Lisa Alspector

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Chicago Reader
For 550 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 44% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 54% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 13.3 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Lisa Alspector's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 52
Highest review score: 100 Tarzan
Lowest review score: 0 Bless the Child
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 178 out of 550
  2. Mixed: 239 out of 550
  3. Negative: 133 out of 550
550 movie reviews
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    • 21 Metascore
    • 20 Lisa Alspector
    I Still Know What You Did Last Summer
    This 1998 sequel seems almost deliberately designed to disappoint--our enjoyment is supposed to lie in making fun of the obvious red herrings, contrived opportunities to show cleavage, melodramatic dialogue, gullible characters, and inevitable to-be-continued ending.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    Loser
    Intriguing but poorly executed ideas are the basis of this not entirely unappealing romantic comedy.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    Osmosis Jones
    Cathartically disgusting adventure movie.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 20 Lisa Alspector
    Joe Somebody
    Wasn't worth Allen's time and isn't worth yours.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 20 Lisa Alspector
    Deep Impact
    Michael Tolkin and Bruce Joel Rubin's straightforward script and Mimi Leder's toneless direction make this attempt so boring that the titles counting down the months, weeks, and finally hours to impact are best used to gauge how soon the movie will be over.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    Behind Enemy Lines
    The end justifies the means as long as everything turns out OK for the not-too-obedient American soldier and everyone else who enjoys Coca-Cola.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    Bride of the Wind
    Director Bruce Beresford -- not intending to be funny but succeeding wildly.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    All the Rage
    Two generic ideas amount to nothing in this theatrical dark comedy about violence and information overload.
    • 24 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    The Suburbans
    The movie's repeated attempts to combine seriousness and humor as in a blender give it a dysfunctionally earnest tone.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
    This kind of wheel spinning comes from having the desire to speak but nothing much to say, and Smith, who's made a slight movie about his being a slight filmmaker, seems to know this.
    • 10 Metascore
    • 20 Lisa Alspector
    Whipped
    This gross sex farce actually has a point, though about half the population won't like what it is.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    Superstar
    Contrasting the erotic with the disgusting is usually provocative and can be funny, but not in this underdog comedy.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 10 Lisa Alspector
    Little Nicky
    Adam Sandler displays no virtuosity and stirs no pathos in this special-effects comedy.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 20 Lisa Alspector
    A Dog of Flanders
    Full of meaningless tragedies left unjustified by the absurdly optimistic ending .. (an) intolerable story.
    • 22 Metascore
    • 20 Lisa Alspector
    Out Cold
    As if to justify a serious discussion of this comedy before dissing it, some reviewers have pointed out that it evokes Casablanca. Maybe that's why the plot seems imposed on the characters.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 20 Lisa Alspector
    G.I. Jane
    Virtually unendurable.
    • 24 Metascore
    • 20 Lisa Alspector
    Autumn in New York
    The inevitable isn't worth the wait.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 20 Lisa Alspector
    Dark City
    One reason this production-design vehicle is so incredibly boring is that the characters keep having to explain the plot to one another.
    • 23 Metascore
    • 20 Lisa Alspector
    Ready to Rumble
    This gross-out action comedy gets good mileage from its high-energy music and World Championship Wrestling characters, and leads David Arquette and Scott Caan are expertly pathetic.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    Boiler Room
    Fast-paced editing doesn't compensate for unconvincing dialogue.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    Dudley Do-Right
    This terrible live-action comedy based on Jay Ward cartoons has its moments and its near misses.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 20 Lisa Alspector
    Snow Day
    This grasping comedy targets kids of all ages but will please no one as it exploits exhausted ideas about adolescence.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    Double Jeopardy
    In this inept thriller...the script is a coloring book, and the director's careful to stay within the lines.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 20 Lisa Alspector
    Return to Never Land
    Grossly unimaginative.
    • 7 Metascore
    • 20 Lisa Alspector
    Screwed
    First-time directors Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski must have written the script for this comedy when they were about 12--and not changed a word.
    • 29 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    Backstage
    People frequently cover the camera lens with their hands or refer to the "documentary" being filmed, as if to assure us that what we're seeing is real.
    • 24 Metascore
    • 0 Lisa Alspector
    Jawbreaker
    This derivative concept movie is tiresomely slick as well as shamefully sloppy, and someone should issue a restraining order requiring writer-director Darren Stein to stay at least 100 yards away from irony.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 20 Lisa Alspector
    Lake Placid
    The shticky dialogue undercuts the solid genre plotting, which undercuts the humor.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    Dr. Dolittle 2
    Too much plot and too much faith in special effects and adolescent humor doom this "Babe" wannabe.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    The Invisible Circus
    In nearly every scene of her dangerously underwritten role, Diaz has a mouthful of cliches.
    • 16 Metascore
    • 10 Lisa Alspector
    The Learning Curve
    A euphemism for the right of anyone to make movies just as awful as those of big studios.
    • 16 Metascore
    • 20 Lisa Alspector
    Urban Legends: Final Cut
    Doesn't do much with its pseudosavvy characters.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 10 Lisa Alspector
    Josie and the Pussycats
    The insultingly trendy post-postmodern tale rationalizes its own product placement by using overkill.
