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. Final Analysis
    What is genuinely chilling about Final Analysis lies not in the foolish plotting but in the completely callous attitude of the director and writer, who are interested in their characters only as compositional elements or, at best, game pieces to be pushed around a board. It`s a cold, distant work of no compassion and, finally, no importance.
  2. Unhinged
    In the sadistic yet middling road-rage thriller Unhinged, Crowe literally steers the vehicle delivering the big box of acting, over- and under-. While there’s barely a movie there, a year from now, when the multiplexes of the world will either largely be back, be gone or be something in between, we’ll have forgotten Unhinged.
  3. Shaft
    Cool New York City detective John Shaft is back again in, you guessed it, Shaft, with a modern update that goes completely sideways in all the wrong ways. This Shaft is a bad mother all right, and it'd be better if he just shut his mouth.
  4. The Good Heart
    As robust and clever an actor as Cox is, he can't make Jacques any less of a blowhard; Kari's wit simply doesn't come through in English, at least with this script.
  5. Igor
    With an uneven and overstuffed script you appreciate the corner-of-the-mouth comments as delivered by Steve Buscemi.
  6. Here Comes the Boom
    Once it gets going and commits to its time-worn inspirational formula, it's not half-bad.
  7. Derailed
    It's a cheap thrill, with twists that later seem evident and foreshadowing that often seems obvious, with a B-movie look and vibe reminiscent of the much tighter "Jagged Edge."
  8. Piñero
    It wisely lets us hear Pinero's words for ourselves, and in the end, they echo louder than the images that accompany them.
  9. Nightwatch
    Nightwatch is more stylish and well-plotted than your typical slasher film, but it doesn't quite stand out in a world where the horrific has become routine. [17 Apr 1998]
    • Chicago Tribune
  10. Gleaming the Cube
    Clifford can muster no interest in the cardboard characters or absurd plot developments, which leaves Gleaming the Cube to limp along listlessly between indifferently filmed skateboard demonstrations.
  11. Suicide Squad
    But folks, this is a lousy script, blobby like the endlessly beheaded minions of the squad's chief adversary. It's not satisfying storytelling; the flashbacks roll in and out, explaining either too much or too little, and the action may be violent but it's not interesting.
  12. 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.
  13. Nightbreed
    Barker unleashes the full force of his special effects crew and the movie implodes in a cataclysm of jelly-fleshed creepy-crawlies. It simply loses its grip. [17 Feb 1990, p.3C]
    • Chicago Tribune
  14. Wisconsin Death Trip
    The film is not exactly a documentary, and not quite a period horror movie either. But it has elements of both. At its best, it's hypnotic and provocative.
  15. 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.
  16. Max Keeble's Big Move
    It's the pre-teen set who will revel in the adolescent angst and anarchic high jinks of Max Keeble.
    • Chicago Tribune
  17. Martin Lawrence Live: Runteldat
    He's endearing and affable when finding humor and even introspective life lessons after arrests, drug use and a near-death experience.
  18. The Goldfinch
    The Goldfinch is both too long and too short; dull to watch but scanty on the details about logistics, character, and just how anything of note actually occurs. The mystery of the film is something to be endured, rather than solved. But the real mystery is our leading man. We never know who Theo is as an adult, or if we’re on his side, or why we should care.
  19. Over the Top
    Over the Top is pretty much like all of the other successful Stallone films, which probably means that it will be a success, too. In fact, it`s considerably better than the ragged, recycled Rocky IV, though it lacks the wild excesses that made Rambo and Cobra campily entertaining.
  20. Monkeybone
    Isn't much more creative than your average gross-out comedy.
    • Chicago Tribune
  21. Message in a Bottle
    Strikes me as a pure, unadulterated crock. [12 February 1999, Friday, p.A]
    • Chicago Tribune
  22. Bliss
    I wish the results were better, and a lot stranger. Cahill’s world-building has its moments, though. And the filmmaker did determine — correctly — that it’d be fun to have Bill Nye, the science guy, in a bow tie, portraying a sniffy scientific researcher.
  23. Welcome To Marwen
    Welcome to Marwen is a misjudgment only a first-rate filmmaker could make.
  24. Wicker Park
    To work, it has to make us feel crazy with love, like "Vertigo" did. Instead, it often just makes us feel crazy for believing any of it.
  25. Remember Me
    The dialogue can drive you crazy with its self-consciousness.
  26. The Believers
    The movie was attractively filmed by John Schlesinger, but the subject matter is stultifying and not the least bit spooky. [12 Jun 1987, p.A]
    • Chicago Tribune
  27. Phantom
    Robinson is undone partly by his own workmanlike touch as a writer, and partly by matters of casting. I like Harris, and he's quite moving here, but every time Duchovny reappears the overall energy level sinks to crush depth.
  28. Fantastic Four
    I don't think it will seriously disappoint longtime fans, but it made me itchy as I watched it unfold in ways that the comics never did when I read them in the '60s.
  29. Deliver Us From Evil
    Half the time, Deliver Us From Evil is genuinely interested in Sarchie's all-too-human demons, and half the time we're marking time until the big exorcism and an ending that keeps the door open for a sequel, should the market demand it.
  30. The Comedian
    Everyone in The Comedian deserves a better movie than The Comedian.
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