Michael Wilmington

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Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times
For 1,969 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 75% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 23% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 7.2 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Michael Wilmington's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 73
Highest review score: 100 Sweet Sixteen
Lowest review score: 0 Repossessed
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,505 out of 1969
  2. Mixed: 305 out of 1969
  3. Negative: 159 out of 1969
1969 movie reviews
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    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Michael Wilmington
    Who Killed the Electric Car?
    Fascinating documentary.
    • 32 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Broken Bridges
    Keith -- a consistent hit-maker who wrote the controversial 9/11 song "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue" -- has a future in movies if he wants it. Hopefully, they'll be better ones than this.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 38 Michael Wilmington
    How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
    I can't think of much that might happen on a date evening that could be more annoying than this movie.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 100 Michael Wilmington
    Eternity and a Day
    Somber, meditative and visually magnificent, this film, about a famous Greek author ruminating on his past, is a piece of cinematic poetry: calm, beautiful and chilling as the eternal sea against which much of it is set. [22 Oct 1998, p.2]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 45 Metascore
    • 38 Michael Wilmington
    The Kid
    Falls flat on its face.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Wilmington
    War of the Worlds
    Rivets and amazes, even if it falls just frustratingly short of the mind-expanding grandeur it could have had.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 63 Michael Wilmington
    God's Sandbox
    If you're looking for purple romance with a social conscience, it doesn't get much more purple than God's Sandbox.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 63 Michael Wilmington
    High Crimes
    It's still a disappointment: a well-mounted and well-acted suspense movie that, thanks to its illogical script, falls off a cliff midway through.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 63 Michael Wilmington
    Romance
    A singularly cheerless trip, explicit but sterile, racy but dull.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 63 Michael Wilmington
    The Pink Panther
    This Pink Panther really doesn't have to achieve the heights of the original; it just has to be funny on its own terms. But it pales there too. Kline, a master of comic hypocrisy, deserves more screen time, Emily Mortimer is wasted as Clouseau's adoring assistant Nicole and Knowles is over indulged as Xania.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 30 Michael Wilmington
    Super Mario Bros.
    The movie knocks your eyes out, at the same time it dulls the mind’s eye. Ultimately, it’s one more stop in the arcade, beckoning, waiting to soak up time and money.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Wilmington
    Va Savoir (Who Knows?)
    It may be the most serene and optimistic film Rivette has made in France. Yet even the art-house audience may undervalue it, miss the beauty, style and wit.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Fatal Instinct
    What the movie doesn't have, besides too many laughs, is either the pungent style and sociology of true film noir, or the sheer yuppie desperation of the hard-core erotic thriller. Instead of being hard-boiled, it's over easy.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 63 Michael Wilmington
    Crazy Love
    Pugach's selfishness, his inability to detach love from gratification, is the key to this crazy story.
    • 30 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    The Tuxedo
    A breakthrough for karate comedy king Chan, but not necessarily the kind we've all been waiting and hoping for. It's an ultra-digitized DreamWorks show crammed with elaborate special effects, the kind that physical-stunt specialist Chan has always avoided.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Wilmington
    Bottle Rocket
    It's a cool breeze of a comedy, with a slant on things that's dark but compassionate. Watching Bottle Rocket doesn't just make you laugh. It makes you smile between the laughs, think beneath the smiles.
    • 96 Metascore
    • 100 Michael Wilmington
    The Grapes of Wrath
    One of the great American social films: strong, ribald, deeply compassionate. [30 Sep 2005, p.C6]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 73 Metascore
    • 100 Michael Wilmington
    Ray
    A fit tribute to an entertainer who, no matter what hate or hardship threw in his way or how many mistakes he made, we can't stop loving.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Wilmington
    The Lion King
    In The Lion King, the savannas gleam and the meerkats swing. And when the animators click, their lions sing tonight. [24 June 1994, p.C]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 57 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Wilmington
    Casanova
    Hallstrom gives us a genial interpretation and a supremely good-humored film.
    • 25 Metascore
    • 63 Michael Wilmington
    Enough
    One of those movies that starts like a house afire, catches you firmly in its narrative grip and then suddenly blows itself out, not really going out with a whimper but with a big, bad, ludicrous bang.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 38 Michael Wilmington
    S.W.A.T.
