Chicago Tribune's Scores

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For 7,613 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: 5,116 out of 7613
  2. Mixed: 1,475 out of 7613
  3. Negative: 1,022 out of 7613
7613 movie reviews
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  1. Heartburn
    Ephron delivered an incredibly flimsy script based on her novel about her former husband's repeated infidelity during their marriage and her pregnancies. Nicholson isn't given a character to play. He just lumbers onto the screen and cheats off-camera.
  2. Out of Bounds
    Out of Bounds may be, like a comic book, pulp entertainment, but it's artfully done pulp--a pictorial page-turner whose pages turn themselves. [25 July 1986, p.A]
    • Chicago Tribune
  3. Haunted Honeymoon
    For years now Wilder has been trying to imitate the success of his mentor, director Mel Brooks. But he has repeatedly failed. That's why the biggest mystery in "Haunted Honeymoon" is why anyone would still give Wilder money to make a picture.
    • Chicago Tribune
  4. Aliens
    Toward the end, the film resorts to placing a young girl in jeopardy in a pathetic attempt to pander to who knows what audience. Some people have praised the technical excellence of Aliens. Well, the Eiffel Tower is technically impressive, but I wouldn`t want to watch it fall apart on people for two hours.
  5. Pirates
    Pirates is tedious round after tedious round of mutiny and rescue. Screen people are hanged and stabbed and garroted with great care, but there's nothing to put the audience out of its misery. [22 July 1986, p.5C]
    • Chicago Tribune
  6. Club Paradise
    Throughout, Williams seems hampered, hand-tied and almost mind-controlled, as if afraid of letting his hyperkinetic style take off. That`s too bad, because without it, Club Paradise is amiable, amusing and effortless, words that are good news when the subject is bittersweet comedy and disaster when the intention was clearly slapstick.
  7. Big Trouble in Little China
    Though the film does contain a few minutes of patented Carpenter camera magic, it is unable to sustain either story or character. For all its flash and color, it is a dull film--an artless dig in the Spielberg garden. [02 July 1986, p.C3]
    • Chicago Tribune
  8. About Last Night...
    This is the movie "St. Elmo's Fire" wanted to be and missed by a mile.
  9. Psycho III
    The real trouble with Psycho III is that it's one sequel too many. Norman and his Gothic manse have already been drained of creative resources. [03 July 1986, p.A]
    • Chicago Tribune
  10. The Great Mouse Detective
    What it all comes down to is the basic question: Is this just a movie for children? Not really. It's more a movie for the childlike--of any age. [02 July 1986, p.3C]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 36 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    Under the Cherry Moon
    "We had fun, didn't we?" asks Prince at the end, just before he goes to heaven. It's nice that somebody did. [04 Jul 1986, p.3C]
    • Chicago Tribune
  12. Labyrinth
    What an enormous waste of talent and money is Labyrinth. [30 Jun 1986, p.3]
    • Chicago Tribune
  13. Ruthless People
    Ruthless People contains some of the biggest laughs of 1986.
  14. Running Scared
    Crystal and Hines are immediately likable on the screen, so the fact that Running Scared isn`t all that we expect must be due to the script. The film`s ending does leave room for a sequel. If one is made, director Hyams should get Crystal and Hines a better story as well as that bar in Florida.
  15. The Karate Kid Part II
    There are scattered pleasures throughout the film due to its two lead performances, which are the equal of the work done in the original. It's just that with a few exceptions, the characters Miyagi and Daniel are forced into conflict with aren't worthy of their time.
  16. Legal Eagles
    Novie lovers will want more of Winger and more Redford, both separately and together. If they had more scenes, their romance might seem more credible, rather than being simply the movie convention of ''star loves star.'' It`s a close call on Legal Eagles. It`s not a total waste of time.
  17. Back to School
    In this very funny Rodney Dangerfield comedy, there has been an important shift in Rodney`s entertainment persona, a shift that has made this small film a monster hit.
  18. The Manhattan Project
    Believe it or not, The Manhattan Project, a thriller about a high school boy who builds an atomic bomb, is a solid, credible action film. It also contains, during this summer of violent films, a welcome pacifistic message.
  19. Mona Lisa
    It is precisely that interplay between tenderness and ruthlessness that is the special excitement of Mona Lisa, one of the year's most spellbinding films. [2 July 1986, p.C3]
    • Chicago Tribune
  20. Ferris Bueller's Day Off
    That the film doesn't live up to our anticipation of a rolicking good time is only part of its disappointment. [11 June 1986]
    • Chicago Tribune
  21. Raw Deal
    The film's biggest continuing laugh is the very idea that Arnold Schwarzenegger, with his thick accent, could infiltrate the upper echelon of the Mafia. I could see him catering a German mob dinner, but a trusted ally? Never.
  22. SpaceCamp
    Their adventures are not special, nor are their personalities. If young people want to experience a genuinely exciting airborne adventure in a movie theater right now, "Top Gun" is the picture to see--not SpaceCamp. [6 June 1986, p.AC]
    • Chicago Tribune
  23. Invaders from Mars
    Director Tobe Hooper seems to want his homage and his "Saturday Night Live," too. One minute he's reveling in hair-raising terror; in the next, he's dishing up naughty, nasty camp. [9 June 1986, p.5C]
    • Chicago Tribune
  24. Jake Speed
    Jake Speed isn't a movie. It's just a financial deal.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Big Trouble
    These isolated pockets of comic invention are balanced by long stretches of general choppiness in editing and pacing. Shot by shot, the movie is crisply staged and photographed, but the gags don`t work and the timing`s off in much of the aborted fun.
  26. Cobra
    Whereas Clint Eastwood simply would have squinted at Robinson, Stallone takes a more violent approach. Maybe that's the difference between actors--Eastwood can be droll; Stallone more often crosses the border to primeval.
  27. Poltergeist II: The Other Side
    Poltergeist II offers no fresh hooting interest. To put it simply, there is nothing to like about Poltergeist II.
  28. Top Gun
    No doubt about it: Top Gun is going to be the hit that "The Right Stuff" should have been. They are not in the same class of films, but this much must be said: The aerial sequences in Top Gun are as thrilling -- while remaining coherent -- as any ever put on film.
  29. Short Circuit
    Short Circuit is an obvious WarGames ripoff in which a robot steals every scene from wooden performances by the always-too-eager-to-please Steve Guttenberg and the usually likable Ally Sheedy.
  30. Blue City
    A bad script. Bad casting. What`s left? How about the guilty party you can spot within minutes? Add a complete lack of suspense to that list and it ensures that Blue City will be on this critic`s list of the year`s worst movies.
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