Christian Science Monitor's Scores

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For 4,492 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 55% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 43% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 2.1 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 67
Highest review score: 100 'Round Midnight
Lowest review score: 0 Couples Retreat
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2,780 out of 4492
  2. Mixed: 1,361 out of 4492
  3. Negative: 351 out of 4492
4492 movie reviews
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  1. Ricki and the Flash
    Strutting around for most of the film in her leather rocker duds, Streep’s Ricki Rendazzo is almost as much of a concoction as her witch in Into the Woods. She wears her uniform as a taunt and also as a way of defining herself. She’s a woman out of time – a superannuated hippie.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    So I Married an Axe Murderer
    "Axe Murderer" resembles a dozen other films, yet it has its one charm - Myers himself, who sometimes borders on being adorable but is smart enough never to sink the viewer in gooey sweetness.
  3. The Devil's Rejects
    If you're not in the mood for "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" meets "Last House on the Left," stay very far away. Horror fans will find what they're looking for, though.
  4. 10 Items or Less
    By the end, 10 Items Or Less has the obnoxiousness of a vanity project. Freeman is having a better time than we are.
  5. Gauguin: Voyage to Tahiti
    It’s a perplexing, fascinating, maddening movie, not quite like any other film biography of a famous painter, most of which tend to be equal parts ho-hum and hokum.
  6. Melinda and Melinda
    This is closer to an Allen comeback than anything else he's made recently. Maybe he'll achieve it with his next movie, "Match Point," due this year.
  7. Hamlet 2
    Not infrequently the movie is as mediocre as its target. The great Steve Coogan movie has yet to be made.
  8. Brighton Beach Memoirs
    Although he gave the plot real momentum on the stage, director Saks has fudged and fuzzed things by translating it so listlessly to the screen. [2 Jan 1987, p.25]
    • Christian Science Monitor
  9. Bruno
    There's good bad taste and then there's just plain bad bad, which is what describes most of Brüno.
  10. The Tracey Fragments
    It's all a bit like "Girl Interrupted" shattered into a thousand shards, but Page somehow manages to come through with a performance despite the director's distracting technique.
  11. Get Smart
    At least we have Alan Arkin playing the head of CONTROL. His drone and deadpan are a perfect complement to Carell's. But please, pretty please, let's not go for a sequel on this one, OK?
  12. Deathtrap
    Deathtrap falls short of the classic potential it would obviously like to have. Still, it's a jaunty entertainment, by and large.
  13. Return to Me
    The picture goes for sentimentality rather than substance every chance it gets, and the cast falls right into its syrupy trap.
  14. From Hell
    The movie works well as a straight-out horror yarn, proving that the Hughes Brothers are more versatile than their previous "ghetto pictures" suggest.
  15. Julien Donkey-Boy
    Korine confirms his reputation as one of today's most experimentally minded filmmakers, helped by an inventive cast including German director Herzog in a surprisingly strong performance as the father.
  16. Chuen jik sat sau
    The story matters less than the style, full of swooping camera movements, rapid-fire editing, and color-drenched displays of violence the Hong Kong school is famous for.
  17. The Bread, My Sweet
    Although this "Moonstruck" knockoff is diverting to watch, it's basically a low-budget loaf of Italian-American movie clichés.
  18. Let's Get Frank
    Feisty, funny, and smart.
  19. Bobby
    It's a sideways view of a national trauma. The large cast includes standout performances from such unlikelies as Demi Moore, playing an alcoholic crooner, and Estevez himself, as her long-suffering husband. Everyone in this film is powerful.
  20. Booty Call
    With the exception of a few laughs - including a hysterical footsie scene and another that involves Saran Wrap - this one's a no-brainer.
  21. Tough Guys
    There are some good laughs and ironic twists in the story, along with a nagging vulgarity. Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas make a terrific team, and director Jeff Kanew gives them free rein to amuse us. [3 Oct 1986, p.23]
    • Christian Science Monitor
  22. Educating Rita
    The plot is ''Pygmalion'' warmed over, but Michael Caine and Julie Walters give sparkling performances, and director Lewis Gilbert keeps the action humming along.
  23. Portraits chinois
    Nicely acted and capably directed, but hardly memorable.
  24. Malèna
    Striking photography, period detail, screen-filling crowd scenes, and veteran composer Morricone's score make this one worth seeing, but the sheer nastiness of the town's people drags it down.
  25. Warriors of Heaven and Earth
    Impressively filmed but not dramatic enough to justify its length.
  26. Paper Heart
    It's all kind of silly and amorphous, but the scenes between Yi and Cera, whether or not they were scripted, have a babes-in-the-wood loveliness.
  27. U Turn
    Oliver Stone's imaginative style runs rings around John Ridley's idiotic screenplay.
  28. The House of Yes
    Written and directed by Mark Waters, who strives for David Mamet-style punchiness but doesn't develop the quirky momentum that would carry the deliberately out-of-kilter story past its implausibilities.
  29. Downtown 81
    Its main value is the prolonged look it gives of the late artist Basquiat.
  30. Music of the Heart
    The story's can-do attitude and moments of soaring music make it a must-see for moviegoers seeking positive visions on the screen.
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