    Technically clever but emotionally bankrupt...it's an almost laughably opportunistic movie.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Wilmington
    Lilya 4-Ever
    What's remarkable as we watch Lilya's plunge (and the brief, false rays of light that illuminate it) is how real Moodysson makes her plight, how intensely he makes us empathize with Lilya.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 38 Michael Wilmington
    Torque
    It may entertain you if you don't mind senseless stories and screaming soundtracks.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Wilmington
    Now, Voyager
    Much-loved 1942 piece of super-romantic schmaltz. [19 Jul 2005, p.C3]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 71 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Wilmington
    Intimate Strangers
    Such a triumph of simplicity, subtlety and tact--and of the eroticism in words, looks and glances--that the actors ravish us with sheer talent and intelligence.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 63 Michael Wilmington
    Freeze Me
    The whole movie plays like an improbable blend of "Repulsion," "High Noon" and the archetypal low-budget rape/revenge shocker "I Spit on Your Grave." Queasy audiences beware, but midnight-movie bookers take note.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Wilmington
    The End of the Affair
    Few recent movie romances have a more chilling and peculiar feel -- and a more sobering aftertaste -- than Neil Jordan's heart-rendingly cold adaptation of Affair.
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 72 Metascore
    • 100 Michael Wilmington
    Bringing Out the Dead
    Blazes up constantly with a stunning, off-kilter brilliance, an incandescent force that sometimes explodes the space between us and the screen.
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 51 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Wilmington
    All the Little Animals
    Beautifully produced: a moving film with a fascinating story and exemplary acting.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Daddy Day Care
    A likable little movie without much to offer but cute tots, recycled gags and a talented cast amiably wasting their time and ours.
    • 30 Metascore
    • 38 Michael Wilmington
    The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
    Outrageously vapid and overdone movie.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Quicksilver
    The movie is like the bikers; it's best and freest when it's just racing ahead. Whenever it stops, you ask too many questions.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 63 Michael Wilmington
    The Patriot
    As a whole, though, the movie is much less magnetic or believable than its star.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Wilmington
    Eros
    A classy triple shot of film erotica from three brilliant writer-directors.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Wilmington
    Rocky Balboa
    The movie itself, defying all odds, comes close to a knockout.
    • 100 Metascore
    • 100 Michael Wilmington
    Fanny and Alexander (re-release)
    If the uncut Fanny and Alexander is Bergman's greatest work, as I think, it's because it's his most inclusive. He shows almost everything: all his moods, conflicts, styles and many of his favorite actors.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 63 Michael Wilmington
    Full Frontal
    It's a weird little movie that's amusing enough while you watch it, offering fine acting moments and pungent insights into modern L.A.'s show-biz and media subcultures. But it doesn't leave you with much.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 63 Michael Wilmington
    I'll See You in My Dreams
    Songwriter bio on Gus Kahn (Danny Thomas); Day is his long-suffering mainstay. [13 Apr 2007, p.C5]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Michael Wilmington
    Short Cuts
    Some movies can lay claim to being the best thing around in a week, a month, a year. Robert Altman's Short Cuts is closer to being one of the all-time bests, among the finest American films since the advent of sound. [22 Oct 1993]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 84 Metascore
    • 63 Michael Wilmington
    Mutual Appreciation
    The film's mood and style are pitched somewhere between '60s American indie and French New Wave and, as you watch these people, they seem painfully, amusingly on-target. They may irritate you a little, but that's the right response.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Wilmington
    The Limey
    Intoxicatingly well-crafted entertainment about hunting down your enemy.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Wilmington
    Burn, Witch, Burn
    A smart shocker, scripted by Twilight Zone regulars Richard Matheson and Charles Beaumont.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Wilmington
    Mongolian Ping Pong
    A tender, visually stunning comedy-drama.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 100 Michael Wilmington
    The Exorcist
    This jolting tale of a 12-year-old girl possessed by the devil, her desperate movie actress mother and the two priests called in to exorcise the demon, actually seems a deeper movie now -- more intense, less formulaic or shallow. Yet it's also retained all its original hypnotic narrative grip. [2000 re-release]
    • 44 Metascore
    • 63 Michael Wilmington
    America's Sweethearts
    All these good actors and all Crystal's sass and witty candor can't bring back the heyday of Billy Wilder and Preston Sturges. Or even, most of the time, their off-days.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Wilmington
    Liam
    The acting -- especially by Borrows, Ian Hart and Hackett -- is strong and transparent, utterly convincing. The whole movie has a seamless flow and an utterly convincing sense of time and place.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Wilmington
    Young Adam
    It's a movie drama with a surface so bleak and an interior so hot with eroticism that it twists your guts to watch it.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 30 Michael Wilmington
    Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III
    Whatever magic the first two movies may have had -- and it wasn't always that apparent to anyone over the age of 10 -- has long since congealed, like stale pizza. Or mock turtle soup. [22 Mar 1993, p.F9]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 53 Metascore
    • 63 Michael Wilmington
    Highway Courtesans
    Highway Courtesans carries a feeling of truth, of bravely facing problems that are pressing and real. It's a good, informative piece on the oldest profession--and on how the world differs from what we usually see in the movies.
