 60
    • Scott Bowles 75
    Sarandon is worth leaving home for, even if Jeff won't.
    • Metascore: 58
    • Scott Bowles 75
    The side story about Muslim extremists is a little ham-handed for a film that otherwise exercises such restraint.
    • Metascore: 67
    • Scott Bowles 75
    The action is brisk, the acting is solid, and barring an unlikely failure at the box office, a franchise is born. Let the games begin.
    • Metascore: 48
    • Scott Bowles 75
    Visually stunning and narratively stunted, this IMAX documentary is the family version of 2006's "An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore's Oscar-winning documentary on global warming.
    • Metascore: 73
    • Scott Bowles 75
    Despite an abrupt ending and the worst title of the year, Arbitrage manages to leverage real tension from its veteran stars in one of Hollywood's first pedigreed films of the fall.
    • Metascore: 20
    • Scott Bowles 63
    He hasn't mastered the craft yet, but M. Night Shyamalan may be on to something with this action-movie thing.
    • Metascore: 59
    • Scott Bowles 63
    There are plenty of strong performances, and LaBeouf does a nice job of becoming the tough-skinned pragmatist. Mulligan is as earnest as ever, and Susan Sarandon and, particularly, Frank Langella make strong cameos.
    • Metascore: 64
    • Scott Bowles 63
    Jack Goes Boating won't knock you over, but it lulls you with its slow-warming heart.
    • Metascore: 49
    • Scott Bowles 63
    Brisk, brutal and unconcerned with collateral damage, The Mechanic doesn't pave much of anything new in the assassin-for-hire genre. But when it kills, it does so with style.
    • Metascore: 33
    • Scott Bowles 63
    For added heehaws, the normally dependable Nick Swardson comes along to act the ass and delve into some of Sandler's more nuanced scatological humor.
    • Metascore: 57
    • Scott Bowles 63
    Where Paul takes off is in its embrace and knowledge of sci-fi icons.
    • Metascore: 51
    • Scott Bowles 63
    Leave it to a wimpy kid to show Hollywood how to make a family movie with live people in it.
    • Metascore: 65
    • Scott Bowles 63
    One of the coldest action films in years and an odd showcase for Saoirse Ronan, a deft actress who is one of the few youngsters capable of pulling off action with acting.