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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    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Lucía, Lucía
    What a vivacious-looking, tartly-scored bore of a movie.
  2. Dig Two Graves
    It's an intriguing premise, weakened by a script lacking in strong forward motion.
  3. Rio
    The movie isn't dull, exactly; the problem lies in the other, antsy direction.
  4. Appleseed
    Whatever is lost in translation can't keep Appleseed from feeling a decade late--and its animation from looking like a relic on arrival.
  5. Nowhere to Run
    The inconsistencies of Nowhere to Run make it finally unsatisfying, but the film leaves little doubt that Robert Harmon is a major talent, though one still waiting for a project equal to his abilities.
  6. Burn After Reading
    Clooney remains as game as ever, but the way he and McDormand push the energy here, you feel the strain. Pitt, just floating through, comes off best. He doesn't judge the moron he's playing; he just is.
  7. Girl Most Likely
    Girl Most Likely goes a little bit wrong in nearly every scene, its stridently quirky characters never quite making sense together in the same universe, let alone the same movie.
  8. Flushed Away
    After the fourth electrocution gag, the 10th smack in the face and the 12th assault on a wee rodent crotch, we could all use something quiet.
  9. Alex Cross
    The sharpest five minutes in Alex Cross, by a considerable margin, belong to Giancarlo Esposito.
  10. Ocean's 8
    It’s smooth, and far from inept. But it isn’t much fun. That’s all you want from a certain kind of heist picture, isn’t it? Fun?
  11. Madagascar
    The film never gets going. It's too slow and plodding for kids--even too obvious.
  12. Presumed Innocent
    Though it`s a handsome film, carefully staged and courageously low-key, the transition to the screen only exaggerates the disposable nature of the material while depriving it of the novel`s one stylistic strength, its unreliable narrator.
  13. Never Been Kissed
    Never Been Kissed features a fierce tug of war between the charm of Drew Barrymore and the stupidity of the script.
  14. Murder on the Orient Express
    Midway through a middling film adaptation, like this one, you realize it’s the same old clue-delivery mechanism, in a darker mood but also a less lively one.
  15. Parkland
    Those looking for some human interest in their human interest may be equally frustrated.
  16. The Country Bears
    Unfortunately, the humans only have scripts to support them. So for every bear triumph, Country Bears also features cliched jokes, corny sentiment, ludicrous shtick and the most flabbergasting set of star cameos since Martha Stewart and Michael Jackson wandered into "Men in Black II."
  17. Canal Street
    It’s a choppy, frustrating affair, periodically bailed out by some very good actors.
  18. Baby Boom
    Shyer's direction of actors rises instantly to a level of cartoonish hysteria and descends only for occasional wet bursts of sentimentality. But as an exercise in ideological persuasion it works appallingly well, playing on deep-seated guilts and insecurities with a sureness of touch that may make it a hit with the audience it caricatures.
  19. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
    Lacks the guts of genuine satire.
  20. Look Who's Talking
    Though the film has a plot a simpleton could follow, its hallmark is confusion. Its sense of time and place and its point of view are muddled. [13 Oct 1989, p.L]
    • Chicago Tribune
  21. Gray's Anatomy
    The movie Gray's Anatomy demonstrates that fully stimulating the senses isn't the same as fully engaging them. Gray still begins talking in his trademark plaid shirt with a notebook and glass of water at his table, but soon Soderbergh is sending him on a Disney ride of scenery changes, lighting effects and moody music. [1 August 1997]
    • Chicago Tribune
  22. The Blind Side
    Veers perilously close to the concept of poverty tourism.
  23. Pet Sematary
    There is a crazed, dark poetry here, but Mary Lambert's direction of Pet Sematary captures none of it, and the film falls into a flat, frequently laughable literalism. [24 Apr 1989, p.C2]
    • Chicago Tribune
  24. 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.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Waking the Dead
    By the time of Fielding's and Sarah's final, gooey encounter, she's not the only one who needs waking.
  26. Bounce
    Doesn't really work when examined in the daylight outside the theater doors.
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 28 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Passion of Mind
    It's pretty muddle-headed and confusing.
  28. Malice
    Slick but forgettable. [01 Oct 1993, p.C]
    • Chicago Tribune
  29. No Man's Land
    Sweeney, however, gives a better account of himself than Sheen in his role. [23 Oct 1987, p.A]
    • Chicago Tribune
  30. Fire Down Below
    There aren't many surprises in Fire Down Below, except for the presence of a few very good actors (Harry Dean Stanton, Kris Kristofferson, Levon Helm) and a slew of country stars in cameo appearances (including Loretta Lynn's twin daughters and singer Randy Travis, who looks to have a future as a movie heavy). [8 Sept 1997, p.C2]
    • Chicago Tribune
  31. Bullet Train
    The spirit’s almost there to pull it off. But the movie does grind on.
  32. 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.
  33. Whipped
    A decent idea that never goes deep enough for genuine satisfaction.