    • 27 Metascore
    • 10 Lisa Alspector
    Beverly Hills Ninja
    It makes me sick all over again just describing this--the most affecting scene in a sluggish would-be comedy that reflects the dubious state of the art of fat male comedians exploiting themselves in 1997, the year its star died.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    I Know What You Did Last Summer
    Writer Kevin Williamson, who's also responsible for the overrated "Scream," sets cleverness above emotional impact in a poorly conceived 1997 thriller with plenty of empty references.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 20 Lisa Alspector
    Birthday Girl
    The most subtly revolting aspect of the movie is how it manages to exploit violence for cheap thrills, in part by equating submission with love.
    • 14 Metascore
    • 10 Lisa Alspector
    The In Crowd
    Formula thriller that exploits homosexuality better than murder-mystery clues.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 20 Lisa Alspector
    Nutty Professor II: The Klumps
    Wastes most of its 110 minutes making impotent jokes about male sexual behavior and the repugnance of old women.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    Dinosaur
    This movie's story must have been computer generated along with its animation.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 20 Lisa Alspector
    The Saint
    This insufferable romance-adventure includes vague comedy as well as unintentional humor, and its target audience seems to be preadolescents who won't notice the calculated enthusiasm with which it sidesteps sexuality.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 20 Lisa Alspector
    Psycho Beach Party
    This multigenre parody is excruciatingly slow and unamusing; a go-go dancer in the opening and closing credits does as much in a few minutes to shake up our perspective on a bygone aesthetic as the entire narrative in between.
    • 27 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    Head Over Heels
    More of the abundant sight gags and slips of the tongue originate in bathrooms and bedrooms than are actually set there.
    • 20 Metascore
    • 10 Lisa Alspector
    Corky Romano
    Corky never becomes sympathetic, and without this fundamental irony the movie doesn't have a leg to stand on.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    Michael Jordan to the Max
    Unlike Michael Jordan, this 45-minute large-format movie demonstrates mostly unrealized potential.
    • 24 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    The Skulls
    Initially tolerable but increasingly stupid thriller.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    Gossip
    The message must have got lost somewhere in the plot twists of this would-be topical thriller about the power of hearsay on a college campus.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 20 Lisa Alspector
    Air Force One
    Wolfgang Petersen and writer Andrew Marlowe, apparently afraid to really make fun of any American icons, challenge us to take the story straight no matter what, but the only thing this ponderous movie has going for it is its unintentional humor.
    • 21 Metascore
    • 20 Lisa Alspector
    Summer Catch
    Awful light drama.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    The Fifth Element
    Even the revelation of what the fifth element is at the end is disingenuous--in fact, the archness of this whole project is repellent.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 20 Lisa Alspector
    102 Dalmatians
    The elaborate climax set in a Paris bakery is the least boring part of this trained-animal movie.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    Bubble Boy
    This Farrelly brothers "hommage" replicates the mechanics of their work without echoing its spirit or complex tone, and many of the deliberate offenses fail to transcend mere exploitation.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 10 Lisa Alspector
    Kiss the Girls
    Misguided attempts at political correctness make this serial-killer movie stupid instead of just dull.
    • 30 Metascore
    • 10 Lisa Alspector
    The Replacements
    This programmatic male-bonding comedy doesn't even borrow well.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    Anastasia
    A story that holds little suspense; we know exactly how happily this animated musical will end--and the wait isn't very diverting.
    • 12 Metascore
    • 20 Lisa Alspector
    The Avengers
    The grasping novelty of the visuals doesn't rival the uncharismatic leads or the hopelessly, unironically banal plot.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 20 Lisa Alspector
    Vertical Limit
    This asthma-inducing adventure set on K2 starts out seeming as if its corny storytelling and phony-looking settings were designed to show that it's as much about genre-movie conventions as anything else.
    • 15 Metascore
    • 10 Lisa Alspector
    Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2
    A straight exploitation story.
    • 24 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    Get Carter
    It's almost always night and almost always raining.
    • 23 Metascore
    • 10 Lisa Alspector
    Bats
    All I saw were unimpressive digital effects; artless, quick-cut abstracted gore; and a last-ditch attempt to evoke a visceral response by heaping the climactic scene with bat shit.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 20 Lisa Alspector
    Collateral Damage
    Ludicrous revenge thriller.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    Any Given Sunday
    By the time the manic camera slows down to reveal the back stories of the characters, everyone's motives are either moot or redundant.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    Very Bad Things
    As the characters behave with symbolic excess in situations designed to provoke their bigotry and self-interest, superficial black comedy periodically gives way to painful drama.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 10 Lisa Alspector
    Mercury Rising
    The actors' serious faces are out of place in this hopelessly silly action conspiracy.
    • 24 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    Dirty Work
    The pranks are as bland as Macdonald’s demeanor, which is supposed to subvert expectations about the role of the straight man in a comedy duo; the subjects of running gags range from anal rape to anal rape.
