Betsy Sharkey

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Los Angeles Times
For 634 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 61% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 37% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 0.8 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Betsy Sharkey's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 64
Highest review score: 100 The Skeleton Twins
Lowest review score: 0 Nothing Left to Fear
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 341 out of 634
  2. Mixed: 255 out of 634
  3. Negative: 38 out of 634
634 movie reviews
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    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 Betsy Sharkey
    I'll See You in My Dreams
    Director Brett Haley, who co-wrote the film with Marc Basch, has managed to create a film about those final years that gets to the heart of things like loss and love without patronizing or parody. No small thing to create a movie whose cast is mostly in their 70s yet whose story is so relatable whatever your age.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    I Am Big Bird: The Caroll Spinney Story
    From the beginning, the filmmakers promise an affectionate look at the man, and in that they deliver.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    Pitch Perfect 2
    The comedy choir wars are more intense, more absurd and more lowbrow fun than ever in Pitch Perfect 2. It is almost impossible not to be amused by the cutthroat world of competitive a cappella.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 10 Betsy Sharkey
    Hot Pursuit
    This is an equal-opportunity fiasco.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Betsy Sharkey
    Maggie
    The plot is lean, the dialogue is spare and there are some intriguing stabs at intellectual and emotional terrain. But the pacing is deadly, so slow there might be time for a catnap or two without missing anything important.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared
    There is a great deal of silliness about Allan's journey from start to finish and no real message other than to never stop taking life as it comes. But there is also a great deal of fun in watching a 100-year-old man climb out a window and disappear.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    Far from the Madding Crowd
    Between the sheer on-screen beauty and the finely wrought performances of Mulligan and Schoenaerts, Far from the Madding Crowd has its appeal. Yet like unrequited love, one can't help but lament what might have been.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    Welcome to Me
    Though some of the jabs "Me" takes at reality TV are clever, the film, like Alice, tends to fracture at key moments. What makes it worth watching is Wiig.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 90 Betsy Sharkey
    24 Days
    Knowing the outcome behind the true-life tragedy 24 Days doesn't diffuse the horror, the tension or the sadness of watching one family's drama unfold day after agonizing day when a son is kidnapped and hope dies.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    Adult Beginners
    The kind of comedy that goes down easy even as it looks at the hard stuff.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Betsy Sharkey
    The Age of Adaline
    Not "An Affair to Remember," mind you, but a welcome change from the Nicholas Sparks brand of mush that has overtaken the hearts-and-flowers corner of movieland.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    Clouds of Sils Maria
    Stewart does exactly what Valentine describes as Jo-Ann's great gift — she becomes the character, completing disappearing inside Valentine. It makes the interplay between Binoche, a master of that sort of disappearing act as well, and Stewart mesmerizing to watch.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 30 Betsy Sharkey
    The Longest Ride
    The two-plus hours is mostly marked by an emptiness born of scene after scene designed to blatantly manipulate emotions rather than trigger them.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Betsy Sharkey
    5 to 7
    The banter between Brian and Arielle is easy and often amusing. But despite all the tangled sheets and entwined bodies during assignations at the St. Regis hotel, the relationship never moves beyond the look of puppy love.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    Ned Rifle
    When the writer-director is on his game, as he is in Ned Rifle, the effect is bizarre black comedy that is designed to set you thinking about what his satire is really saying.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    Furious 7
    Furious 7 is the fuel-injected fusion of all that is and ever has been good in "The Fast and the Furious" saga.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 30 Betsy Sharkey
    Get Hard
    Get Hard... is certainly a better name than, say, Laugh Hard, which you won't do nearly enough.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Betsy Sharkey
    Home
    Tension is one of Home's biggest issues. There just isn't nearly enough of it. Story is another.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Betsy Sharkey
    Seymour: An Introduction
    Ethan Hawke's documentary on pianist Seymour Bernstein is very much like the sonatas Bernstein plays so beautifully, teaches so insightfully — quietly moving, infinitely deep.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 40 Betsy Sharkey
    The Gunman
    Instead of a pot-boiling crime noir like the one that exists in the pages of the late French novelist Jean-Patrick Manchette's "The Prone Gunman" (which sounds better in French), the adaptation is a frustrating fiasco that kills the material and squanders its exceedingly fine cast.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter
    Though it might not sound it, watching Kumiko brood is mesmerizing. Kikuchi uses her mournful eyes to take us to dark places, though she's equally adept at surprise and confusion, even joy when it comes along.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 40 Betsy Sharkey
    Cymbeline
    Despite Almereyda's invention in approaching this tawdry Shakespearean tale, he misfires badly. All that is left is the semblance of Cymbeline.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 90 Betsy Sharkey
    Cinderella
    As pure of heart as its heroine, Cinderella floats across the screen like a gossamer confection, full of elegant beauty and quiet grace.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Betsy Sharkey
    The Salvation
    The movie has a few bursts of energy and invention — a cleverly executed jailbreak is one. But the story drifts and the pacing drags, failing to gather much steam until the final moments.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    Focus
    The film is breezy from start to finish.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Betsy Sharkey
    All the Wilderness
    All the Wilderness seems tailor-made to play to the actor's strengths — Johnson's script is as lean as Smit-McPhee, both proving adept at doing more with less.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Betsy Sharkey
    The DUFF
    Romance, or the desire to find someone special, isn't a bad thing — if it's not the only thing. But as it stands in DUFF, the denouement at prom has cliché written all over it.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Betsy Sharkey
    The Last Five Years
    The Last Five Years is not unpleasant to watch — the leads are delightful — but as a movie experience, it's not especially satisfying either.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 90 Betsy Sharkey
    Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem
    The tragedy here is not a single story but that a process so inequitable and so inane continues in a place that is considered to be enlightened. Gett, in moving and infuriating ways, exposes a very bleak corner of that world.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    Kingsman: The Secret Service
    Directed by "Kick-Ass" action specialist Matthew Vaughn with slightly more vigor than necessary and a shade less restraint than needed, it's a bit too too to be "brilliant," as the Brits say. But it's not half bad either.
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