    • Chicago Tribune
  34. The Silence of the Lambs
    Billed as one of the most frightening, depraved films ever made. Would that it were so. Instead, this is a case of much ado about nothing. [15 February 1991, Friday, p.C]
    • Chicago Tribune
  35. Graffiti Bridge
    The movie suffers from various technical difficulties - like choppy editing and songs that get cut off mid-groove - and in the end everything collapses in a heap. [05 Nov 1990, p.4C]
    • Chicago Tribune
  36. Man of the House
    A sweetly benign comedy that allows the actor (Jones) to lampoon his tough guy image honed in "The Fugitive" and "U.S. Marshals."
  37. Subway
    The film looks terrific and offers one spectacular chase, but its story and characters are less substantial than even a weak episode of "Miami Vice."
  38. The Fall
    It has a rich premise and no lack of amazements. What it lacks in any sort of dramatic shape.
  39. Dark Shadows
    Dark Shadows illustrates the fine line in a pop reboot between "relaxed" and "lazy."
  40. Circus
    When the final twist has been turned and the last corpse has hit the ground, it is a film that could have been twice as good if it had been half as complicated.
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 37 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    When Do We Eat?
    By the time the ending rolls around, as we watch the slow unclamping of jaws from jugulars, we feel exhausted. Imagine how the actors must have felt.
  42. Shag
    Shag still has its pleasures, though they're mostly among the casting. Annabeth Gish, as the shy Pudge, remains one of the most refreshingly natural performers in American films; a master of understatement, she scales down her gestures and reactions in a way that draws the camera to her, never asking for attention but quietly commanding it. [21 July 1989, p.A]
    • Chicago Tribune
  43. Raising Helen
    You can take the director out of television, but sometimes you can't take television out of the director. Although Garry Marshall has been making movies for longer than he spent creating such series as "The Odd Couple," "Happy Days" and "Laverne and Shirley," his work retains the scent of the small screen.
  44. Just Friends
    But alas, even with young talent, director Roger Kumble and writer Adam Davis rely way too heavily (no pun intended) on the fat-suit joke and titular impasse.
  45. 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.
  46. The In-Laws
    Like too many movies these days, takes a clever little idea and all but pounds it into the ground.
  47. The Godfather: Part III
    An air of embarrassing familiarity hangs over the entire project, as if it were a story told by an aging relative not quite aware of how many times, and how much better, he has been over the same material before. [25 Dec 1990, Tempo, p.1]
    • Chicago Tribune
  48. A Dog's Way Home
    Even the cute factor of A Dog's Way Home can't obscure its narrative weaknesses.
  49. The Holy Land
    Gorlin's fiction, based loosely on his own life, must be better than that of "Frontline." And it's not.
  50. 2 Fast 2 Furious
    Looks sleek and moves efficiently, but there's nothing too distinctive under the hood.
  51. 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.
  52. The Last Song
    The Last Song is primarily for teenagers looking for something disposable to cry about for a couple of hours, though I did find it a tad easier to take than "Dear John."
  53. Steamboy
    Though Katsuhiro Otomo's animated Victorian-era adventure Steamboy stars British characters, it's a Japanese film through and through.
  54. The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them
    For me Chastain's unerring honesty is the only element keeping The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby above the realm of pure affectation.
  55. Honeymoon in Vegas
    Elvis impersonators may not be the freshest subject for comedy, but Bergman's sense of structure is sharp enough to develop a basic running gag (a convention is in town, with Elvises of every shape, size and color) into a spectacular final payoff. The parts are there but the whole, sadly, is not. [28 Aug 1992, p.B2]
    • Chicago Tribune
  56. The Pink Panther 2
    Nothing is harder and more elusive than successful slapstick onscreen. Nothing.
  57. Schultze Gets the Blues
    The scenery is pretty and the locals endearing, but Schorr never gets past charming.
  58. Can't Buy Me Love
    Though it looks bright and the young actors have a couple of sweet moments, the picture is almost unremittingly punishing, hammering home its "be yourself" message with all the gentle persuasiveness of a Marine drill sergeant.
  59. Sahara
    Action films can't be this consistently absurd, can't paint their heroes into such dangerous corners, from which only cocktails of luck and divine intervention can save them, over and over. It's a bad-faith bargain with the audience and bad storytelling.
  60. Fried Green Tomatoes
    It's meant to be uplifting, but the material is so undernourished that bench-pressing a phone book already seems beyond it. None of the characters has been filled out beyond the underlying conventions and the few distinctive mannerisms contributed by the actresses who portray them.
  61. People Like Us
    A fine and moving film could be made from this story, which was inspired, loosely, by events and situations in the lives of Kurtzman and Orci. But the script sets an awfully low bar for Sam's redemption.
  62. Perfect Stranger
    It lacks the rutting nuttiness of "Basic Instinct," even as it recycles much of that film's kiss-or-kill premise.
  63. Love and Other Drugs
    They put the "obvious" in "obvious."
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie
    If your kid has SpongeBob SquarePants underwear, it's a good bet she or he will relish The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie.
  65. 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.
