Chicago Tribune's Scores

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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:
  1. Positive: 5,104 out of 7599
  2. Mixed: 1,473 out of 7599
  3. Negative: 1,022 out of 7599
7599 movie reviews
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  1. Beaches
    Beaches is a melodrama in the original sense of the term: a drama with music. And as long as the melo is handled by Bette Midler, who performs half a dozen songs, Beaches can`t be all bad. But the drama, as transacted between Midler and Barbara Hershey, is pretty dreadful.
  2. Dangerous Liaisons
    Though the costumes are beautifully designed, the chateau locations carefully chosen and the dialogue full of curling locutions, something cloddish and naive still comes through in Frears' direction, and not only because he can seldom get his shots to match. [13 Jan 1989, Friday, p.A]
    • Chicago Tribune
  3. Rain Man
    Though it's well directed, written and performed, Rain Main still slips irreversibly into the so-what category. [16 Dec 1988]
    • Chicago Tribune
  4. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
    A character comedy requires some notion of respect and integrity. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels has none. [14 Dec 1988, p.1]
    • Chicago Tribune
  5. I'm Gonna Git You Sucka
    A satire is only as good as its subject, and in the very funny I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, Keenen Ivory Wayans has found a rich and relatively untapped one. The wit and openness of I'm Gonna Git You Sucka has more to contribute to race relations than the smug piety of "Mississippi Burning." As a positive image, a good, shared laugh is hard to beat. [14 Dec 1988, p.1]
    • Chicago Tribune
  6. Twins
    There is a genuine sweetness in Reitman's work that balances the innate cruelty of much '80s film comedy. But this time the gags are too feeble to provide a counterweight and the film tips into the cute, benign and pointless. [9 Dec 1988, p.A]
    • Chicago Tribune
  7. My Stepmother Is an Alien
    As a filmmaker, Benjamin is capable of the occasional light, graceful touch, but the overall view eludes him; just as he was unable to bring out the sly blend of satire and psychological drama in Bo Goldman's script for Little Nikita, he's unable to find any harmony of tone in this scattered, cacophonous material. [09 Dec 1988, p.B]
    • Chicago Tribune
  8. The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!
    Hugely funny, but it's also liberating-precisely because it centers its aim on that cold, closed system and blows it apart. The straight lines are shattered; the empty spaces in the images are packed full until they burst. [2 Dec 1988]
    • Chicago Tribune
  9. Tequila Sunrise
    As a screenplay Tequila Sunrise is a very impressive piece of work. But as a movie, it's knotty and confused. [2 Dec 1988, p.B]
    • Chicago Tribune
  10. Scrooged
    The film works very well, providing lots of laughs, in its first half, setting up the Bill Murray character and his callousness. For a Christmas Eve special he wants to staple antlers on a mouse. [25 Nov 1988, p.A]
    • Chicago Tribune
  11. Cocoon: The Return
    As directed by Daniel Petrie from the slightest excuse for a story by Stephen McPherson and Elizabeth Bradley, Cocoon: The Return amounts to little more than a desperate effort to fill a couple of hours of screen time, to which the commercially potent title can be affixed. [23 Nov 1988, p.C1]
    • Chicago Tribune
  12. The Land Before Time
    It is, in the best Disney tradition, a story of childhood's end, of leaving the family and accepting adult responsibilities. Bluth relates it through a smooth counterpoint of humor, sadness and horror.
  13. Oliver & Company
    The musical voices belong to Billy Joel and Bette Midler, respectively, but this material is far afield of their best work. As a result, a Chihuahua (voice by Cheech Marin) steals the movie with wisecracks. [18 Nov 1988, p.A]
    • Chicago Tribune
  14. High Spirits
    The film shows very little of the nar-rative assurance that has character-ized Jordan's previous work. [21 Nov 1988, p.2C]
    • Chicago Tribune
  15. Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
    With Maura delivering an explosive performance, Almodovar presents Pepa's tale with real gusto--with vibrant colors, gaudy personality, mad jokes and a sexiness that erupts off the screen.
  16. Ernest Saves Christmas
    Though Ernest barely exists apart from his trademark catch phrase (Kno- whut-I-mean?) and his propensity for waggling his nose in wide-angle lenses, Varney's energetic mugging is good for a few mild laughs.
  17. A Cry in the Dark
    Director Fred Schepisi manages his outdoor and courtroom scenes with equal skill. But at the center is Streep, far less mannered than in some of her recent work. [11 Nov 1988, p.A]
    • Chicago Tribune
  18. Child's Play
    Child's Play would probably be sickening if it weren't so relentlessly stupid.
  19. They Live
    The looniest movie of the season and also one of the most engaging. [7 Nov 1988]
    • Chicago Tribune
  20. Things Change
    For much of its length the picture is brilliantly successful-light, surprising and, because it asks the audience to participate in its creation, unusually engaging.
  21. Bat*21
    Director Peter Markle, whose credits include TV documentaries and commercials as well as "Young Blood," has taken pains to make this a craftsmanlike production, shot in Malaysia, full of laborious attention to detail and enterprising stunt flying. Regrettably, the script doesn`t fly quite as smoothly.
  22. The Lair of the White Worm
    Working from a forgotten Victorian thriller by Bram Stoker ("Dracula"), director Ken Russell has fashioned his most watchable film in a long while, largely by staying out of the way of the material.
  23. Mystic Pizza
    It's meant to be open, heartwarming and real, but beneath its often attractively performed surface, the clichés are grinding as heavily as in any ''Rambo'' picture [21 Oct 1988]
    • Chicago Tribune
  24. The Accused
    Foster and McGillis never quite make the transition from ideological mouthpieces to fully developed dramatic figures. [14 Oct 1988, p.C]
    • Chicago Tribune
  25. Pumpkinhead
    A horror picture very nearly as mushbrained as its title character-a terrible demon that rises from a pumpkin patch to seek vengeance...As a technician, Winston clearly knows how to make a monster, but as a director he's yet to learn how to bring one to life. [28 Oct 1988, p.C]
    • Chicago Tribune
  26. Alien Nation
    Alien Nation is a sluggish, forced and hopelessly derivative action thriller, sporadically redeemed by the wit of its stars and the velvety sheen of Greenberg's night photography.
  27. Punchline
    Punchline is supposed to be Tom Hanks' big dramatic breakthrough movie, but the script is boring and his character repellant. [30 Sept 1988, p.A]
    • Chicago Tribune
  28. Clara's Heart
    As directed by Robert Mulligan, the stately pace here feels sluggish and the music is no elegiac Pachelbel's "Canon" but a medley of dreadful cocktail lounge piano and swooning strings. [21 Oct 1988, p.G]
    • Chicago Tribune
  29. Salaam Bombay!
    It still had some juice a few years ago, when it was Hector Babenco's "Pixote," but "Salaam Bombay!" is a disturbingly professional, self-assured piece of work. [28 Oct 1988, p.A]
    • Chicago Tribune
  30. Dead Ringers
    It's almost too rich in ideas for its own good: The sense of concentration and proportion isn't there. But it remains an astonishing, magnetic, devastating piece of work. [23 Sept 1988]
    • Chicago Tribune
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