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. Chain Reaction
    Reeves is immediately on the run after the explosion, one of at least a dozen images of him running from danger in "Chain Reaction." He runs so much, sometimes with a boring female scientist in tow, that you think he's been cast in the role of the bus in "Speed." He's shot at, bombed and chased by fireballs...But no amount of speed can distract us from an unfulfilling story about just who wants to destroy this breakthrough experiment. Only Freeman's rich voice holds any interest; it's a powerful instrument, highlighted by pauses and economy of speech, that is captivating in roles as diverse as this one and the veteran con in "The Shawshank Redemption."
  2. The Girl in the Spider's Web
    Uruguayan-born Fede Alvarez (“Don’t Breathe,” the recent “Evil Dead” reboot) handles the action breathlessly and well enough. The movie’s acted with serious conviction. But I kind of hate it.
  3. Sorry, Haters
    A preposterous screwball psychological drama.
  4. The Shaggy Dog
    In movies as in life, superior technology doesn't necessarily trump humor, magic or really shaggy dogs.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Maleficent: Mistress of Evil
    What worked about the first “Maleficent” was Jolie herself, trying on something softer, even funny, her face, enhanced with prosthetics, half of the visual spectacle. But “Mistress of Evil” crowds Jolie. Maleficent fades to the background, eclipsed by full-camp Pfeiffer as the evil, Trumpian dictator queen.
  6. Light It Up
    This is a good-hearted movie that unfortunately is wildly implausible and makes no sense.
  7. American Pie 2
    American Pie 2, which brings back the same cast for more of the same, is just another by-the-numbers, money-hungry sequel with a lot of recycled shaggy-sex jokes and gross-out gags.
  8. The Beach
    Tries to take us from heaven to hell but winds up leaving us in limbo: exasperated and dumfounded.
    • Chicago Tribune
  9. Anything Else
    Has some of the wit, sass and sexual candor of an "Annie Hall." But it covers the same kind of territory with more bite and bile.
  10. All I See Is You
    Refreshingly resistant to predictability.
  11. Medicine Man
    Medicine Man is a sympathetic project that gets done in by an excessively aggressive screenplay - one that keeps manufacturing artificial conflicts and false climaxes where some more relaxed character work would have gracefully done the trick. [07 Feb 1992, p.3]
    • Chicago Tribune
  12. Night School
    The actors aren’t the problem with Night School; the material is.
  13. Total Recall (2012)
    The movie marches in predictable formations as well. But when Biel's rebel pulls over in her hover car and asks Farrell if he'd like a ride, your heart may sing as mine did.
  14. The Last Castle
    An outrageously unlikely prison action movie made with lots of eye-catching pizzazz and undeserved expertise.
    • Chicago Tribune
  15. Riding in Cars with Boys
    It's just another case of mourning over what might have been.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    Suspended Animation
    This film should have clocked in at 90 minutes, tops, rather than almost two hours. A good, healthy scissor-snipping might have allowed some of its quirkier aspects (like the use of a stun gun and a jaw-dropping lab result) to stand out more.
  17. Paycheck
    Unfortunately, after watching Paycheck, you may wish you had the picture's gimmickry at your disposal, so you could erase your own memory of it.
  18. Hocus Pocus
    A dreadful witches' comedy with the only tolerable moment coming when Bette Midler presents a single song.
  19. The Wolfman
    Doggedly, or rather wolfishly, the film doesn't go in for camp or mirth, at least until its misjudged and semi-endless wolf-on-wolf climax.
  20. Dear John
    I truly wish Dear John were a better, less shamelessly manipulative movie, but a couple of the actors got me through it alive. One is Amanda Seyfried.
  21. Youth Without Youth
    Too much of the film is a muddle, and it feels like work, not play.
  22. Automatons
    A mild and static attempt at sincere camp.
  23. A Dog's Journey
    The whole schtick of these movies is the treat-motivated, not-quite-getting-it doggie voice-over, performed by Josh Gad, and it lightens the film. But going dark and emotional makes the film work better than the prior two.
  24. Russkies
    Its message is that if we get to know each other, everything will be okay. Admirable, that. But the way in which it is delivered is so hampered by stereotypes and lathered in cute that one is never able to trust its intentions or swallow its story. [06 Nov 1987, p.56C]
    • Chicago Tribune
  25. Vita & Virginia
    This peek into a famous love story makes the audience a participant in the affair, inspiring questions of perspective and truth in love and art, where the only truth worth anything is one deeply felt.
  26. The Three Musketeers
    The new Walt Disney version of "The Three Musketeers"-plushly mounted, but ineptly written and cast-gallops along like a gargantuan tutti-frutti wagon running amok. [12 Nov 1993, p.C]
    • Chicago Tribune
  27. Freedomland
    First-rate actors bail out second-rate directors all the time, and Freedomland serves as the latest example.
  28. Final Destination 3
    Final Destination 3 is a gorefest that should either slake your worst appetites or drive you to the exits.
  29. MVP: Most Valuable Primate
    A dull, amateurish mixture of the sentimental and the obvious.
  30. Meet Dave
    The heartbreaking thing about Meet Dave...is its occasional funniness amid a sea of pablum. If it were completely rank, it'd be less frustrating.
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