  66. Revoir Paris
    While many will find Revoir Paris moving, for me it’s because the performances do the heavy lifting, effortlessly, while the material lays everything out too neatly. The mess of life, the anguish of what Mia is going through, deserves a clear-eyed exploration and a little less gloss.
  67. The Forest
    For the record, Gus Van Sant recently made "The Sea of Trees," set in the same infamous suicide forest, starring Matthew McConaughey and Ken Watanabe. In its contrived sentimentality that film is twice as frightening as this one.
  68. The Phantom of the Opera
    Depending on your predilection, the movie version of The Phantom of the Opera is about as good - or as bad - as its phenomenally successful stage original.
  69. Accepted
    A mildly funny PG-13 effort that is just dying to release an R- or unrated DVD version of itself. That way all the pool party sequences can lay off the false modesty.
  70. My Blueberry Nights
    Isn’t eye candy; it’s a drool-worthy slice of eye pie.
  71. House of Wax
    Gratuitous gore and young, nubile flesh bind together a cardboard plot.
  72. Truly Madly Deeply
    Truly, Madly, Deeply, which takes on bereavement and regeneration, uneasily straddles the delicate line between the charming and the cloying. [24 May 1991, p.L]
    • Chicago Tribune
  73. End of Days
    An overblown, overspectacular, oversold movie without an original idea in its head.
    • Chicago Tribune
  74. Three for the Road
    Each time Sheen threatens to take the film to another level, director Noton throws in a pratfall or a car chase to knock it down. Three for the Road" is a film that must struggle to be stupid; unfortunately, it succeeds. [15 Apr 1987, p.5]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 47 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Bella
    The melodrama and cheap theatrics of the story’s off-center segments drag the whole thing down.
  76. Looney Tunes: Back in Action
    You never lose awareness that Fraser and, particularly, Elfman are acting alongside creatures they can't actually see, and you constantly think you should be having more fun than you are. In the end, you want to ask the filmmakers: Is that all, folks?
  77. The Ring Two
    Despite some impressive technical achievements, it too looks like a movie with little reason for being.
  78. The War Within
    The War Within has within it a war of its own, one between docudramatic truth and familiar melodrama, however low-keyed.
  79. One Day
    What proved tasty in book form comes across a little more like work in the movie.
  80. LBJ
    It wouldn’t raise questions about Harrelson’s prostheses and makeup, for starters, if the drama carried more urgency.
  81. Red Dawn
    Many of the original film's booby-trap scenarios are repeated here, but without Milius' grandiosity and nihilism. There's less of both in the new Red Dawn. It's not a disaster. It's just drab.
  82. The Upside of Anger
    It's a bizarre but engaging fling.
  83. Cinderella Man
    Ultimately, it's Paul Giamatti ("Sideways"), playing Braddock's manager Joe Gould, who shines. In another actor's hands, Gould would be a secondary character lost in Crowe's shadow, but Giamatti outshines his co-stars at times with his everyman looks and delivery.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Friday After Next
    Ultimately, the lazy, cynical underpinnings of Friday After Next are as visible as the film's soundtrack is obnoxious.
  85. Daredevil
    Slick, expensive and filled with good-looking actors flexing muscles, but once it grabs our attention it doesn't really reward it...this movie doesn't have fear -- or sheer wonder and marvel -- enough.
  86. Running on Empty
    A John Hughes-ish teen drama unaccountably complicated by politics and method acting.
  87. Thunderheart
    Only director Apted`s admirably low-key, matter-of-fact approach to the material keeps it from becoming unbearably artificial.
  88. 21
    21 isn’t pretentious, exactly, but it’s damn close, and in trying to whip up a melodramatic morality tale the film becomes an increasingly flabby slog.
  89. Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life
    Superior to 2001's "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider" in almost every way. It's better directed, more consistently acted, and its writing, while at times ridiculous, at least has a modicum of logic at its core. I still had to slap myself to stay awake.
  90. Tristan and Isolde
    Mindless, predictable and mildly entertaining.
  91. Conan the Barbarian
    It's mostly noise and splurch and, as I mentioned, aaaaarrrrggggghhhhh!
  92. Malibu's Most Wanted
    Doesn't aim for more than padding a plot around Kennedy so he can do his Brad "B-Rad" Gluckman character full-force. And the joke soon wears thin.
  93. Dr. Dolittle 2
    There's barely a scene in this movie that taps his (Murphy) special brilliance.
  94. Domino
    It's not so important to follow plot twists--I couldn't--but the emotional thrust Kelly and Scott want to drive home is plain: Once Domino is asked to use guns and knives and nunchucks for a purpose outside the law, she's alarmed, appalled, aghast.
  95. Porn Star: The Legend of Ron Jeremy
    Too full of worship and the culture of celebrity to ever pose the questions that should be asked.
    • Chicago Tribune
  96. The Presidio
    It's a movie that doesn't have an original thought in its head, and seems to like it that way.
  97. Josie and the Pussycats
    It’s a big, frothy, high-tech, cutesy-poo musical comedy.
  98. Bad Therapy
    As the film turns toward black comedy, mystery and horror, away from social mocking, it becomes far more compelling.
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