Austin Chronicle's Scores

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For 8,778 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 41% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 57% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 6.7 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 58
Highest review score: 100 The Searchers
Lowest review score: 0 Gummo
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4,774 out of 8778
  2. Mixed: 2,557 out of 8778
  3. Negative: 1,447 out of 8778
8778 movie reviews
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  1. X-Men Origins: Wolverine
    Wolverine is a noisy mess, an origin/prequel that's nicely full of Jackman's ace glare as Wolverine and seriously killer snarl – The Boy From Aaarrrgh! – but utterly devoid of any of the borderline subversive smarts that made Bryan Singer's "X-Men" outings so contemporarily resonant.
  2. Battle for Terra
    Battle for Terra boasts impressively executed battle sequences that, frankly, are light-years beyond anything found in the recent Star Wars animated add-ons.
  3. Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
    Ghosts indeed: This romantic comedy by name alone attempts to make funny – not to mention culturally relevant – the kind of swinging-dick misogyny that went out of fashion years ago.
  4. The Merry Gentleman
    Filled more with character studies than narrative intrigues, The Merry Gentleman also provides only sketchy personality details and background information.
  5. The Informers
    The top-line talent, particularly Thornton and Rourke, do manage to hold our attention with idiosyncratic performances, but most of the others are a jumble of fair-haired, disaffected boys.
  6. Obsessed
    The film may seem a bit undercooked until it gets to the staging of the ultimate battle, but Obsessed is swinging from the chandeliers by the end.
  7. Fighting
    Howard's snappy-smooth performance, unsurprisingly, is what elevates Fighting from its hoary genre predecessors.
  8. The Soloist
    With all the hallmarks of a prestige picture, chief among them a great cast and creative crew and an "important" message, The Soloist plays its tune with a frequently heavy hand.
  9. Tyson
    It's brutal to watch the bigger-they-are-the-harder-they-fall tragedy of this once-great heavyweight. In fact, it's enough to make you cry.
  10. Earth
    This first release from Disney’s self-explanatory new arm, Disneynature, is at the very least peripherally concerned with the planet and its dwindling prospects, but the real renewable resource here is the groundbreaking "Planet Earth" miniseries.
  11. Treeless Mountain
    The problem with this American indie filmed in Korea is that, despite the captivating faces and sad predicament of these little girls, nothing much happens.
  12. State of Play
    It neither embarrasses the original, nor is superior to it in any way.
  13. 17 Again
    Though remaining sweet and tasty, Efron, in his first non-singing and dancing feature film proves he has an agreeable and kinetic screen presence, although his ability to convince us he's truly a 37-year-old encased in a 17-year-old's body is dramatically dubious.
  14. American Violet
    Worth a look.
  15. Crank: High Voltage
    Laughably and knowingly preposterous, cheerfully un-PC, and violent in a way that makes the myriad slaphappy deaths of Wile E. Coyote seem downright dull in comparison.
  16. Every Little Step
    Filmmakers nicely mix the historical and the tributary, honoring both Bennett's cultural landmark and the dancers who dream of joining its ranks.
  17. Is Anybody There?
    On the whole, there are precious few life lessons in Is Anybody There? that haven't been noted before.
  18. Lemon Tree
    The most remarkable aspect of Lemon Tree, however, and the one that's most likely to land this film on many year-end Best Foreign Film lists, is Abbass' devastating and marvelously restrained performance.
  19. Dragonball: Evolution
    Bottom line: costumed Goku and Chi Chi cosplayers may argue the finer points of this adaptation, but it is fairly dazzling it its own overextended, futurist-teenpulp fashion, and Chow makes a vastly more entertaining Roshi than he did a King.
  20. Hannah Montana: The Movie
    Cornpone caricatures abound (witness "Hoedown Throwdown," in which Miley sunnily urges us to "pop it, lock it, polka dot it"), but so do worthy messages about responsibility – to family, community, even Mother Earth.
  21. Observe and Report
    Midway through, a character remarks as he leaves the scene of a takedown of Ronnie, "I thought this was going to be funny, but it's just kind of sad." The same thing is true about the movie as a whole.
  22. Lymelife
    Lymelife arrives with an impressive pedigree but, unfortunately, little originality.
  23. Adventureland
    A confident return to the kind of teen comedy that's funny without being raunchy, youthful without being juvenile, and reflective without hitting you over the head.
  24. Sugar
    Sugar is a curiosity – too somber for a picaresque, too arm's-length for much emotional effect – and while it's interesting, it's never truly absorbing.
  25. Alien Trespass
    This is an impressively realized (and, yes, occasionally, unavoidably humorous) valentine to Hollywood's sci-fi glory days – all heart, no snark, and one big eye.
  26. Fast & Furious
    The stripped-down title gets at what we're really here for: the cars. Are they fast? Check. Are they furious? Yep.
  27. Gigantic
    It's just not all that interesting to watch two pretty young things go through the muddled rituals of the pas de duh when I can, you know, do it just as poorly myself.
  28. Paris 36
    In the end, it's much ado about nothing. Oh, the ennui, the ennui.
  29. Goodbye Solo
    Bahrani's small marvel of a film.
  30. Monsters vs Aliens
    The misfits, as ever, must take a back seat to the morality, and the result – while in no way migraine-inducing – traffics in rote truisms.
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