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. Norwegian Wood
    You can blissfully zone out on the director's pretty pictures, which is a permissible indulgence when the pictures are as delicately alluring as they are here. Also, the performances of Kikuchi and Hatsune are first-rate.
  2. To the Wonder
    Is Malick deliberately courting self-parody here? Probably not. That would imply he had a sense of humor.
  3. Hitch
    Along with its try-anything-for-a-yuk screenplay, the worst thing about Hitch is its running time of almost two hours. Did the studio forget to edit this flimsy thing down?
  4. August: Osage County
    Streep’s performance has been criticized for being too theatrical, but that’s off the mark: The character she’s playing is supposed to be theatrical. She’s a woman playing a part – the ravaged matriarch.
  5. The Wisdom of Crocodiles
    The picture is a little too pretentious to achieve its artistic and emotional goals, but its ambition and imagination are impressive at times.
  6. X-Men: The Last Stand
    I suppose it's asking too much of Ratner to impart some kind of visionary flourish to the proceedings. But without it, these comic-book movies all tend to look the same.
  7. You've Got Mail
    Hanks and Ryan are as appealing as ever, and Ephron's fashion-conscious camera gives the action a slickly attractive sheen.
  8. Jarhead
    Despite all the heavy artistic artillery Mendes has brought to bear, his movie isn't all that far removed conceptually from "Top Gun" - which was also about military men itching for a chance to rock 'n' roll. The only difference is, "Top Gun" was unabashedly a popcorn movie while Jarhead is a box of unpopped kernels passing itself off as a full meal.
  9. Acts of Worship
    Rodriguez makes a promising debut with this unsentimental drama. If she keeps working on her screenwriting skills, she could become a filmmaker to reckon with.
  10. Class Action
    Gene Hackman is excellent when he isn't overdoing his patented nice-guy routine.
  11. Footloose
    This same premise holds for the remake, and it seems more pandering (and dated) than ever.
  12. Jason Bourne
    Other welcome faces include Alicia Vikander as a CIA analyst who has a better bead on Bourne than her superiors; Julia Stiles, in a repeat appearance as the spy’s former contact; and Riz Ahmed as a Silicon Valley billionaire.
  13. Love Liza
    Hoffman's acting is poignant and compassionate, etching a profoundly sad character with no trace of compromise, and Bates gives one of her most controlled performances ever.
  14. Swimming Upstream
    Rush and Davis shine, and the drama is engrossingly told until it turns sadly sentimental in the last minutes.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Disclosure
    On the level of pure craft, Disclosure is first-rate in every department. Levinson's directing is cogent and colorful, and cinematography by camera wizard Tony Pierce-Roberts is dazzling. [9 Dec 1994]
    • Christian Science Monitor
  16. Edgar G. Ulmer - The Man Off-screen
    The subject and the film clips are great, although the documentary as a whole is a bit gimmicky.
  17. Pirate Radio
    The best of it has the comradely, free-swinging bawdiness of Robert Altman's "M*A*S*H."
  18. The Reader
    Fiennes brings to the role a shimmering subtlety.
  19. Year of the Dragon
    Its metaphors are too obvious (as before, Cimino's analogy for death is more death) and its treatment of social problems is skin-deep. Although the screenplay throws sops to many cultural and ethnic groups, it's riddled with racist and sexist attitudes. [23 Aug 1985, p.25]
    • Christian Science Monitor
  20. Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus
    A travelogue unlike any other.
  21. Life Is Beautiful
    Has good intentions, but its exaggerated celebration of quick-witted improvisation ultimately trivializes the human and historical horrors evoked by the story.
  22. Stoker
    Park employs all manner of cinematic derring-do – shock cuts, off-kilter compositions, discontinuous storytelling – all to no great purpose other than to make us go “Wow.” A more appropriate response might be, “Huh?”
  23. The King
    The first-time director, James Marsh, and his co-writer Milo Addica (who wrote "Monster's Ball"), sustain a black-comic tone, and the performances, as far they go, are quietly chilling.
  24. Trouble with the Curve
    What you get in Trouble with the Curve is standard-issue late-career Eastwoodiana. The growl, the snarl, the crotchetiness are already familiar to us from "Million Dollar Baby" (2004) and "Gran Torino" (2009), his last appearance as an actor.
  25. Go Further
    Meant to be a romp in the old Ken Kesey tradition, it's more like a dull drive with a bunch of leftover flower children.
  26. Defiance
    It's a heroic story, and Zwick frames it rather too strenuously as an antidote to the generic Holocaust stories of Jewish passivity and martyrdom. And yet, as a piece of historical redress, a great service has been done in bringing this narrative to the screen.
  27. The Highwaymen
    At his best, Costner both exalts and complicates the strong and silent types who crowd, often to diminishing effect, so much of our American movie mythology.
  28. Crimes of the Heart
    The director, Bruce Beresford, is so eager to crowd the screen with eccentric details of behavior and setting that the verbal subtleties and rhythms get twisted out of shape. Sissy Spacek, Jessica Lange, and Diane Keaton give all-out performances that occasionally jell into true ensemble work. [12 Dec 1986, p.35]
    • Christian Science Monitor
  29. Shrek Forever After
    It has a sweetness all its own.
  30. TRON
    Dazzling but lightweight epic about a young scientist kidnapped into a computer, where he battles an evil master control program that runs the place like an electronic fascist. Has some tantalizing moments, as when computer-generated characters debate the religious question of whether users really exist. In the end, though, it's squarely in the old Walt Disney tradition of anthropomorphizing everything in sight, only this time it's circuits (instead of cuddly animals) that look and talk like people.
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