Chicago Tribune's Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
  1. U2 3D
    The neatest effects in U2 3D are simple ones. The wow/coolness of watching a revered superstar tilt his mic stand toward the camera creates a simple but irresistible feeling of being there in the flesh, with a phalanx of expensive digital 3-D cameras.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Teeth
    Teeth is about female exploitation and male castration.
  3. Cassandra's Dream
    Allen is obsessed with the notion of getting away with murder, mulling over which personalities can shoulder the psychological burden of killing without remorse, while others crumble under the pressure. The problem is, you don’t feel the human sweat and strain in Cassandra’s Dream, despite game work from Farrell and McGregor.
  4. Cloverfield
    It’s dumb but quick and dirty and effectively brusque, dispensing with niceties such as character.
  5. Mad Money
    Diane Keaton--now there’s a trouper for you. She will not be caught giving less than 110 percent, even in a drab little heist comedy.
  6. Still Life
    The first great film of the year. It’s beautiful but so much more—full of subtle feeling, framed by a monstrous, eroding landscape.
  7. 27 Dresses
    The eerily precise Heigl, who provided confident back-court support as the exile in Guyville also known as “Knocked Up,” has no trouble filling a leading lady’s shoes. She’s just snarky enough to be interesting, and she knows how to take a fall.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Taxi to the Dark Side
    An invaluable document, both for its hard questions and for the sickeningly unflinching interviews that provide the answers.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    First Sunday
    The movie’s total lack of focus and its unimpressive script should render it totally unwatchable. Weirdly, that doesn’t quite happen. There’s something endearing about these characters.
    • 24 Metascore
    • 38 Critic Score
    One Missed Call
    While director Eric Valette provides the occasional chill, the disturbing spooks aren't enough to make this boat float. Burns sleepwalks through One Missed Call totally devoid of charisma, and Sossamon muddles along, going through the motions.
  11. Honeydripper
    Typical of a pretty good Sayles movie. There are few, if any, heroes and villains.
  12. The Orphanage
    As in “Pan’s Labyrinth,” The Orphanage relies on a risky blend of clinically realistic horrors and poetic suggestions of an alternate world, one that can be visited, but at a price.
  13. There Will Be Blood
    Day-Lewis... the role of a lifetime.
  14. The Bucket List
    A manipulative look at dying with dignity and a lame yarn about as realistic as the fantasy in “The Princess Bride.”
  15. The Great Debaters
    Good story, well told. Interesting concept. I wonder if people will go for it.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Persepolis
    Without significantly changing the books’ content, they bring in a wealth of emotional tones--particularly a playful, wry humor.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    The Water Horse
    First, a few things The Water Horse is not: revolutionary, controversial or challenging. What it is: a sweet, familiar story, beautifully filmed and lovingly told.
  18. Charlie Wilson's War
    It is well made as far as it goes. I wish it went beyond its own carefully prescribed limits of the commercially acceptable.
  19. National Treasure: Book of Secrets
    All you want from a movie like this, really, is a little brainless fun, and it keeps holding out on you. Everyone looks fatigued. Even Cage’s toupee seems ambivalent about having signed on for a sequel.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    P.S. I Love You
    One of the most gifted dramatic actors working in movies today, Swank is stunningly ill suited for romantic comedy (or this one, anyway).
  21. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
    Sweeney Todd may haunt you in ways you’re not used to with a movie musical. At least not since “Mame.”
  22. Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
    The tunes are so good, you can’t believe the film itself doesn’t amount to more, especially with the rightness of the casting. Still, a few laughs are better than none.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Steep
    Steep is one of those rare endeavors able to touch on the human condition without neglecting the film’s true star: big-mountain skiing.
  24. Alvin and the Chipmunks
    So it’s one of those Hip, Now updates, albeit with jokes riffing on pop-cult artifacts that are already Then. I mean: “Jerry Maguire”? Moratorium!
  25. I Am Legend
    Smith carries it, even after the story loses its nerve. This film is the opposite of “Transformers”: It’s all about the unsettling silence, not the noise.
  26. The Kite Runner
    While not autobiographical, The Kite Runner feels authentic in its ethnic tensions, even when the narrative itself, with its handily reappearing and easily avenged villain, undermines that authenticity.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Look
    The performances feel natural, improvised, and it’s easy to believe this is the world we inhabit. But if Rifkin’s message is pro-privacy, his script, laced throughout with menace, argues against it.
  28. Youth Without Youth
    Too much of the film is a muddle, and it feels like work, not play.
  29. The Perfect Holiday
    Strives to be nothing more than easygoing and heartwarming.
  30. Nanking
    Whatever the numbers, testimony cited in Nanking portrays the episode as a horrifying chapter in man’s renowned inhumanity to man.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »