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 1.4 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. Darshan: The Embrace
    Jan Kounen, the maker of Darshan, is a French director with flashy credentials, including music videos, commercials, horror shorts, violent gangster movies ("Dobermann") and offbeat westerns ("Blueberry").
  2. Aquaman
    Watching this movie is like spending two hours and 27 minutes staring at a gigantic aquarium full of digital sea creatures and actors on wires, pretending to swim.
  3. Arkansas
    Arkansas doesn't break the mold on cheeky, stylish, low-life movies; rather, it worships it.
  4. Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny
    A large amount of dope is smoked in The Pick of Destiny, perhaps the most since the salad days of Cheech & Chong. This may be the problem. Pot rarely helped anybody's comic timing.
  5. Violent Night
    I found Violent Night to be a joyless slay ride, not to mention verbally witless. There’s not much kick in seeing an R-rated version of “Home Alone,” and even that owed its home-invasion nastiness to Sam Peckinpah’s “Straw Dogs.”
  6. Irina Palm
    It turns out a success, tempering its farfetched scenario with enough restraint and believability to pass for a modest parable of modern manners.
  7. Love Actually
    The movie grows more cloying and repetitive as it stretches well beyond two hours. Almost every main character boasts the same bashful, puppy-dog attitude toward romance.
  8. Brooklyn Lobster
    The kind of smart, realistic indie family drama the movies should give us more often, just as they should more often offer performances as full-blooded and rich as Aiello's and Curtin's here.
  9. Bustin' Loose
    Richard Pryor and Cicely Tyson star in a thorougly likable comedy about an ex-con and a schoolteacher who take a bunch of ghetto kids to a farm in Washington. Some foul language gets in the way of this being a film suitable for the entire family.
    • Chicago Tribune
  10. The Flash
    Keaton is the one who brings both effortless gravity and subtle levity to a film that, without him, wouldn’t have much of either.
  11. Casa de los babys
    Sayles accomplishes another of his coups here. Eschewing all sentiment, avoiding all pathos, keeping his film and most of the women hard as nails, he manages to tell a compelling story.
  12. Starsky & Hutch
    This is a profoundly unambitious movie, a '70s cop show spoof that aims to provoke a few giggles, and that's about it.
  13. Zombieland: Double Tap
    It feels like any new ideas were jettisoned for the same old schtick. "Zombieland" may have helped to give birth to the zomb-aissance, but "Double Tap" just might be the kill shot.
  14. Promised Land
    More an argument than a fully fleshed-out drama ... The script is unconvincing; two key narrative twists, one related to the other, are deeply hokey.
  15. Agora
    Agora has everything except real drama.
  16. The Croods
    At least there's Cage, who has become an astute voice actor, finding some odd, clever, energetic line readings consistently fresher than The Croods itself.
  17. The Mean Season
    The only redeeming aspects of the film are its striking production design by Philip Jefferies--a sweltering Miami similar to the look of ''Body Heat''-- and a convincing performance by Richard Masur as the city editor of the film`s fictional Miami newspaper.
  18. I Heart Huckabees
    As one might imagine, with such a neato premise and lofty goal, the plot's a little messy. So points docked for execution.
  19. Rendition
    In Rendition Gyllenhaal is supposed to be the smartest one in the room, yet he’s essentially just a good-looking plodder. And despite its whirligig story machinations, so is Rendition.
  20. Trolls
    There's something about the neon-tinted, sugar-smacked highs of Trolls that can be bizarrely infectious. When it's weirder, it's better, and there are elements of the animation design seemingly inspired by old 1970s cartoons and children's shows like "H.R. Pufnstuf."
  21. The Sandlot
    In The Sandlot's nostalgia for simpler times, a single-sex world seems to be a key component.
  22. Ice Princess
    I'll describe the central characters in Disney's new ice-skating flick, Ice Princess, and you guess the plot.
  23. Flatliners
    It's much to Schumacher's credit that Flatliners, for all of its crazy excess, does not turn into camp.
