Susan Wloszczyna

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RogerEbert.com, USA Today
For 678 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 53% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 44% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 7.9 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Susan Wloszczyna's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 58
Highest review score: 100 Amy
Lowest review score: 0 Nine Lives
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 347 out of 678
  2. Mixed: 183 out of 678
  3. Negative: 148 out of 678
678 movie reviews
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    • 34 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Freejack
    Although delayed several months for fine-tuning, Freejack hijacks any potential cult status with drab visuals and a lousy score. Even Jagger fans aren't going to get much satisfaction out of that. [20 Jan 1992, p.4D]
    • USA Today
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Look Who's Talking
    Heckerling stoops to the obvious at times and there are two car chases too many. But Look Who's Talking never insults the intelligence of adults or babies, and that's quite a feat for any comedy. [13 Oct 1989, p.4D]
    • USA Today
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Metroland
    Bale tends to be overwrought and self-conscious as he wrestles with his demons, here in both '60s flashbacks (the liveliest segment) and in the 1977 present, in which punk clubs and easy women represent temptation. [09 Apr 1999]
    • USA Today
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Bounce
    Truth is, Affleck and Paltrow flunk Chemistry 101. They aren't believable even as a fake couple.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Love & Air Sex
    Both David-Stahl and Bell are appealing actors but unfortunately their easy-to-relate-to storyline is pretty much upstaged by the rowdy air-sex scenes.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Earth to Echo
    What ultimately should have been borrowed from Spielberg’s oeuvre but isn’t is a sense of wonder and achievement whenever characters come in contact with the unknown or overcome a great obstacle as a team. Imitation should be flattering, not flattening.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    The Star
    A feature debut that might have its heart in the right place but can’t quite manage to smoothly blend the spiritual with the silly without a few Biblical hitches here and there.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    True Lies
    Let others recharge that tired Die Hard formula. Cameron invents a new kind of family therapy that saves your marriage and the world. [15 Jul 1994 Pg. 01.D]
    • USA Today
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Night of the Living Dead
    It's still a sick kick to see the little girl (with braces, no less) sink her teeth into her own mother. But doing a Sunset of the Dead might have been a more appetizing idea. [23 Oct 1990, p.6D]
    • USA Today
    • 29 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    The Best of Me
    As a moviegoer, however, you do have a choice. Either weep with them–or laugh at them. Or stay far, far away.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Girl, Interrupted
    Ryder's commitment is impressive. If her movie only had her courage.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    200 Cigarettes
    While the film comes to a mildly clever conclusion, it feels like a bottle of vintage champagne that never gets to pop its cork at midnight. All that fizz potential wasted. [26 Feb 1999]
    • USA Today
    • 40 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Lethal Weapon 3
    In its third go-round, the Lethal Weapon arsenal is running out of ammunition. [15 May 1992]
    • USA Today
    • 46 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Forces of Nature
    Works best as a ponderous metaphor for life's uncertainties. As a lighthearted comedy, the force, alas, is not with it. [19 March 1999, Life, p.13E]
    • USA Today
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Standing Tall
    Simply falls short.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Office Christmas Party
    Alas, Office Christmas Party serves as yet another reminder that allowing your cast to madly improvise (as evident with an unnecessary end-credits blooper reel) instead of actually providing a coherent script with a scintilla of logic often leads to a decline in sustained laughter.
    • 29 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Rock the Kasbah
    In the end, it is up to Leem Lubany, a beauty who hails from Palestine and made her debut in the 2013 Oscar-nominated foreign language film "Omar," to lend a much-needed grace note as Salima.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Hamlet
    But all the devices and upgrades do little to bring the poetry's meaning into clearer and more relevant focus for today's audiences.
    • USA Today
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Dinosaur
    Fossilized script spoils effects.
    • USA Today
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Ghostbusters
    The same weakness that has plagued a goodly portion of major releases this year that rely on past successes for their reason to exist rears up again: the lack of the new and fresh.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    House Party
    House Party has enough youthful exuberance to shake the rafters. Too bad it has enough plot to fill only a closet. [8 Mar 1990, p.4D]
    • USA Today
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Murder on the Orient Express
    Branagh, the actor, comes through unscathed. Branagh, the director, not so much.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Woman Walks Ahead
    Clumsily conflates our country’s racist genocide of Native Americans with the era’s marginalizing of women and their lack of rights.