    • 29 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Pathfinder
    A bizarre, bloody adventure movie.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Wilmington
    Dark City
    Proyas' movie lacks a truly rich or compelling story -- although the city secret is certainly a rich and compelling idea. All too often, Dark City seems a great production design in search of a movie, an ultimate modern film noir pastiche, in which the images are so strong they overpower the drama. [27 Feb 1998]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 47 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Pink Cadillac
    Pink Cadillac has a strong visual design and lots of juicy, self-confident acting. But it doesn’t transcend its star vehicle trappings or chemistry. The construction of the story is so soft, you get the impression that if the driver and navigator were replaced, the movie might turn rattletrap and fall apart.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Nightbreed
    In Nightbreed neither the coyly horrible killers nor the horribly coy monsters register strongly enough. It's a dark beast with a flabby hide.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Wilmington
    Chances Are
    The talk and plot twists both have a flavorless, perfunctory quality.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Wilmington
    Waterloo Bridge
    This one features the heartbreaking young Vivien Leigh with her flower-like face, flashing eyes and seductive fragility; Robert Taylor is a little stiff as the hero. (isn't he always?), but it's a nice lush MGM production. [31 Oct 1999, p.34]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 81 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Wilmington
    Duel
    No movie car ride quite matches the horrific pursuit of salesman Dennis Weaver by that implacable smoke-belching truck in Spielberg's made-for-TV classic. [12 Apr 2002, p.C1]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 57 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Wilmington
    The Grandfather
    At once proudly conservative, passionately idealistic and beautifully assured.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Wilmington
    Rumble in the Bronx
    Chan is so good, so much fun to watch, that he often transcends his vehicles. And that's the case with Rumble in the Bronx, his big bid to crack the American market. [23 Feb 1996, p.C]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 30 Metascore
    • 20 Michael Wilmington
    The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter
    The Neverending Story 2 is a story you may want desperately to end. Soon. [11 Feb 1991, p.F10]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Michael Wilmington
    Traffic
    It's a thriller that really thrills, a drama that really engages, a portrait of a world and system out of joint that is painfully convincing and totally engrossing from the first simmering minute to the last explosive second.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Wilmington
    Requiem for a Dream
    Often, Requiem for a Dream is as technically inventive and daring as the Scottish heroin film "Trainspotting," but it has more resonance and feeling. And when Burstyn is on screen, it often becomes heartbreaking.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 63 Michael Wilmington
    The Life of David Gale
    By turns brilliant and simplistic, moving and preposterous, the movie takes one of the ultimate hot-button American issues -- the morality of capital punishment -- and dissolves it into a volatile mix of psychological thriller and socio-political fable.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Wilmington
    The Agronomist
    This film--one of the best and most memorable documentaries of the year so far--brings that truth-teller to us once again.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Wilmington
    Bowfinger
    One of the best and funniest things that Martin, as writer and actor, has ever done.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 63 Michael Wilmington
    Stay
    Despite the actors, the visuals and Forster's directorial swagger, the movie lacks impact.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    The Price of Milk
    This rich, gorgeous music and the wistful pastoral scenes create a rhapsodic mood that the rest of the film doesn't really sustain.
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 83 Metascore
    • 100 Michael Wilmington
    Merci Pour Le Chocolat
    It is a movie about the gradual erosion of life's seeming certainties, and it's also about the destructive immorality that may lie beneath the most exquisitely composed veneer. As we watch "Chocolat," this great director and his great actress, Huppert, convince us: Evil is.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Wilmington
    The School of Flesh
    Once again, as love dies and illusions crumble, this natural actress (Isabelle Huppert) shines with human fire. [26 March 1999, Friday, p.B]
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Michael Wilmington
    Red Heat
    Red Heat is directed in a fiery, muscular, pop-graphic style. And it has a James Horner score that puckishly mixes Prokofiev and rhythm and blues. But it's also a movie with a cramped interior. The action scenes seem to be squeezing out everything else, pressing the characters against the wall. [17 Jun 1988, p.1]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 86 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Wilmington
    The Son
    It's a movie imbued with a fierce intimacy -- a tone and style similar to cinema verite documentary -- but it's not a banal realism, even if the characters and settings in contemporary working-class Liege initially seem mundane.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 70 Michael Wilmington
    Pee-wee's Big Adventure
    The wrong crowd will find these antics infantile and offensive. The right one will have a howling good time.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Wilmington
    De-Lovely
    Kline, though, does give one of the great movie performances of the year so far.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Wilmington
    South Central
    Despite its good performances--Minns, Lumbly, Shelby and Best, as well as Plummer--South Central lacks a certain juice, heat and life. It doesn’t boil with the energy you’d expect from a gang picture, and it doesn’t have the density or rich atmosphere of a Boyz N the Hood, Do the Right Thing or New Jack City.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Little Nicky
    A feast of bad taste, a demonic hog-wallow.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Men in Black II
    A business-as-usual blockbuster blueprint that rarely surprises you.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Wilmington
    Jerry Maguire
    A hip, funny, knowing romantic sports comedy that gets a little strained when it tries to expose its heart. [13 December 1996, Friday, p.A]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 49 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Wilmington
    Brigadoon
    With its lilting Lerner-Loewe score and great Kelly dance numbers, this is almost a Hollywood musical masterpiece. But it's sabotaged by the airless "outdoor" studio sets mandated by MGM. [13 Mar 1998, p.L]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 42 Metascore
    • 40 Michael Wilmington
    Stone Cold
    An empty-headed movie: one more gargantuan, excessive, over-the-top action thriller with one more superhero -- this time ex-linebacker Brian "The Boz" Bosworth -- battling dozens of deranged villains single-handedly while trucks, motorcycles and cars crash all around him. [20 May 1991, p.F6]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 71 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Wilmington
    Black Book
    The movie scrambles our responses and covers so much ground, with such zest, that its two and a half hours race past like a firestorm.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 100 Michael Wilmington
    The Road Home
    A great love story and a deeply moving celebration of simple lives.
