Chicago Tribune's Scores

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For 7,601 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 62% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 36% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 1.3 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 66
Highest review score: 100 Autumn Tale
Lowest review score: 0 Car 54, Where Are You?
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5,106 out of 7601
  2. Mixed: 1,473 out of 7601
  3. Negative: 1,022 out of 7601
7601 movie reviews
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  1. I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
    The result just might be the most hypocritical feature in the history of film as well as the history of hypocrisy, and along with serving beer, I hope they show I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell in hell.
  2. The Providence Effect
    For the film to be truer to the school’s reputation, it would have had to dig a little deeper.
  3. Capitalism: A Love Story
    At its best, this uneven work represents Moore at the peak of his argumentative skills.
  4. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
    Fairly inventive and exceedingly manic.
  5. The Informant!
    More than any previous screen role, this one affords Damon a chance to work his sly comic chops.
  6. Love Happens
    I wish the movie made emotional sense, because it’s all about getting in touch with whatever’s holding you back, but it doesn’t.
  7. Jennifer's Body
    The movie’s partially redeemed by Seyfried, who makes her character more than a repository for audience sympathy. (Her make-out scene with Fox is handled with more suspense and care than anything else in the movie.)
  8. Paris
    The actors, remarkable and seasoned, take care of their end of things, stylishly and (when and where it can be arranged) truthfully.
  9. Bright Star
    In its way Campion’s film is a thing of beauty, but its characters’ inner lives must be taken on faith.
  10. 9
    Something has gone slightly awry, however, en route from the 11-minute film to the 79-minute edition of 9.
  11. Extract
    The funniest American comedy of the summer.
  12. All About Steve
    There’s nothing wrong with All About Steve that a rewrite couldn’t fix, as long as the rewrite involved a different writer, a different character and a different story.
  13. Black Dynamite
    While White plays it supercool, Tommy Davidson and Arsenio Hall (as Cream Corn and Tasty Freeze, respectively) swing for the fences, without much in the way of a bat.
  14. Taking Woodstock
    This is very light material, and, unusually for a Lee picture, not everybody in the ensemble appears to be acting in the same universe, let alone the same story. On the other hand: It’s fun.
  15. Post Grad
    The material may be formulaic, but the spirit of the piece is friendly.
  16. Inglourious Basterds
    The result is a Jewish “Death Wish,” to borrow Pauline Kael’s description of “Marathon Man,” amped up to epoch-changing proportions, made by a gentile writer-director with an unlimited appetite for celluloid, right down to its highly flammable properties.
  17. Fifty Dead Men Walking
    Sharp, well-acted film.
  18. The Marc Pease Experience
    Not so much character-driven as character-dragged--against its will.
  19. My One and Only
    If you have any curiosity at all about how a fellow like George Hamilton became a fellow like George Hamilton, My One and Only answers the question by looking, fondly, at his primary caregiver.
  20. District 9
    Some movies pack such a terrific central idea, even their flaws can’t stop the train. District 9 is one of them.
  21. The Time Traveler's Wife
    The emotions and crises feel pre-sanded, smooth to the point of blandness.
  22. The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard
    Sloppy, grimy but quick on its feet, which puts it ahead of certain other (“The Hangover”) R-rated comedies (“The Hangover”) we’ve seen this summer (“The Hangover”).
  23. It Might Get Loud
    Why isn’t the film better? Guggenheim doesn’t seem to have prodded his subjects in any interesting directions.
  24. Bandslam
    Here’s the surprise: Bandslam may come from synthetic materials, but the characters are a little more complicated than usual.
  25. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
    G.I. Joe may not be beefier, but it’s cheesier and less aggravating than "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," the summer ’09 headbanger it most resembles.
  26. Julie & Julia
    One can’t help but wonder if Ephron would’ve been better off focusing exclusively on Child: She’s simply more interesting screen company.
  27. A Perfect Getaway
    When the story’s twist arrives, you half-expect Twohy to throw in a couple of reels from "Dead Again," plus outtakes from "The Usual Suspects." It’s a lulu; I'm just not sure if it's the sort of lulu that will lead to great word-of-mouth.
  28. Funny People
    50 percent good and 50 percent close.
  29. Lorna's Silence
    If you’re new to the Dardennes, Lorna’s Silence will serve as a fine introduction.
  30. Thirst
    Be warned: Thirst is one of those pictures that tacks on another chapter just when you think it’s wrapping up.
  31. The Ugly Truth
    Feels about 150 years out of date.
  32. G-Force
    Toward the end, G-Force starts making no sense at all, neither tonally or narratively. It may not matter to the target audience, though the look on my son's face when it was over was pure Buster Keaton. He says he liked it well enough. Me, a little less.
  33. Orphan
    Assuming your psycho-pigtailed-killer memories extend back as far as "The Bad Seed," Maxwell Anderson's play filmed by director Mervyn LeRoy in 1956, Orphan may remind you of the icon made famous by Patty McCormack.