    • 28 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    The Other Sister
    Consider The Other Sister emotional quicksand. [26 February 1999, Life, p.5E]
    • USA Today
    • 50 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Passenger 57
    Passenger 57 already has been labeled Die Hard on a plane. Die Lite is more like it. [06 Nov 1992, p.2D]
    • USA Today
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    The Fifth Element
    But for all the fancy-schmancy effects (budget: $90 million-plus), the vision of a hypercongested metropolis is not much more sophisticated than an episode of "The Jetsons." [9 May 1997]
    • USA Today
    • 32 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Someone Like You...
    A blah romantic comedy that has the bad taste to force the heavenly Ashley Judd into being an insecure, date-desperate, quirky career gal.
    • 26 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Phantoms
    Until it coughs up a ridiculously convoluted explanation of why an isolated town in Colorado suddenly goes deader than a weekday matinee of "The Postman," Phantoms delivers the shivers.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Big Daddy
    There's some heavy-duty Oedipal stuff going on underneath all the running gags about Hooters restaurants. [25 June 1999, Life, p.8E]
    • USA Today
    • 25 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    American Outlaws
    A weak whinny of a horse opera tailor-made for those who can't quite locate "Young Guns" or "The Long Riders" in their video store.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    The Dancer
    The Dancer clearly needed a better task master behind the camera. There are too many scenes of Fuller physically and mentally suffering for her art as she questions if what she does actually qualifies as dance.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Beach House
    As the director, co-writer, editor and composer of ominous piano tinkling heard on the soundtrack, Jason Saltiel is nothing but ambitious when it comes to this semi-successful creepy thriller that, intentionally or not, pushes the #MeToo buttons perhaps a little too hard.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    The 6th Day
    Edited like the world's most expensive car ad. The screen opens and closes like a nervous accordion, and the action shifts speeds like crazy.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    10 Things I Hate About You
    While the attractive cast is willing, the translation into '90s teen culture is weak -- like a clueless adult's notion of cool.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    The Tigger Movie
    The story isn't a grabber.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Doc Hollywood
    Fox's innate likability does go a long way to make sitcom- shallow Doc Hollywood mildly entertaining. [02 Aug 1991, p.5D]
    • USA Today
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Torn
    As a piece of filmmaking, Torn is slightly above TV-movie quality.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Rio 2
    Rio 2 has exhausted its limited amount of charm. Most regrettably, Rita Moreno appears in her first movie in eight years as Jewel’s overbearing Aunt Mimi but is barely allowed to make an impression.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Social Animals
    The film desperately tries to be wild and out of control, but it ends up as more of a slapdash portrait of cartoony desperation than any sort of realistic depiction of millennial angst when it comes to current-day female lifestyle choices.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Dumb and Dumber To
    Still, I laughed — enough to feel mortified at myself.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    The Boss Baby
    Much like any child, even a supposedly surefire nugget of an idea requires careful nurturing. In this case, The Boss Baby often tries too hard and succeeds too little.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Heartbreakers
    The nasty, overlong and undisciplined sourball of a sex farce about a mother-daughter con team will nonetheless satisfy bigenerational libidinous fantasies.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Last Action Hero
    This movie-within-a-movie action-comedy spoof is a too long, too loud tease as it toys with the Schwarzen-dude's well-toned cinematic image. [18 Jun 1993, p.1D]
    • USA Today
    • 31 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    The Book of Henry
    Suddenly, The Book of Henry turns into a not very believable thriller, complete with a ticking clock and a talent show.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    The Face of Love
    If Nancy Meyers ever decided to dabble in gothic romance, it probably would turn out to be something like The Face of Love.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Can't Hardly Wait
    Seeing gawky Charlie Korsmo, one-time movie moppet, as a superbrain whose introduction to alcohol leads him to do a rip-roaring rendition of Guns N' Roses' Paradise City, is worth a smile or two. But even that can't save [the] film.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Mortal Kombat
    Just like the popular (and more graphically violent) video game it's spun from, kung-fooy and kartoony Kombat shoves plot and personality aside to focus on action cloaked in mystic mumbo-jumbo and gloomy mock-gothic graphics. [21 Aug 1995 Pg. 03.D]
    • USA Today
    • 48 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    F/X2
    The cheesy production values won't grab anyone. When Bryan-Brian aren't schmoozing, there's not much to look at. It's anyone's guess whether this sequel will be as big a hit on tape. But it'll end up on the shelf soon enough. [10 May 1991, p.2D]
    • USA Today
    • 33 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    I Dreamed of Africa
    While Basinger admirably invests her role with deep passion and looks splendid in her Kenya khakis, the true story she stars in is disappointingly tame and dramatically inert.
