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 1.5 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: 5,106 out of 7601
  2. Mixed: 1,473 out of 7601
  3. Negative: 1,022 out of 7601
7601 movie reviews
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    • 46 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Flowers of War
    When it comes to storytelling, Zhang Yimou's 19th feature is decidedly backward-looking: A lavish period weepie set against the atrocities of the Nanking Massacre, "Flowers" abounds with well-worn movie archetypes and slathers on schmaltz.
  2. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
    If actors this good cannot overcome their material, then we can only say: Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock … Max von Sydow, Zoe Caldwell, Viola Davis, Jeffrey Wright, John Goodman… thanks for your honest efforts in the service of a fundamentally dishonest weepie.
  3. Pina
    In both theatrical environments and open-air ones, with Wenders paying close attention to the geometrics as well as the psychology of the movement, Pina is the best possible tribute to Bausch, and to adventurous image-making.
  4. Red Tails
    Red Tails squanders a great subject, reducing the real-life struggles and fierce heroics of the Tuskegee Airmen to rickety cliche.
  5. Haywire
    In terms of its title, Haywire doesn't quite go there; it's more "Haywire-ish." But it's eccentric, and the on-screen violence is sharp and exciting - brutal without being either subhumanly sadistic or superhumanly ridiculous.
  6. Carnage
    A lot of people have no use for Carnage, especially in its unapologetically hemmed-in film version. And yet there isn't a sloppily or casually considered shot in any of the 80 minutes.
  7. The Iron Lady
    Meryl Streep excels as Margaret Thatcher. And the movie itself does not work.
  8. Joyful Noise
    The movie's all right, if you can take its rampant artificiality - and I'm not even talking about Parton's face yet.
  9. Contraband
    Wahlberg has the presence, the glower and the laconic line readings to guide us through a mess of pain, painlessly.
  10. The Devil Inside
    The Devil Inside joins a long, woozy-camera parade of found-footage scare pictures, among them "The Blair Witch Project," the "Paranormal Activity" films and certain wedding videos that won't go away.
  11. Pariah
    The payoffs here begin and end with Oduye, and as we see this character confront her obstacles with bravery, grace and resolve, "Pariah" exhibits many of the same traits, for which filmgoers can be thankful.
  12. In the Land of Blood and Honey
    If her movie cannot fully resolve the demands of the love story with the horrifying particulars of the context, she's smart and honest enough as a first-time filmmaker to make "Blood and Honey" off-limits for those who prefer easy viewing. Even with a subject such as this.
  13. We Bought a Zoo
    Pap, but easygoing pap with a cast you can live with for a couple of hours.
  14. War Horse
    Take the theatrical flourish away from this story, however, and the story's thinness becomes apparent.
  15. The Artist
    The Artist may not be great art, but it's pearly entertainment.
  16. The Adventures of Tintin
    I fear Spielberg and Jackson hitched their wagon to the wrong technological star here.
  17. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
    The most coldly compelling version yet of the tale dreamed up by the late Stieg Larsson.
  18. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
    Bird has serious promise outside the animation realm; in "Ghost Protocol" he errs, I think, by shoving the camera too close to the bodies in the frame, so that the momentum and spatial relationships become awfully hard to parse.
  19. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
    This is one of the finest achievements of the year, and while it's easy to lose your way in the labyrinth, I don't think Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is most interesting for its narrative pretzels. Rather, it's about what this sort of life does to the average human soul.
  20. A Dangerous Method
    The wonderful thing about Fassbender and Mortensen? Several things, actually. They're effortlessly convincing in period, and they know how to make recessive characters intriguing.
  21. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
    Certainly Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's creations have suffered permanent damage thanks to Ritchie's films.
  22. Young Goethe in Love
    Young Goethe in Love wants only to engage an audience with a capital-R Romantic ideal of Goethe's first love. It does so very well. And it was well worth the effort.
  23. Young Adult
    Cody would likely acknowledge she's working through her own contradictory feelings toward her protagonist - and that she may have been a draft or two away from shaping those feelings into a terrific black comedy, rather than a pretty interesting one.
  24. New Year's Eve
    I always enjoy Elizondo; he has a way of elevating some pretty lame banter, and thanks to New Year's Eve he has his way all over again.
  25. The Sitter
    I hope Green one day finds a way to bridge the style and rhythm of his early pictures (the ones that didn't make money) and the bumper-car approach of The Sitter.
  26. Tyrannosaur
    The result is a picture that is baldly manipulative yet weirdly sentimental, and while Considine (a fine actor) can write, he is capable also of writing dialogue you've heard before.
  27. Shame
    There is a good movie to be made about someone like Brandon, especially with someone like Fassbender, a performer of exceptional technical facility and a fascinating sense of reserve. McQueen's isn't quite it.
  28. Arthur Christmas
    A tender and upbeat spirit informs the writing and the execution.
  29. Hugo
    Rich and stimulating even when it wanders.
  30. My Week with Marilyn
    Such stalwarts as Judi Dench, Julia Ormond, Toby Jones and Dominic Cooper spice things up as characters of various degrees of familiarity.
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