  24. Bra Boys
    An odd, one-sided documentary that nevertheless opens a window onto Australian class struggles and a world weirdly familiar and exotic simultaneously.
  25. Love and Other Drugs
    They put the "obvious" in "obvious."
  26. Take the Lead
    The latest ballroom dance-fever picture isn't very good, but some of the dancing is fun.
  27. Young Goethe in Love
    Young Goethe in Love wants only to engage an audience with a capital-R Romantic ideal of Goethe's first love. It does so very well. And it was well worth the effort.
  28. Party Girl
    there's no joy in this movie. It's a safe, compromised, even preachy, fable; a wannabe hip romp that never gets going. [07 Jul 1995]
    • Chicago Tribune
  29. The Gate
    This is good-natured terror, the sort that can take time at the height of action for a quick joke. [18 May 1987, p.3C]
    • Chicago Tribune
  30. Rocky V
    What is undeniably good about Rocky V is that our working-class hero returns to the grimy neighborhood from which he sprang. Seeing a more slender, "street" Rocky is a refreshing change of pace from the muscle-bound champ of Parts 3 and 4. [16 Nov 1990, p.C]
    • Chicago Tribune
  31. Bride & Prejudice
    It's "knowingly" off-the-rails--and if you're in a tolerant or adventurous mood, very entertaining.
  32. Agnes Browne
    A bawdy comedy that convincingly celebrates the resilience of the urban poor and the power of friendship in the teeth of despair.
    • Chicago Tribune
  33. Someone to Watch Over Me
    Berenger and Rogers look right and move right, but there is no spark behind the emotions they dutifully mime. Shading is something the director reserves for inanimate objects: He makes things come alive and turns people flat.
  34. The Current War: Director's Cut
    I never saw the earlier version. This one remains a bit of a mess but a pretty interesting one, as well as one of the few films this year deserving (in both admirable and dissatisfying ways) of the adjective “instructive.”
  35. King of the Corner
    Moments of this film reminded me of Alexander Payne's great library of male dysfunction -- "Election," "About Schmidt," "Sideways" -- not because King of the Corner actually reaches Payne's plane, but because I wish it had tried.
  36. The Conspirator
    Heartbreakingly average, director Robert Redford's The Conspirator errs in the way so many films do, especially films about unsung pieces of American history. It focuses on the wrong character.
  37. The LEGO Ninjago Movie
    Some aspects of the film are quite entertaining. Garmadon is a great character, especially as voiced by Theroux (his pronunciation of Lloyd as "Luh-Loyd" doesn't get old).
  38. The Lion King
    The new music helps, a little. But the movie is a karaoke act, re-creating the original movie’s story beats beat-by-beat-by-beat.
  39. The Secret Life of Pets 2
    We want to watch pets behave exactly as we expect them to, and sometimes in a completely incongruous manner. Like the original, “Pets 2” delivers just that, nothing more.
  40. MirrorMask
    It's hollow.
  41. The Astronaut Farmer
    Wobbles between its comic and dramatic concerns; even those who buy the film more wholeheartedly than I might consider the overall tone uncertain.
  42. Tusk
    The chief argument regarding his (Smith) "Human Centipede" riff is pretty basic: good trash or stupid trash? I'd say roughly half and half.
  43. Harry Brown
    The tragedy is that the performance comes to nothing. Nearly everything else in the film is vile.
  44. All the Pretty Horses
    Thornton and his excellent company summon up for us the long rides, dangerous companions, rites of passage, the mad love and, most of all, the special relationship between the man/boys that rode over the border and the horses that carried them there.
    • Chicago Tribune
  45. Evelyn
    If the real-life story is genuinely inspirational, the movie stirs us as well.
  46. Invincible
    Erratically acted and, at times, clumsily written.
  47. Hearts in Atlantis
    Sometimes thrilling, sometimes suffocatingly tasteful adaptation of Stephen King's 1999 novel.
    • Chicago Tribune
  48. Snatch.
    The abundance of visual and verbal wit here ensures that the pleasure of watching Snatch need not be guilty.
