Blue Chips
Paramount Pictures | Release Date: February 18, 1994 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
54
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 21 Critic Reviews
Positive:
11
Mixed:
8
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
40
Washington PostDesson Thomson
If it wasn't for some exciting roundball action, Shaquille O'Neal's hulking-dunking presence and a wonderfully guttural performance from coach Nick Nolte, you'd slither off the bench asleep. Read full review
50
TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not Credited)
A good concept fails to become a good movie in this predictable tale of corruption in college basketball, featuring the ubiquitous superstar and corporate pitchman Shaquille O'Neal. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesPeter Rainer
At its best, though, Blue Chips is really about the wiggy, muscle-twitch world of high-pressure college athletics. The movie is best around the edges, when it's jamming and anecdotal and not taking itself so heroically seriously. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
The folly of Blue Chips is that the film makes this greased-palm corruption seem an even bigger sin than it is. (It's like a political drama made by someone who is shocked, shocked at the sleaze of campaign financing.) Read full review
40
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
The problem with this film's earnest script about corruption in college basketball is that the usually witty Ron Shelton (Bull Durham, White Men Can't Jump) wrote it long before he developed his familiar jivey style. Not even an unsentimental basketball fan like director William Friedkin can wash away all the corn syrup. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
The performances of Mary McDonnell as the coach's ex-wife and Alfre Woodard as a ballplayer's ambitious mom raise the dramatic levels to such a degree that you might want to see the movie for their performances alone. Read full review
40
VarietyTodd McCarthy
More numbing than exciting.
50
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
But this serious film feels strangely unfinished, as if it hadn't been fully thought out. [18 Feb 1994, p.G5]
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