Tom Russo
Select another critic »For 334 reviews, this critic has graded:
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55% higher than the average critic
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2% same as the average critic
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43% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 6 points lower than other critics.
(0-100 point scale)
Tom Russo's Scores
- Movies
- TV
Average review score: | 58 | |
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Highest review score: | Ralph Breaks the Internet | |
Lowest review score: | Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return |
Score distribution:
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Positive: 175 out of 334
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Mixed: 108 out of 334
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Negative: 51 out of 334
334
movie reviews
- By Date
- By Critic Score
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- Tom Russo
It’s the mark of many a standout sports movie that you don’t necessarily have to be a fan to enjoy the story. The real-life pro wrestling portrait Fighting With My Family is a hugely entertaining case in point.- Boston Globe
- Posted Feb 20, 2019
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- Tom Russo
For all of Alita’s she-Pinocchio charm — and her Cameronian estrogen-charged badass-itude — she can’t quite carry the audience all the way across that pesky uncanny valley.- Boston Globe
- Posted Feb 13, 2019
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- Tom Russo
An unexpected portrait of the legendary comedy duo on a mostly forgotten stage tour at the twilight of their careers.- Boston Globe
- Posted Jan 16, 2019
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- Tom Russo
Aquaman’s first glimpse of Atlantis is meant to convey wonder, but mostly there’s a sense of digitally over-busy déjà vu, as we’re reminded of more inventively designed fantasyscapes in “Thor,” “Avatar” and so on.- Boston Globe
- Posted Dec 18, 2018
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- Tom Russo
After a point, we’re left wondering whether we’re watching a character study or caricature. Either way, the portrait gradually morphs from intriguing to tedious.- Boston Globe
- Posted Dec 12, 2018
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- Tom Russo
At its best moments, Creed II manages a feat nearly as striking as anything that Michael B. Jordan’s Rocky Balboa protégé pulls off in the boxing ring: It doesn’t play all that much like a sequel.- Boston Globe
- Posted Nov 20, 2018
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- Tom Russo
The imaginative, touching, and dizzyingly animated Ralph Breaks the Internet is a sequel with a rich, broad vision that addresses all of these issues faster than you can say Fix-It Felix.- Boston Globe
- Posted Nov 20, 2018
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- Tom Russo
The particulars are often fascinating, but all the solemnity does work against a more rousing finish. The Netflix-distributed feature might equal “Braveheart” (1995) in its gritty authenticity, but that standard-setter’s memorably transportive quality was ultimately a far battle cry from this.- Boston Globe
- Posted Nov 7, 2018
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- Tom Russo
The result is a reworking that feels both unnecessary and uninspired, even if it’s too genial and visually captivating to be flat-out off-putting.- Boston Globe
- Posted Nov 7, 2018
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- Tom Russo
What starts as a modest, agreeable riff on E.T.A. Hoffmann’s original tale — and, more relevantly, Tchaikovsky’s ballet — eventually veers into stultifying action, rote twists, and other badly forced contemporary tweaks.- Boston Globe
- Posted Oct 31, 2018
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- Tom Russo
It’s as if Hill took his familiar sly humor and sneaked it into a segment from Richard Linklater’s “Boyhood.”- Boston Globe
- Posted Oct 24, 2018
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- Tom Russo
He (Barinholtz) works hard to creatively lampoon a nation divided, and his first-timer’s ambition and thematic investment are admirable. Disappointingly, though, he lacks storytelling chops, aiming for wildly provocative satire but instead churning out a technically spotty screed.- Boston Globe
- Posted Oct 17, 2018
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- Tom Russo
Go figure that the year’s most outrageously harrowing action movie turns out to be an arthouse doc from National Geographic.- Boston Globe
- Posted Oct 4, 2018
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- Tom Russo
Everyone from Channing Tatum to Danny DeVito to Hollywood transplant LeBron James is here voicing the movie’s winsomely rendered snow creatures, but it’s the creative story more than the routine-if-likable characters that makes this one so engaging.- Boston Globe
