Joe Williams

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St. Louis Post-Dispatch
For 819 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 60% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 36% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 2.8 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Joe Williams' Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 67
Highest review score: 100 The Dark Knight Rises
Lowest review score: 0 The Divergent Series: Insurgent
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 596 out of 819
  2. Mixed: 156 out of 819
  3. Negative: 67 out of 819
819 movie reviews
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    • 84 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    13 Assassins
    If what you seek from a samurai film is the friction between communal duty and personal honor, join the orderly queue to see 13 Assassins. But if what you seek is action, spend the talky first hour at a sushi bar before barging into the theater for the bloody good finale.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Southpaw
    Fuqua is a proficient action director, and the boxing scenes deliver plenty of whomp. But the music-saturated scenes involving the media, the law and a turncoat friend played by Curtis (“50 Cent”) Jackson are trying to appeal to fans of “Empire,” not “Raging Bull.”
    • 27 Metascore
    • 38 Joe Williams
    Pixels
    Long before you’ve gotten a nickel’s worth of entertainment out of this dumb, unfunny flick, you’ll be wishing for the flashing sign that says “Game over.”
    • 64 Metascore
    • 75 Joe Williams
    Ant-Man
    This debut film is fun, and everyone involved can proudly declare, “Honey, I shrunk the Marvel Cinematic Universe.”
    • 75 Metascore
    • 88 Joe Williams
    Trainwreck
    Amy Schumer is so scary-good in Trainwreck that it almost seems risky to speak her name.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 50 Joe Williams
    Testament of Youth
    Lovely to look at, and Vikander does nothing to derail her inevitable ascension to the A-list. But as a story, it evokes a word that no battlefield nurse would ever apply to her experiences: sterile.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 88 Joe Williams
    Gemma Bovery
    This meta movie even has fun with faulty translations between French and English. To paraphrase Gemma as she conjugates verbs on the treadmill, “J’ai adorée.”
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Joe Williams
    Minions
    Minions is product, pure and simple. Little kids will love it, but grown-ups will feel like they’re being held hostage in a Fisher-Price test laboratory.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Joe Williams
    Magic Mike XXL
    With stingy portions and plenty of filler, Magic Mike XXL is the worst sausage party ever.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 50 Joe Williams
    Terminator Genisys
    This mash-up movie is like a greatest-hits collection for obsessive collectors. On its own terms, Terminator Genisys makes virtually no sense.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Max
    When the movie morphs from a story of mutual healing into a crime-fighting caper, it goes off track.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 75 Joe Williams
    Ted 2
    One man’s mirth is another man’s poison, this critic can only consult his belly as the barometer. On a gut level, Ted 2 is a funny film.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Joe Williams
    Live From New York!
    The documentary Live from New York is a separate thing. It doesn’t try to be wild and crazy, and it can’t be comprehensive. Like a land shark, it’s an uncomfortable hybrid that bites off more than it can chew.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 75 Joe Williams
    Jurassic World
    But even without world-class smarts or amusing mutations, the next generation of “Jurassic” is an enjoyable ride.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 88 Joe Williams
    Love & Mercy
    Love & Mercy is artfully but unobtrusively directed by Bill Pohlad.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 38 Joe Williams
    Spy
    With the overlong, limp and lazy Spy, Feig has lost his mojo.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Entourage
    On that vicarious-pleasure level, the movie version delivers. Yet for anyone with a sense of irony or social justice, it’s also frustratingly soft around the edges, with no real sense of the drugs-and-violence underside of show business or the spiritual cost of failure.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 50 Joe Williams
    Aloha
    The setting and offbeat tone may remind some viewers of another recent comedy, but whereas “The Descendants” was a substantive meal, Aloha is a pu pu platter.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared
    Be forewarned: The 100-Year-Old Man is edgier than its title would lead you to believe. Bad guys are bludgeoned, blown up and even crushed by an elephant, and the two duffers take a lassez-faire attitude toward disposing of them.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Joe Williams
    Good Kill
    We need to have a dialogue about the wages of war in the remote-control era. But it’s hard to spark a good dialogue with movies whose dialogue is so bad.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 38 Joe Williams
    Tomorrowland
    Disney’s gimmick of naming movies for its theme-park attractions crashes and burns in Tomorrowland, a here-and-now caper that will confuse children, bore adults and offend anyone who’s ever taken a science class.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 75 Joe Williams
    Félix And Meira
    In the context of confounded expectations, director Maxime Giroux may have intended the what’s-next ending to be ironic.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Joe Williams
    Pitch Perfect 2
    Second verse, not as good as the first.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 88 Joe Williams
    Mad Max: Fury Road
    This is analog filmmaking at its most daring.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Joe Williams
    Far from the Madding Crowd
    It’s Belgian actor Schoenaerts who will leave the target audience atwitter. Seemingly incapable of cracking a smile, he fits securely in the stoic-farmer tradition that stretches from John Wayne in “The Quiet Man” to Russell Crowe in “The Water Diviner.”
    • 55 Metascore
    • 75 Joe Williams
    The D Train
    While Black is painfully effective as the dork who drops slangy kudos on his new BFF, Marsden is a revelation.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 75 Joe Williams
    Welcome to Me
    This showcase for Wiig is sufficiently absurd to make real-world parallels laughable.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 75 Joe Williams
    Avengers: Age of Ultron
    Age of Ultron has self-aware laughs, grandiose themes and the best effects that money can buy. But at this point, it will take true vision to plot the umpteen sequels without getting trapped in a time loop.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 88 Joe Williams
    Ex Machina
    With a stellar cast and seductive look, Ex Machina is a sleek contraption for capturing our imagination.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    The Water Diviner
    Crowe is effectively restrained in his acting, but in his debut as a director, he overdoes the manipulative music and the pretty images from cinematographer Andrew Lesnie.
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