    • Chicago Tribune
  49. Secret Things
    Trashy porno pretending to be deep.
  50. Facing Windows
    Ozpetek brings a straight love story and world politics into the mix, but it's his brilliant cast which completes the connection.
  51. Screamers
    A commendably brave piece, but less focused and powerful than you'd like. In the end, Garapedian might have been better off concentrating her energy on the 1915 Armenian story--which has been told on film various times (for example, in "Forty Days of Musa Dagh" and Atom Egoyan's "Ararat"), but never with the power of, say, "The Pianist" or "Schindler's List."
  52. Cirque du Soleil: Journey of Man
    Commits the cardinal sin of all bad IMAX films: It favors visuals over narrative, glitter over substance.
    • Chicago Tribune
  53. Woman Thou Art Loosed
    Jakes' characters are points to be made, flesh and blood cautionary tales that don't particularly feel human. His dialogue, even in the mouths of Michelle and her troubled mother, sounds as if it comes straight from the pulpit.
  54. Volunteers
    It's a shame that this often cute script couldn't have better served, and been better served by, its actors.
  55. Crossroads
    Crossroads doesn't contain most of the common sins of today's youth films: cheap sex, fast cars and food fights. But you can't reward a film very much for what isn't there, if what is there leaves you wishing that its lead characters would break free from a tired story and sing and play with abandon. [14 March 1986, p.A]
    • Chicago Tribune
  56. The Missing
    Good movie westerns these days may be too few and far between, but Ron Howard's The Missing is almost a great one.
  57. Romance & Cigarettes
    But by the end, when Gandolfini and Sarandon sing their sweet, hesitant little duet, it’s clear Turturro knew where he was going all along.
  58. The Good Liar
    The Good Liar takes its sweet time to pick up steam and pulls its punches in places where it could have been even darker and more daring. Erring on the side of caution isn’t exactly the approach one should take when it comes to suspense thrillers.
  59. The Last Samurai
    May fall short of its great model, "Seven Samurai" (almost all action movies do), but it's miles ahead of most of the gadget-ridden adventure epics around now.
  60. Baby Mama
    Midway through I started wondering why I wasn't laughing more. "Baby Mama" was not written by Fey and/or Poehler, which may be the reason.
  61. Song to Song
    Frequently maddening in its reiteration and circularity, Song to Song nonetheless offers more of interest (along with the hooey) than I found in "Knight of Cups" or "Voyage of Time," his recent IMAX cosmos travelogue.
  62. Pride
    Howard, playing an inspirational and resourceful man up against long odds, really is an inspiration.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 38 Critic Score
    National Lampoon's Vacation
    There are two, maybe three, good gags in National Lampoon's Vacation, which otherwise is poorly paced, sloppily put together, and full of inept, ill-conceived performances.
  64. Outrageous Fortune
    It's a dim, thoroughly synthetic film, so far removed from its source--much less from any original creative impulse--that it barely seems to exist. [30 Jan 1987, p.A]
    • Chicago Tribune
  65. The Dolls
    Dolls leaves no cliche unmined, with the result that every scary moment is its own comic relief. [27 Mar 1987, p.L]
    • Chicago Tribune
  66. Nijinsky: The Diaries of Vaslav Nijinsky
    Sadly, this noble effort is loving but lame.
  67. CyberWorld
    Effectively a demo. It doesn't give you the whole picture, but it lets you know what's possible. It's hard not to wish the ride could have lasted longer.
    • Chicago Tribune
  68. Baby Boy
    A movie that will act like a smack in the face to some audiences, while others may simply laugh in recognition.
  69. Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
    Stiller, a DodgeBall producer, is revealing an unfortunate craving for the cheese of his childhood.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 38 Critic Score
    Road Trip
    Degenerates into a slow-moving game of connect-the-gross-outs.
  71. The Joneses
    Duchovny and Moore have their moments; they're like two preening sharks working on commission.
  72. Ichi the Killer
    Any serious message has been sacrificed on the altar of excess, making us realize why the stylish story probably worked better as a graphic comic book than as a film.