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 71 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Wilmington
    A Perfect World
    A Perfect World proves again, if it needs proving, that Eastwood's directorial signature is among the strongest and surest in American movies. [24 Nov 1993, p.1C]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 91 Metascore
    • 100 Michael Wilmington
    I Am Cuba
    It's impossible, when we watch "I Am Cuba" today, not to see some poignance in its soaring shots, sadness to its thrilling vistas. [08 Dec 1995, p.C]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 57 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Wilmington
    Ocean's 11
    Frank Sinatra and his Clan knock over Vegas. [07 Dec 2001, p.C1]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Wilmington
    Father of the Bride
    The movie is like a big, smug, sunny ball of fluff, batting around in a crystalline cage. It's bright and well-meaning, but there's little to grab onto or feel. Not even the presence of those expert actor/farceurs, Steve Martin and Diane Keaton, give it any real presence or bite. [20 Dec 1991, p.16]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 89 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Wilmington
    Alien
    An old nightmare, made shiny new.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 90 Michael Wilmington
    Barfly
    This seedy Barfly is beautifully written, acted and directed. It may be full of dank desire, wasted love and jesting misery--but it blooms. Whatever its flaws, it does something more films should do: It opens up territory, opens up a human being.
    • 1 Metascore
    • 0 Michael Wilmington
    Chaos
    A loathsome shocker... Watching it almost turned my stomach.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Wilmington
    Café Lumière
    It's a film objet d'art to contemplate and treasure.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 100 Michael Wilmington
    Husbands
    One of the most honest movies ever made about male friendship. [13 Feb 1998, p.N]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 87 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Wilmington
    A Tale of Two Cities
    The first, and best, of the three versions of Charles Dickens' tale of the French Revolution. [05 Dec 2008, p.C5]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 85 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Wilmington
    You Can Count on Me
    Honest, poignant and very funny, full of memorable, moving moments.
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 64 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Wilmington
    Changing Times
    This magnificent pair are the heart of Techine's film, and the sense of frayed, aging beauty and handsomeness they now carry helps project the picture's main theme: the imperishability of true love.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Wilmington
    Ratcatcher
    One of the most remarkable English-language feature debuts of recent years.
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 45 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Wilmington
    The Bedroom Window
    The Bedroom Window engrosses you in theory more than practice. As a thriller, it has elements that many recent Hitchcock pastiches have lacked: interesting characters and a somewhat complex plot. But perhaps this story simply looks good by contrast. The movie also lacks sheer juice and voltage. [16 Jan 1987, p.C17]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    How to Eat Fried Worms
    This is a picture in which the barf scenes standard in the usual crude youth comedies aren't gratuitous. They're logical climaxes.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Wilmington
    Tape
    Tape may not be a great movie, but it's a great demonstration of creativity within severe limitations.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Michael Wilmington
    Dead Poets Society
    Commands respect and affection. [2 June 1989, Calendar, p.6-1]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 54 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Wilmington
    The Bread, My Sweet
    Exactly the sort of personalized, non-assembly line treat some audiences are always trying, in vain, to find.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Wilmington
    White Fang
    London's Fang was, fundamentally, a loner and a killer; the movie Fang is a big, friendly dog, temporarily derailed into the fight game by snarling villains. That makes this White Fang, rather oversunny, overaffirmative, primarily a movie for children. But I liked it anyway, despite the softened tone, the coincidences, despite Hawke's constantly gaping mouth.
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