    • 19 Metascore
    • 20 Lisa Alspector
    Lost & Found
    Schmaltzy comedy.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    Sugar & Spice
    This ambiguously pitched comedy--its idea of sexy humor is a cheerleader farting--shoots for camp without bothering with satire.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    Angela's Ashes
    If misery were inherently interesting, this adaptation starring Emily Watson and Robert Carlyle as a couple plagued by alcoholism and child mortality might be too.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    I Dreamed of Africa
    Ultimately the movie is alluring and respectful--its sadness may be what saves it from becoming sensationalist or trite.
    • 13 Metascore
    • 10 Lisa Alspector
    Down to You
    Prinze and Stiles regularly talk to the camera, but that doesn't make their characters self-aware.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    Idle Hands
    Their splashy gore is more convincing than this incompetent horror-comedy's attempt to mock bourgeois high school dissoluteness without appearing judgmental.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    Titus
    Even the most shocking elements of the story are made bland by childish overkill.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    One Night at McCool's
    The story, which is even dumber than it sounds, is told in flashback.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    The Real Blonde
    If DiCillo had been going anywhere with this, I'd have gladly followed. But setting up petty ironies and pathetic references to Woody Allen seems to be his only goal.
    • 9 Metascore
    • 20 Lisa Alspector
    Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000
    Seems like a miscalculation on multiple levels.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 20 Lisa Alspector
    Love & Sex
    Failed romantic comedy.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 37 Lisa Alspector
    Leave It to Beaver
    Dead-on imitations of some of the characters from the television series created by Bob Mosher and Joe Connelly will seem pointlessly stylized to viewers unfamiliar with the old sitcom.
    • 19 Metascore
    • 20 Lisa Alspector
    Virus
    Until the diverting special effects take center stage, this story, about an alien intelligence that builds an army out of flesh and metal, pathetically exploits genre conventions without generating self-reference, camp, or thrills.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    The Out-of-Towners
    Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn are too good for this embarrassing remake.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 10 Lisa Alspector
    Analyze This
    This blunt comedy suffers from poor pacing, colorless dialogue, and subpar performances by the two leads that reveal just how much a director contributes to our perception of what a star is.
    • 19 Metascore
    • 20 Lisa Alspector
    Supernova
    This mildly moody SF thriller belabors standard dramatic conceits involving jealousy and sexual betrayal.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    Stuart Little
    Boring, irksome family movie.
    • 25 Metascore
    • 10 Lisa Alspector
    Here on Earth
    Neither the love nor the loss in this tear-jerking romance contains much drama.
    • 29 Metascore
    • 20 Lisa Alspector
    The Amati Girls
    The characters seem both reduced and idealized, and the plot has turns a dispassionate dramatist would avoid.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    The Astronaut's Wife
    Slow, arty thriller.
    • 28 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    I Am Sam
    It’s a heart-tugging scenario undermined by a striking hypocrisy: obscuring a hot-button issue in casting, some actors with Down's syndrome have minor roles, while Penn plays the lead -- and chews the scenery.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 25 Lisa Alspector
    Barney's Great Adventure
    With very little modification, this archly innocuous children's musical could have been marketed as a sequel to Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    Snatch.
    Ritchie may be skilled at generating controlled chaos, but his surprise-a-minute strategy ultimately holds no surprises; Snatch is even more frenetically boring than his 1999 "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels."
    • 23 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    Love Stinks
    Exploits all the cliches about shrewish women and pussy-whipped men without achieving satire.
    • 32 Metascore
    • 10 Lisa Alspector
    Godzilla
    Overlong, neither funny nor scary movie about a big lizard.
    • 17 Metascore
    • 0 Lisa Alspector
    Bless the Child
    Horrendous dialogue and horrific directing dominate this thriller.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    Lisa Picard Is Famous
    Tedious mockumentary.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    Bait
    This comedy-thriller that has no particular motive for changing tones.
    • 29 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    Scary Movie 2
    The movie occasionally makes an unexpectereference -- though with more desperation than wit.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    Suicide Kings
    The premise of this neither dark nor funny movie--which wants to be both--is that it's somehow ironic when wealthy characters are motivated by greed.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
    The thin story covering her acquisition of one wave after another while narrowly escaping death time and again is strictly for player one.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 20 Lisa Alspector
    8 ½ Women
    Writer-director Peter Greenaway never uses narrative lightly...references to the act of filmmaking exhaust their impact pretty quickly.
    • 14 Metascore
    • 10 Lisa Alspector
    Dungeons & Dragons
    The plot somehow manages to be both hackneyed and convoluted.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    Speaking in Strings
    Conveys little sense of a connection, as if di Florio had made it mainly because she had access to a celebrity.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 10 Lisa Alspector
    Spawn
    This hopelessly redundant action gross-out aspires to a form of hip vacuousness--and may achieve it.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 30 Lisa Alspector
    M. Butterfly
    The fundamental problems with David Cronenberg's disastrous 1993 adaptation, written by Hwang himself, are twofold: the unsuitability of such a premise for film, where the actors and audience no longer share the same space, and the miscasting of Jeremy Irons as the accountant and John Lone as the diva.
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