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. The Big Bounce
    Like the frosty tropical drinks the people keep sipping here, it's refreshing and icy-cool, a sinful pleasure mixed by experts.
  2. Wet Hot American Summer
    This low-budget comedy will most likely try the patience of a paying audience with its uneven pacing, wavering tone and poor production quality.
  3. Stuber
    There is absolutely no reason to catch a ride with the nasty, brutish and shrill "Stuber," a horror movie about our current American nightmare of late capitalist economics and unchecked law enforcement masquerading as an "action comedy."
  4. Joe Somebody
    If "American Beauty" were a bland comedy, it would be Joe Somebody.
  5. The Divergent Series: Insurgent
    The actors are more or less saving this franchise's bacon. Insurgent is a tick or two livelier than the first one.
  6. Sanctum
    Here and there an image of spectral beauty, assisted by the 3-D technology, floats into view and captures our imagination. But the script, which really should've been called "Sanctimonium," has a serious case of the bends.
  7. Raising Cain
    Following on the abject failure of Bonfire of the Vanities, director De Palma seems to have seriously lost his way. [14 Aug 1992, p.C]
    • Chicago Tribune
  8. Phantasm II
    Coscarelli has captured the texture of a disjointed, half-remembered nightmare, full of figures and events that seem to have some symbolic value, but which have lost their precise meaning in the process of floating up from the subconscious.
  9. Locked Down
    The actors take your mind off things when they can: I like the way Hathaway jabs her elbow at the elevator buttons for punctuation, and the ardent commitment to language Ejiofor brings to his character’s public poetry readings. But a movie shouldn’t rely on Hathaway and Ejiofor to shell-game your attention away from the movie itself.
  10. Won't Back Down
    Davis, in particular, manages to create a fully dimensional character in the midst of a highly polemical screenplay.
  11. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts
    You know what’s not bad? Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. Dumber than a box of lugnuts, but superior to the Michael Bay-directed schlocktaculars that ran as long as 165 minutes. The new “Transformers” movie clocks in at 117 minutes, a lot of them pretty zippy.
  12. 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.
  13. Love the Hard Way
    Writer-director Peter Sehr displays obvious directing talent, especially in his use of nonlinear love scenes. He shows the coupling, the approach and release all at once, out of order, mixing the entire seduction ritual into one fluid montage.
  14. Transcendence
    After an intriguing start, Transcendence — aka "The Computer Wore Johnny Depp's Tennis Shoes" — offers roughly the same level of excitement as listening to hold music during a call to tech support.
  15. The Internship
    Levy surely knew that the script at hand didn't warrant a full two-hour running time; even if you enjoy The Internship, as my son did, it feels 20 minutes over-full at least. Cut out half of the "Flashdance" and "X-Men" references, and you're halfway there.
  16. Mafia Mamma
    This high-concept romp demands an over-the-top and facile narrative, and some of the bits are a bit hackneyed, but Mafia Mamma is much more wacky, funny and violent than the too-tame trailers would have you believe. Collette goes for broke in her performance and Hardwicke juggles the tone, style and genre play with ease.
  17. Stone Cold
    Stone Cold has a basic proficiency, despite some notably awkward edits. Director Craig Baxley paces the story well, and Walter Doniger's script follows the classic formula for the genre: the more evil the villains, the greater hero the star and the more justified the film's gore. [20 May 1991, p.4C]
    • Chicago Tribune
  18. Total Eclipse
    Total Eclipse is a biographical film steeped in ecstasy and despair, seething with madness and torment.
  19. Inferno
    This is a franchise with lead weights tied around its ankles.
  20. Captain America: Brave New World
    The movie wouldn’t feel human at all, really, if not for the convincing emotion bond established between Mackie and Carl Lumbly as Isaiah.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    Superstar
    From my vantage point, it doesn't include a single laugh.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    The Lawnmower Man
    The story, however, was interesting and the minor characters, as well as the photography, were enjoyable to watch. Not to mention you get a preview of what may be next in home entertainment. [13 Mar 1992, p.N]
    • Chicago Tribune
  23. Renegades
    Renegades steams along very nicely, with more than enough momentum to compensate for the callowness of its stars. [05 Jun 1989, p.3C]
    • Chicago Tribune
  24. Burnt
    Director John Wells dices the action, even the simplest conversation, into five harried shots when one would suffice. The many food-prep montages are cut and paced to the same numbing rhythm.
  25. The 13th Warrior
    Has a remote feel. It sometimes impresses but never soars.
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 42 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Psycho Beach Party
    There's nothing here that's outrageous, startling or daring enough to give your funny bone a jolt.
  27. Two Weeks Notice
    Lead actors seeming like they're taking it easy is one thing. But a filmmaker trying to construct a smart romantic comedy actually must do some work.
  28. Jurassic Park III
    Another of many recent Hollywood plotless wonders.
  29. Amazon Women on the Moon
    Rarely has a comedy been so empty of laughs. If this film makes any money, it all should go to the person who thought up the title. [18 Sept 1987, p.A]
    • Chicago Tribune
  30. Wild Mountain Thyme
    The music is drippy and constant, the wobble from comedy to drama feels off, and the dialects have been reamed in the Irish press. Charm resists calculation; even if actors get some going, even if a writer creates an approximation in or between the lines, deliberately manufactured charm curdles so easily. The one success story of Wild Mountain Thyme belongs to Blunt, who has yet to give a poor or lazily considered performance.
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