  34. In the Loop
    While director Armando Iannucci's brand of satire -- just plausible enough to be painful -- isn't for all tastes, it's a little bit of heaven to hear screen characters spew such eloquently vicious bile.
  35. Shrink
    The script of Shrink, written by Thomas Moffett, plays like "Crash" without the angst or the perpetual racial conflagrations.
  36. (500) Days of Summer
    The film has an easygoing, inquisitive spirit, heightened by Webb's visual conceits
  37. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
    The latest, meticulously atmospheric and wonderfully acted Potter adventure lands happily--broodingly, but happily---near the top of the series heap, just behind Alfonso Cuaron's "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban."
  38. I Love You, Beth Cooper
    A funny thing happened to Larry Doyle's 2007 debut novel on the way to the multiplex. It turned into its own ring of coming-of-age comedy hell.
  39. Bruno
    Extraordinarily raunchy, occasionally funny.
  40. Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg
    Watching Loeb opposite Berg, you're reminded of the miracles of chemistry and the luck of the draw when it comes to casting a show -- any show.
  41. The Girl from Monaco
    This is a modest but expertly performed piece. And this summer, surrounded by lesser, louder, bigger and dumber diversions, it's especially welcome.
  42. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
    Not bad, not good, Ice Age 3 may be OK enough to do what it was engineered to do, i.e., baby-sit your kid for a while and rake in the dough.
  43. Public Enemies
    It's a fascinating bundle of contradictions -- authentic in a million details, deeply romanticized in others. Cool, calm and collected, this is more love story than gangster picture.
  44. My Sister's Keeper
    The harder this assault weapon went at my tear ducts, the more duct tape I wrapped around them as a defensive measure.
  45. The Hurt Locker
    Vivid, assured and extremely suspenseful.
  46. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
    Fox's cleavage is the only camera object that catches Bay's attention for more than a millisecond.
  47. Year One
    It's the knockabout biblical lark Mel Brooks never got around to making.
  48. The Proposal
    The Proposal reworks "Two Weeks Notice" with the genders switched.
  49. Dead Snow
    May have a dull title, but it's lively, idiotic fun, at least until it goes too far past "too far" into the realm of "far too far."
  50. Whatever Works
    How big a bastard can Woody Allen build a screenplay around and still generate a modicum of audience goodwill? The answer: not this big.
  51. The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3
    The movie is slick, predictable and, thanks mainly to Washington's canny underplaying, fairly diverting.
  52. Food, Inc.
    If Wal-Mart, the Lucifer of multinational corporations in many liberal eyes, sees the fiscal sense in stocking an increasingly wide array of organic foodstuffs, consumer habits truly are changing. Not fast enough, though, for documentary filmmaker Robert Kenner.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Imagine That
    Despite an overly broad third act, one can't fault the film's message of family unity, underscored by a memorable use of the Beatles' "All You Need Is Love."
  54. Tetro
    Unabashedly theatrical and richly cinematic, even when it's falling apart.
  55. My Life in Ruins
    My Life in Ruins will neither ruin nor change nor significantly impact your life.
  56. Away We Go
    Glib and charming in roughly equal measure.
  57. Land of the Lost
    Ferrell may well shoulder the blame for Land of the Lost, even if he doesn't deserve it. He did, however, willingly participate in this coarse, sloppy big-screen version of the old Saturday-morning time-warp adventure.
  58. 24 City
    The stories we hear in 24 City belong to its specific place, but they are universal.
  59. Séraphine
    It is an actors' showcase, without being showy, and Moreau and Tukur reveal radically different personalities with just enough in common to make things interesting.
  60. Up
    Some of the comic inventions are inspired: Muntz has a pack of dogs equipped with electronic voice boxes, which means they're talking dogs, only they speak as if they've learned English from a poorly translated Berlitz guide.
  61. Drag Me to Hell
    Raimi knows how to modulate his technique, as with the coolly controlled morality tale "A Simple Plan," but he's a firm believer in the power of an active, expressive camera, as well as the value of insinuation.
  62. Departures
    The acting is quite deft, if extremely broad, but screenwriter Kundo Koyama seesaws uncertainly between jokes and grief.
  63. What Goes Up
    Nothing in this movie is properly focused; everyone keeps talking about a character whom we never meet and does not matter; the tone keeps slipping around from indolent satire to thudding sincerity, and the Challenger shuttle disaster backdrop is queasy-making at best, offensive at worst.
  64. Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
    Nothing elegant about Adams here, but she's terrific -- a sparkling screen presence. Her Earhart hoists this big-budget sequel above the routine.
  65. Easy Virtue
    Easy Virtue may be a bauble, as Larita's described at one point, but Coward's examination of hypocrisy demands real skill. The style should suggest "whipped cream with knives," as Stephen Sondheim once described "A Little Night Music." Elliott's film is more like curdled milk with a spork.
  66. Angels & Demons
    Astonishingly, Angels & Demons IS the same sort of lumbering mediocrity.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    The Brothers Bloom
    The jaunty, energetic first 10 minutes of The Brothers Bloom are easily the best first 10 minutes of any film I've seen this year. And while the succeeding hour and 43 minutes doesn't hold up to the movie's opening scenes, the whole endeavor is still an awfully good time.