    • USA Today
    • 19 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Lost & Found
    The distractions are more satisfying than the romantic main course. [23 April 1999, Life, p.8E]
    • USA Today
    • 37 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Mercury Rising
    And though young Miko Hughes does a fine job as the traumatized Simon, this ain't no "Rainboy". [3 Apr 1998, p.SE]
    • USA Today
    • 44 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Renaissance Man
    Warm, squishy and manipulative, like being slobbered on by a mongrel pup that's begging for more Snausages.[03 Jun 1994]
    • USA Today
    • 47 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Project Almanac
    It’s enough to make H.G. Wells roll his eyes as he rolls in his grave.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Partisan
    Partisan, Cassel’s latest movie that smartly keeps his innate menace on a slow, low simmer, isn’t nearly as convincing or compelling as its star.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Rush
    I might have tolerated the film much more with the sound off. With the volume on, this movie feels like a mucho-macho Saturday morning cartoon—specifically Bugs Bunny toying with his eternal pursuer, Elmer Fudd.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    The Waterboy
    As funny as it can be, this underdawg comedy isn't much more than Sandler's golf-oriented "Happy Gilmore" with a Cajun accent. [6 November 1998, p. 10E]
    • USA Today
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Center Stage
    It's so predictable, you can set your watch to when the bulimic will sneak away to the bathroom.
    • USA Today
    • 19 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Crave
    Crave, a creepy and deliberately paced thriller that is effective in its unpleasantness.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Nine Months
    Writer/director Chris Columbus (Mrs. Doubtfire) delivers his usual slapstick and sap shtick, but the sitcom-slick results fall flat. (It's also based on a French farce - bad sign.) [12 July 1995, p.1D]
    • USA Today
    • 43 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls
    But the best moments are in the trailer (the squirting skunk, the asparagus in the teeth), and they are funnier in short doses than lazily strung together. [10 Nov 1995 Pg. 01.D]
    • USA Today
    • 42 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    The Rage: Carrie 2
    The original was a Midol moment, this is a Prozac exercise. [12 March 1999, Life, p.8E]
    • USA Today
    • 29 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Tasting Menu
    Instead of focusing on gastronomic nirvana, this listless culinary drama feels and looks more like a glossy European travel commercial.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Cecil B. DeMented
    Where once Waters was brilliantly polluted, now he comes off diluted.
    • USA Today
    • 44 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    This Is Where I Leave You
    The kid is the most mature person on screen. Otherwise, it is gripe, gripe, gripe and snipe, snipe, snipe, all served family style with a bare minimum of relatability.
    • 25 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    The Next Best Thing
    Funny how Madonna borrows Everett, Julia Roberts' gay pal from "My Best Friend's Wedding," and Bratt, Roberts' real-life beau, to be her co-stars. If only she could borrow her talent.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Stella
    But once the updated story - now about an unwed mom who sacrifices all for her child rather than a divorcee who married above her class - starts clinging to the original's plot machinations, Stella turns into one helluva maudlin mess. [2 Feb 1990, p.4D]
    • USA Today
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Atlantis: The Lost Empire
    What Atlantis gains in chills and thrills, it loses in pure emotion.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Save the Last Dance
    Thomas' easygoing warmth helps to melt Stiles' icy veneer, and one of Dance's few pleasures is an extended musical segment where she tries to ape his homeboy posturings.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    ma ma
    More important than the washed-out blue-tinged rooms, bleached white interiors and sun-blasted sea and sand is Cruz, who single-handedly breathes a sense of genuineness into this maudlin exercise even if she can’t cure all of its flaws.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    The Out-of-Towners
    The only possible reasons to do this concept again is sheer laziness (it's easier to borrow an idea) and pure greed (it's cheaper to borrow an idea). [2 April 1999, Life, p.6E]
    • USA Today
    • 49 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Mystery, Alaska
    If you drop the "c" in hockey you get a perfect description of Mystery, Alaska.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Muppets from Space
    The usually peppy troupe is simply going through the show-biz motions rather than rocketing to where no Muppet caper has gone before. [14 July 1999, p.12D]
    • USA Today
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    The Last Boy Scout
    Directed by Tony Scott (Top Gun) with his usual testosterone-injected verve, Scout is never boring but hardly edifying. With a nod to the '90s, the formula does digress to allow the pals to expose their emotional wounds to each other. [13 Dec 1991, p.4D]
    • USA Today
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    The Opposite of Sex
    The opposite of entertainment, a self-satisfied soap opera from hell. But anyone itchy to see Ricci in her fleshy glory will adore her femme fatale for the Jerry Springer age, a Stanwyck stoked on steroids and SweeTarts.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Tank Girl
    Instead of hip, though, Tank Girl is prefab and purified, a calculated cult attraction. It's Danger by Mattel, and Petty, in her ripped stockings and torpedo bra, is a cyber-Barbie. This is one chick flick that at least has bite. Too bad its teeth are false. [3 Apr 1995, p.4D]
    • USA Today
    • 44 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Jobs
    Save for a few references of being abandoned by his birth parents and adopted later, the source of Jobs's jerky behavior never is revealed.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Boys on the Side
    Too bad Boys has more gas than wind beneath its wings. [03 Feb 1995, Pg.04.D]
    • USA Today
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Quick Change
    Don't look for any belly laughs, but Quick Change will help you put on a happy face. [13 Jul 1990, p. 4D]
    • USA Today
    • 48 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Albino Alligator
    Pretentious and show-offy, the noirish drama fairly reeks of film-student overkill.