  73. The Adam Project
    The movie has a good shot at a huge streaming audience. But does it have the creative instincts of a good movie? An OK one, yes. It’s too bad The Adam Project is only that, since the cast isn’t dogging the assignment for a second.
  74. They Live
    The looniest movie of the season and also one of the most engaging. [7 Nov 1988]
    • Chicago Tribune
  75. Home
    The movie is pretty droll, and it agitates for cross-species friendship; its aggressively packaged heart-tugging elements come with an interplanetary friendly resolution. Followed by a dance party.
  76. Idlewild
    Aiding Barber is the terrific work of choreographer Hinton Battle, delivering a ferocious, contemporary update of swing and bridging the gap between quick-take MTV flash and the longer needs of cinematic dancing--a hybrid that works better here than in the frenetic, overrated "Chicago."
  77. Surviving Picasso
    Surviving Picasso is an intelligent, beautifully crafted and engrossing Ismail Merchant-James Ivory biographical portrait of the century's most famous and successful painter. [4 Oct 1996]
    • Chicago Tribune
  78. The 33
    What these men endured is remarkable, and the logistics of the rescue are remarkable as well. The 33 settles for an unremarkable chronicle of that endurance test.
  79. The Great Gatsby
    Despite a few good ideas and the uniformly splendid production and costume designs by Luhrmann's mate and partner, Catherine Martin, this frenzied adaptation of The Great Gatsby is all look and no feel.
  80. The Package
    Jones does a very good job as the cynical mercenary; Hackman's role doesn't give him enough real moments to make the story credible. [25 Aug 1989, p.A]
    • Chicago Tribune
  81. I Am Ali
    The film itself, fond and intriguing, is by no means a hard-charging confrontation. Rather, Lewins' film is an affectionate series of memories, as recalled by Ali's family and associates.
  82. The Bride!
    Made up of stylish pastiche, girl power slogans and one go-for-broke performance, The Bride!, like her Monster, isn’t much more than an assemblage of parts, and the slipperiness of time, place and character leaves the film unmoored and unrooted. Here comes The Bride! — unfortunately, she’s brain dead.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Bank
    Like the film itself, Jim Doyle is smart enough to be engaging and lovely to look at, but he's too one-dimensional to be satisfying.
  84. Old School
    The movie is never more than the sum of its scattershot jokes; it's sloppily put together, with scenes seemingly cut mid-dialogue.
  85. Diminished Capacity
    Striving for low-key character comedy, Diminished Capacity ends up diminishing its returns.
  86. Don't Make Me Go
    The performances are honest and true and that gives things a considerable boost.
  87. Higher Learning
    John Singleton stumbles badly with a terribly awkward but well-intentioned drama about political correctness and race at a contemporary university. [13 Jan 1995, p.B]
    • Chicago Tribune
  88. Dunston Checks In
    In the new wave of kiddie animal movies -- "Babe," "Black Beauty," "Gordy," "Fluke," "Roan Inish" and all the rest -- Dunston Checks In is valuable only as a new standard of screenwriting ineptitude. Don't play it again, Sam, at least not with this bunch.
  89. Magic in the Moonlight
    With this script, Allen isn't working in farce mode. It's more an easygoing nod to W. Somerset Maugham or, in the plot's "Pygmalion"-like relationship between a cynical older man and his desired younger female charge, George Bernard Shaw.
  90. Hulk
    A movie likely to rally huge audiences who want to take another roller coaster ride. And though it may disappoint a few of them, it's also a film that gives you something to think and feel sad about. It smashes you -- gently.
  91. Brubaker
    Robert Redford stars as a reform-minded prison warden fighting for his life against a corrupt prison system. Competent but dreary. [11 July 1980, p.8]
    • Chicago Tribune
  92. To Rome with Love
    The movie strolls through its paces, sometimes amusingly, though by the end you've heard "Volare" and "Arrivederci Roma" reprised often enough to make you wish "Volare" and "Arrivederci Roma" had never been written.
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