  68. Management
    Padding disguised as a feature-length screenplay, adapted from Belber's one-act.
  69. Summer Hours
    It all comes together as formidably detailed and easy-breathing craftsmanship.
  70. Next Day Air
    Next Day Air is sort of bracing, though it isn't very good: Its total lack of dramatic and comic bearings, to say nothing of a point, keeps you wondering about the next fatality, in a half-interested way.
  71. Outrage
    The film's pretty good about saying why so much in the culture encourages a political life in the closet, either tacitly or directly. But even The Advocate had a problem with calling it a brilliantly orchestrated conspiracy.
  72. Star Trek
    Breathlessly paced bordering on manic, but propulsively entertaining.
  73. Battle for Terra
    All in all? A curious preachment yarn for peace, one which makes you wonder if the filmmakers couldn't wait to get to the climactic aerial dogfights.
  74. Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
    Despite my McConaughey resistance I got more guilty chuckles from Ghosts of Girlfriends Past than "Failure to Launch" or "Four Christmases."
  75. The Merry Gentleman
    It's a very small film, undermined by a puttering rhythm and Pinter-worthy pauses in the second half and a resolution neither satisfyingly oblique nor conventionally pleasing.
  76. Revanche
    Revanche has an unusual rhythm: Once it leaves the grotty urban despair behind for the deceptive calm of the countryside, it relaxes and explores the character’s interior lives.
  77. Three Monkeys
    Certain things in Three Monkeys can only be described as brilliant.
  78. X-Men Origins: Wolverine
    A chaotic headbanger, X-Men Origins: Wolverine is saved from pure flat-footed blockbuster franchise adequacy by six things, three of them on Hugh Jackman's left hand, three on his right.
  79. Il Divo
    Instead of a modern classic, able to travel the globe with ease, Il Divo is merely a wonderfully cast, tonally assured achievement, with a uniquely strange tour de force at its core.
  80. The Informers
    This one's a certifiable soul-sucker, dining out on its characters' venalities while wagging a finger at the horror, the horror.
  81. The Soloist
    This is the story of a complicated and fraught friendship, and I'm not sure Wright and his collaborators figured out how much Hollywood baloney and how much naturalistic grunge to apply to it.
  82. State of Play
    State of Play isn't a kinetic fireball like the second or third "Bourne" installment; like its protagonist, it's defiantly old school, "Three Days of the Condor" bleeding into "All the President's Men."
  83. 17 Again
    The movie's heart, of course, is with poor addled Mike and his kids, but 17 Again works only fitfully to make the Efron/Perry character worth a story.
  84. Every Little Step
    It's a big ice cream sundae, this one -- not great documentary filmmaking but tasty all the way.
  85. Anvil! The Story of Anvil
    I can't imagine Anvil! not appealing to anyone interested in any aspect of showbiz, and the drug of fame, and the lives people lead in pursuit of the next fix.
  86. Hannah Montana: The Movie
    I like the end-credits sequence best, which has nothing to do with hoary complications or the miseries of stardom or the magical spellbinding powers of a cheap wig.
  87. The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
    A coming-of-ager that nearly slaughters you by minute 30 with the relentlessness of its protagonist's voiceovers.
  88. Observe and Report
    There's about 10 good minutes out of 85.
  89. Adventureland
    A sweet, sharp coming-of-age romance, Adventureland is a little warmer, a little funnier and a lot more truthful than the last 20 or 30 of its ilk. Especially its Hollywood ilk.
  90. Sugar
    This one slice of the American experience amounts to one of the best films of the year.
  91. Tulpan
    The filmmaker's documentary training pays off in detail after detail.
  92. Monsters vs Aliens
    It's tough to get on board with these monsters. They don't get the banter they--or we--deserve, and the screenwriters lean on wearying stereotypes.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 38 Critic Score
    12 Rounds
    Noisy, cut into a head-snapping blur with little room for Cena to even try showing emotion, 12 Rounds is an occasionally exciting but always empty experience.
  94. Goodbye Solo
    The acting's so true, and Bahrani's so observant, you find yourself caring about everyone onscreen.
  95. The Haunting in Connecticut
    The movie bumps along from low-grade scare to scare, and it's not lousy, mainly because Virginia Madsen prevents it from being so.
  96. Shall We Kiss?
    Ledoyen in particular humanizes the story-within-a-story strategy. Her character's sly verbal hesitations become part of a mutual seduction, more theoretical than practical, but enticing nonetheless.
  97. I Love You, Man
    What works best is whatever's completely incidental to the story, such as the totes-magotes/slippy mcgippy jive talk.
  98. Duplicity
    The look and sound of Duplicity is half the payoff.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Knowing
    Until it jumps the tracks into self-righteousness, though, Knowing, directed by Alex Proyas, can also be as unnerving as the best episodes of "The Twilight Zone."
  100. Sin Nombre
    Crushingly realistic one minute and melodramatically hokey the next.
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