Chicago Tribune's Scores

For 7,599 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 1.5 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:
7599 movie reviews
  1. Swedish cinema has been famous for a number of things: beautiful actresses, fine sexy psychological dramas, natural settings, cinematic bawdiness and a touch of melancholy. Under the Sun fits that profile well.
  2. Manages to wring some originality out of its fairy-tale plot. This freshness compensates for the expected hackneyed qualities in this Cinderella tale.
  3. This sequel succeeds as a slightly convoluted, paint-by-the-numbers buddy/action comedy with fast, funny banter and well-choreographed fight scenes.
  4. Magnificent to look at, thrilling, ingenious, spellbinding and superbly done on every level, this is not just one of the best films of the year or the decade, but of all time.
  5. This century's Planet of the Apes is a rouser, a screaming-banshee fun house.
  6. A noir with a smile, and after all these years, its deft mixture of darkness and light still makes us smile.
  7. What is most impressive about Kurosawa's direction is how he uses the entire frame, complete with expository background action, to fill in the story blanks. His eagerness to suggest, rather than declare, marks him as a director with confidence to spare.
  8. The acting is primo and the cinematography, on high-definition video by the gifted M. David Mullen, is striking.
    • Chicago Tribune
  9. It is awkward and dull, a capital crime for an aspiring noir.
    • Chicago Tribune
  10. Unambitious and transparent, but that doesn't mean it won't warm the hearts of audiences on both sides of the Atlantic.
  11. This low-budget comedy will most likely try the patience of a paying audience with its uneven pacing, wavering tone and poor production quality.
  12. Fun to watch it may be, but it's shallow fun. Like the drugs and booze the characters keep using -- and even the sex -- it's a passing pleasure.
    • Chicago Tribune
  13. All these good actors and all Crystal's sass and witty candor can't bring back the heyday of Billy Wilder and Preston Sturges. Or even, most of the time, their off-days.
  14. (Mitchell's) Hansel may be small-boned and soft-featured in an androgynous way, but his Hedwig is a force of nature, burned out and jaded yet brimming with compassion and bursting with energy.
  15. What I did like unreservedly was the acting. Enid, as enacted by the sometimes astonishing Birch, is one of the more convincing, no-nonsense teens in recent movies.
  16. Disappointingly hollow.
    • Chicago Tribune
  17. Another of many recent Hollywood plotless wonders.
  18. It's a summit meeting between three brilliant leading men from three generations with three striking on-screen personas.
  19. The good news is that Vaughn is back in needling, loosey-goosey mode in Made, which he produced with Favreau. The bad news is that by the end, not only do you find him quite resistible, but you also may wish one of the tough guys of this mob comedy would heave him out a window.
    • Chicago Tribune
  20. Witherspoon goes further, pouring so much humor and pizzazz into Elle that she lifts up the whole movie.
  21. Just withers compared with many older, better movies about teen alienation and nihilism, from "Rebel Without a Cause" to "River's Edge."
    • Chicago Tribune
  22. The film doesn't always take advantage of its dramatic potential (except for its strong soundtrack), as it relies too heavily on scenes of crazed warriors in makeup and costume, running and screaming and jumping up and down.
  23. Isn't likely to satisfy the gamers' appetite for action. It also probably isn't heady enough for the science-fiction crowd, and it's too remote for those who simply wish to be immersed in a head-spinning fantasy world.
  24. It's a simple story with complex reverberations and undercurrents, as secrets keep being revealed.
  25. Likable comedy about ordinary people stumbling badly and then triumphing.
    • Chicago Tribune
  26. Boldly goes where Hollywood rarely treads: into the passionate, intense and complex world of girls at the point in their lives when self-discovery is tempered by enormous vulnerability.
    • Chicago Tribune
  27. It's one thing for a script to set the framework for an action film -- it's quite another when the script gets in the way.
    • Chicago Tribune
  28. Dry and irreverent, Jump Tomorrow plays like a Hal Hartley ("Henry Fool") comedy with a lighter tone and more laughs.
  29. Some stunts and jokes are genuinely clever.
  30. Scary Movie 2 had seven writers. Seven. That's one writer for every big laugh in its stealthy 82 minutes. More frightening: these jokes are worth waiting for.

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