Chicago Sun-Times' Scores

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For 8,158 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 73% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 25% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 6.1 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 71
Highest review score: 100 Falling from Grace
Lowest review score: 0 Jupiter Ascending
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 6,087 out of 8158
  2. Mixed: 1,243 out of 8158
  3. Negative: 828 out of 8158
8158 movie reviews
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  1. The Host
    The Host is top-heavy with profound, sonorous conversations, all tending to sound like farewells. The movie is so consistently pitched at the same note, indeed, that the structure robs it of possibilities for dramatic tension.
  2. Naked Lunch
    While I admired it in an abstract way, I felt repelled by the material on a visceral level.
  3. City Hall
    Many of the parts of City Hall are so good that the whole should add up to more, but it doesn't.
  4. Paris 36
    It's pleasant and amusing. If I had seen it before I was born, I would have loved it.
  5. Dante's Peak
    Dante's Peak, written by Leslie Bohem and directed by Roger Donaldson, follows the disaster formula so faithfully that if you walk in while the movie is in progress, you can estimate how long the story has to run. That it is skillful is a tribute to the filmmakers.
  6. The Pink Panther Strikes Again
    There has to come a time when inspiration gives way to habit, and I think the Pink Panther series is just about at that point. That's not to say this film isn't funny -- it has moments as good as anything Sellers and Edwards have ever done -- but that it's time for them to move on.
  7. The Harder They Come
    The characters aren’t consistent, and Cliff eventually becomes so unbelievable that we just stop caring. The movie’s ending is an exercise in plot; its beginning and its music deserve better than that.
  8. In the Land of Blood and Honey
    I found In the Land of Blood and Honey to be moving and involving, but somehow reduced by its melodrama to a minor key. The scale of the ages-old evil and religious hatred in the region seemed to make the fates of these particular characters a matter of dramatic convenience.
  9. From Up on Poppy Hill
    The artistry is peaceful and comforting to the eyes but not especially stirring. Given the pictorial extremes that Studio Ghibli has gone to in the past, "Up on Poppy Hill" is weak tea.
  10. Lucie Aubrac
    Has too much docudrama and not enough soul.
  11. Russkies
    What is best about the movie are the sequences where it permits itself to establish a child's-eye point of view, in which comic books, fantasy and reality are all combined into a terrific adventure.
  12. Agent Cody Banks
    A high-speed, high-tech kiddie thriller that's kinda cute but sorta relentless.
  13. Outrage
    It is also a film of controlled visual style; Kitano's compositions are like arrangements of bodies in space and time. That said, and with all due respect, I expected a better time.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Wrong
    The movie is flimsy, glib, and occasionally pretty funny.
  15. Wild Mountain Thyme
    Wild Mountain Thyme comes close to winning our hearts based on the performances and the lush County Mayo scenery and the sheer romanticism of it all, but writer-director Shanley keeps us at arm’s distance in the climactic sequences, when we should be swept up in the story of Rosemary and Anthony but we’re left exasperated at the forced eccentricity of it all.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    The Iran Job
    The description sounds like a real-life fish-out-of-water tale crossed with a sports movie. But the film wants to be more than that, and I'm on the fence about how well it succeeds.
  17. Barbershop 2: Back in Business
    Did I like the film? Yeah, kinda, but not enough to recommend. The first film arrived with freshness and an unexpected zing, but this one seems too content to follow in its footsteps.
  18. Spin Me Round
    Some misfires are far more interesting than others, and that’s certainly the case with director/co-writer Jeff Baena’s “Spin Me Round,” a restaurant-themed romp that starts off in rom-com land, veers off into territory hinting at the strange and disturbing darkness of a “Midsommar” or an “Eyes Wide Shut,” and winds up somewhere in between, coming across as half-baked and undercooked.
  19. Princess Kaiulani
    Princess Kaiulani is much remembered in Hawaii, much forgotten on the mainland, and the subject of this interesting but creaky biopic.
  20. Fatman
    Fatman skids and slides and careens between genres and never finds solid footing in any one place, and ultimately winds up as an interesting failed experiment.
  21. Parkland
    It shouldn’t necessarily be the case that a film focusing on the collateral details of the shooting, after the fact, would feel dull and uninvolving, but this writing/directing debut by journalist Peter Landesman does, with the exception of a few particularly interesting revelations.
  22. 23 Blast
    The message of inspiration is strong and certainly qualifies as solid family entertainment. I only wish there were fewer trite truisms scattered throughout the script and less predictable dialogue for the solid troupe of actors to deliver.
  23. A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas
    I have no idea if this movie was made stoned. Like its predecessors by Cheech and Chong, it might as well have been.
  24. Joe Bell
    Joe Bell never quite packs the dramatic punch the real-life story deserves.
  25. 5 Flights Up
    Sometimes you see a play and you can imagine it being a movie. Sometimes you see a small movie like this, and you can imagine it working better as an intimate stage play.
  26. The Dying Gaul
    It leads to one of those endings where you sit there wishing they'd tried a little harder to think up something better.
  27. The Extra Man
    We know Kline can play kooky (he won an Oscar as Otto in "A Fish Called Wanda"), and he does it very well, but the effort can become exhausting after a while.
  28. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
    The movie's premise devalues any relationship, makes futile any friendship or romance, and spits, not into the face of destiny, but backward into the maw of time. It even undermines the charm of compound interest.
  29. Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events
    There is no one in the movie to provide a reasonable reaction to anything; the adults are all demented, evil, or, in the case of Mr. Poe, stunningly lacking in perception, and the kids are plucky enough, but rather dazed by their misfortunes.
  30. The Creator
    Gareth Edwards’ ambitious and visually striking AI parable “The Creator” is a mashup of familiar elements from so many science fiction and war movies that we’re tempted to say it actually could have been written by AI. But I’m not sure artificial intelligence is capable of creating such a shamelessly schmaltzy, cornball script that at times makes Michael Bay’s films feel subtle by comparison.
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