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. Confidence
    The film is as tricky and superficial as its low-life characters, using visual flimflam to mask its lack of substance.
  2. Payback
    An interesting cast is wasted in this misanthropic thriller.
  3. The Hunted
    It soon gets down to its real business: fights, face-offs, and showdowns mired in the shallowest sort of Hollywood machismo.
  4. Girl, Interrupted
    For a movie about people with hugely complicated inner lives, this sadly unconvincing drama stays resolutely on the surface, rarely hinting at anything like an insight or idea.
  5. 50 First Dates
    It's hard to enjoy this when you're barraged by bathroom humor, animal stunts, and gags about a character whose memory loss is so bad he's called Ten-Second Tom.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    The Headless Woman
    The disjointedness of The Headless Woman might be the result of narrative complexity or of directorial ineptitude or (my favorite) of narrative complexity mangled by directorial ineptitude. If the residual fog ever clears, maybe I'll be able to tell you for sure.
  7. The Hunt for Red October
    Like the nuclear sub it's named after, the picture is big, shiny, and expensive. It's also cold, hard, and cumbersome, and lacking the barest hint of emotional or psychological depth. [9 Mar 1990, Arts, p.10]
    • Christian Science Monitor
  8. The January Man
    A number of good actors, including Kevin Kline and Susan Sarandon, are utterly wasted in this idiotic story, which can't make up its mind whether it's a comedy or a drama. [17 Jan 1989, p.10]
    • Christian Science Monitor
  9. Missing in Action
    Joseph Zito directed this cheap exercise in hate, suspicion, and mayhem. [06 Dec 1984, p.50]
    • Christian Science Monitor
  10. A Lot Like Love
    What's the point of the picture, except to allow Kutcher fans occasional peeks at acting talent he usually keeps hidden?
    • 35 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    200 Cigarettes
    David Chappelle's performance as a cabbie is amusing, but the film should have been packaged with a Surgeon General's Warning - "Cigarettes is bad for you."
  12. Play It to the Bone
    As dopey as its heroes, and the cast's admirable energy isn't enough to keep the story punching through the final round.
  13. Ninja III: The Domination
    Sam Firstenberg directed the mindless mayhem. [15 Nov 1984, p.47]
    • Christian Science Monitor
  14. Congo
    One thing is certain: It's a bomb trying to be a hit, and at that it'll never succeed.
  15. Bubba Ho-tep
    Davis contributes his usual dignity -- not easy when you're playing a character who thinks he's John F. Kennedy dyed black -- but it's not enough to save this silly thriller-comedy.
  16. Nutty Professor II: The Klumps
    The star's over-the-top energy isn't enough to make this hopelessly vulgar, numbingly repetitious farce worth watching.
  17. Light It Up
    The story is irresponsible and the filmmaking is awful.
  18. Welcome to Mooseport
    Romano tries hard, but it takes real big-screen talent to draw laughs and emotions from material as flimsy and formulaic as the script.
  19. The Replacements
    So vulgar and incoherent that even Hackman's gifts can't score a touchdown.
  20. Van Helsing
    In sum, Van Helsing is yet another video game disguised as a wide-screen epic. Here's hoping the box office drives a firm wooden stake through its hokey Hollywood heart.
  21. The Majestic
    The film tries to revive the sort of good-hearted optimism associated with Frank Capra classics of the 1940s era, but pictures like "It's a Wonderful Life" and "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" were never so simplistic, syrupy, or tedious to sit through.
  22. Twisted
    Surely it couldn't be meant as dramatic realism! But it is. And amazingly, the movie gets worse as it goes along.
  23. Good Boy!
    Talking dogs were cute, once. It's a tad disconcerting, however, when a canine starts lip syncing to the voice of Carl Reiner so it can complain about flatulence.
    • 21 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    House of the Sleeping Beauties
    With the mounting number of first-rate, even masterly foreign-language films locked out of movie theaters due to wary distributors, it's worth pondering why such laughable dreck as German actor-writer-director Vadim Glowna's House of the Sleeping Beauties actually made it through.
  25. Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2
    Downright awful.
  26. 8MM
    A private eye enters a horrific world of degrading sex and bottom-feeding pornographers.
  27. Down with Love
    A total lack of chemistry between the stars -- neither of whom is particularly good at romantic comedy in the first place -- and you have a promising package that grows steadily less lovable as it goes along. Down with this movie!
  28. The Faculty
    Creepy.
  29. Bats
    Violent and vapid, but the visual jolts may please horror buffs.
  30. Swept Away
    The junior Giannini, who has inherited Giancarlo's handsome looks, portrays his mercurial character with energy and flair. Madonna doesn't. Indeed, it's hard to remember the last time a certified celebrity gave a performance so monotonous, unimaginative, and all-around tiresome to watch.
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