- Posted Sep 26, 2018
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- Tom Russo
Tricky territory to navigate, but it ultimately lends some genuine poignancy to the story’s familiar accidental-family themes. If there’s someplace Roth makes a mark, it’s here.- Boston Globe
- Posted Sep 19, 2018
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- Tom Russo
Kendrick’s interplay with Lively crackles, whether they’re going for laughs or something darker. Both are big selling points — as is their director, even if it’s not as advertised.- Boston Globe
- Posted Sep 12, 2018
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- Tom Russo
Notoriously remembered as a mastermind of the Final Solution, Eichmann was also infamous for the just-following-orders dispassion he maintained all the way through his trial, a banality that Kingsley channels expertly.- Boston Globe
- Posted Aug 28, 2018
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- Tom Russo
Some of this smutty irreverence is undeniably hilarious, goosed along by Melissa McCarthy’s game presence as Phil’s estranged LAPD partner and human foil. (In other felt-free casting, Maya Rudolph is equally entertaining as Phil’s trusty secretary, even if Elizabeth Banks and Joel McHale go to waste.)- Boston Globe
- Posted Aug 23, 2018
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- Tom Russo
Berg and Wahlberg deliver a relentlessly paced, addictively slick paramilitary thriller actively catering to fans of gonzo brutality and turbocharged machismo.- Boston Globe
- Posted Aug 16, 2018
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- Tom Russo
The stylishly crafted film mostly succeeds in its engaging (and tagline-ready) ambition to chronicle “how mankind discovered man’s best friend,” even if its naturalistic strengths are swapped out for an exaggeratedly epic tone in the later going.- Boston Globe
- Posted Aug 15, 2018
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- Boston Globe
- Posted Aug 8, 2018
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- Tom Russo
It’s surprising to see how straight McGregor plays it for director Marc Forster (the J.M. Barrie portrait “Finding Neverland”), allowing the CG-animated Pooh and friends to endearingly steal the show.- Boston Globe
- Posted Aug 2, 2018
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- Tom Russo
Save for a couple of crisp standalone segments incorporated as tone-setters, Washington’s first-ever sequel is a narratively and visually muddled disappointment, one that regularly confuses numbing brutality with vicariously thrilling righteous vengeance.- Boston Globe
- Posted Jul 18, 2018
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- Tom Russo
It’s fast, it’s funny, it’s superficial, it’s full of likable stars and scientific mumbo-jumbo, and, above all, it taps into the human urge to see big things become little and little things get big. It’s as close to lizard-brain entertainment as superhero blockbusters get, and as the mercury pushes toward 100, I’ll take it.- Boston Globe
- Posted Jul 4, 2018
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- Tom Russo
Character quirks know no limits in the indie dramedy Boundaries, a multi-generational road-trip movie that gives both Vera Farmiga and Christopher Plummer richly drawn roles to play.- Boston Globe
- Posted Jul 4, 2018
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- Tom Russo
Hawke delivers a strong melancholy variation on his familiar emotional cool as Reverend Toller.- Boston Globe
- Posted Jun 14, 2018
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- Tom Russo
What’s most unexpectedly gratifying is how much energy veteran standup director Jeff Tomsic and his splashy cast pour into ensuring that this is legit entertainment, packed with gonzo wit and even some sentiment.- Boston Globe
- Posted Jun 13, 2018
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- Tom Russo
The drama palpably, potently conveys the group’s misgivings, their jangling nerves, the foolhardy resignation pushing them on despite themselves.- Boston Globe
- Posted Jun 6, 2018
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- Tom Russo
As he did with his "Everest" cast, Kormákur draws a strong, pathos-rich performance from Woodley, filled with moments of her character confronting her own mortality and looking back on safe choices not made. It’s solid drama, but also very slow going.- Boston Globe
- Posted May 31, 2018
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- Tom Russo
Veteran London theater director Dominic Cooke (the BBC’s “The Hollow Crown”) and acclaimed novelist Ian McEwan adapt the fractured-narrative feature from McEwan’s book, enhancing the elegant prose with additional bits of rich characterization and handsomely shot scenery.- Boston Globe
- Posted May 23, 2018
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