    • USA Today
    • 41 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Godzilla 2000
    May be dull, but the familiarity of it all makes it feel ceremonial, a reassuring ritual.
    • USA Today
    • 41 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Lionheart
    But there are kicks a-plenty besides the times J-C flings his tootsies of terror at opponents. [14 Jan 1991, p.6D]
    • USA Today
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    The French Minister
    It is never a good situation when a subtitled foreign release is highly dependent on words to get its point across—especially when those words are supposed to make you laugh.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Third Person
    This layered melodrama strains for emotional impact with only occasional success while eventually blurring into an overlong and contrived parlor trick.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    The Beverly Hillbillies
    Those who feel a kinship to this brand of corn, dig in. The rest should head for the hills. [15 Oct 1993, p.5D]
    • USA Today
    • 45 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    The Bone Collector
    The ending stinks.
    • USA Today
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Million Dollar Arm
    This supposedly uplifting true-life baseball tale never quite strikes the necessary emotional sweet spots that these types of inspirational sports movies shamelessly if effectively milk, despite a pitch with great potential.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Circle of Friends
    Circle has a wit and warmth that makes something as glibly contemporary as Reality Bites seem trite and toothless. [15 Mar 1995, Pg.06.D]
    • USA Today
    • 49 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    The Mummy
    A soulless spectacle.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Final Destination
    Proudly stupid, silly and gory.
    • USA Today
    • 46 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Dr. Dolittle
    Dr. Dolittle does do a lot of stuff right. [ 26 June 1998, p. 12 E]
    • USA Today
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Crimson Tide
    Nothing better than boys with really big toys. Especially when the boys are men like Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman, top talents who duke it out among the nukes in the propulsively pulse-pounding undersea thriller Crimson Tide. [12May1995 Pg.01.D]
    • USA Today
    • 40 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    The Power of One
    The Power of One plays like a plot-heavy South African fairy tale with one too many big, bad wolves. [27 March 1992, p.4D]
    • USA Today
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Home
    I kept thinking about “Lilo & Stitch” while watching Home, a decidedly disappointing effort based on the popular kid-lit book “The True Meaning of Smekday” from the already embattled folks at DreamWorks Animation.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Anna
    It's as messy as a teen’s bedroom and packed with all manner of distracting clutter that needlessly burdens a plot.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Morgan
    My diagnosis of why Morgan malfunctions as a chilling plunge into blood-splattered mayhem is that, before the midway point, it is pretty obvious what the eventual outcome and supposed big reveal will be. This is not the fault of the actors necessarily — there are highly respected talents involved here. It is just that we have seen most of this unfold before.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Angel Eyes
    A wisp of ghost story that promises insight but is strictly soft focus.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Teaching Mrs. Tingle
    Mirren is about the only reason this slow-moving revenge tale tingles at all.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Life
    Spend 60 years in jail with Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence, and you'll understand why they call it the pokey. [16 April 1999, Life, p.5E]
    • USA Today
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Goodbye Christopher Robin
    What could have been a salute to the power of imagination to heal damaged souls and broken relationships instead opts to focus on tragic events.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 50 Susan Wloszczyna
    Final Analysis
    Final is a bad-line hoot-a-rama. Gere after aiding an Hispanic criminal: ''If Pepe is safe, then we are all safe.'' Basinger on her marriage: ''We share an apartment - emphasis on apart.'' But every joke needs a punchline. Alas, the finale of Final Analysis - the worst case of Vertigo sickness since Mel Brooks' High Anxiety - is just punch-drunk. [7 Feb 1992, p.5D]
    • USA Today
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