McClatchy-Tribune News Service's Scores

  • Movies
For 601 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 61% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 37% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 4.6 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 60
Highest review score: 100 56 Up
Lowest review score: 25 Blended
Score distribution:
601 movie reviews
  1. The performers are more competent than compelling, a common failing of faith-based films. Blame the edge-free, freshly-scrubbed characters that they play. Sadly, even as a safe-for-seniors saga ready-made for The Hallmark Channel, this is pretty thin gruel.
  2. It aims for that “Hangover” blend of the sick and the sentimental. And it doesn’t work.
  3. As instantly forgettable as the pleasant but unremarkable tunes Miller, Sagal and assorted soundtrack artists sing during the film.
  4. Still waters may run deep, as the old saying goes. But Beside Still Waters there’s nothing deeper than “The Big Chill.”
  5. This generally mild-mannered comedy sinks or swims on Hart’s back. And as one scene makes clear, Little Man can’t swim.
  6. The worst comic book adaptation since “Jonah Hex.”
  7. The Best of Me plays like the worst of Nicholas Sparks.
  8. Minor moments of slapstick may tickle the kids, but anybody older, especially those who remember what Williams was like in his prime and how funny Stiller was just two “Museum” movies ago, will wish this tomb had stayed sealed.
  9. A humorless, muddled, bloody and generally unpleasant thriller.
  10. A stylish, moody and atmospheric tale contorted into a young adult horror story, it never works up a decent fright.
  11. Though it rarely looks as malnourished as say, “Europa Report” or “Moon,” Last Days on Mars does show how starved of new ideas sci-fi cinema is.
  12. Maybe they all took a gander at that random, ridiculous scenario and hoped that the car would be cool enough to bail them out. It isn’t.
  13. It’s inoffensive, unless you take umbrage at the idea that the only people who know not to steal are True Believers and all that keeps society from an instant meltdown are the Faithful.
  14. It’s another pointless romp through Sandlerland — where the women are buxom, the kids have catch-phrases and the jokes are below average.
  15. Like Vin Diesel, it has bulk, lumbering clumsily along as it repeats Diesel’s greatest hits — the ones that don’t require him to drive a fast and furious car.
  16. If it weren’t for the well-intentioned moments of pathos — a tear or two, hear and there — Tio Papi would be a complete waste of time.
  17. The pace is stumbling, the characters are broad, the makeup and the performances uneven, though Sorbo dives into his tactless, unethical indoctrinator role with Satanic glee.
  18. In Let Me Explain, you’re never NOT aware that you’re watching a gifted, rubber-faced/rubber voiced performer (his “Laugh at My Pain” concert film was a surprising hit in 2011) work too hard to make inferior material go over.
  19. “Magic” lacks too many things to rank among Allen’s better recent films — the come-uppance and zeitgeist currency of “Blue Jasmine,” the frivolity of that don’t-think-too-much-about-this lark “Midnight in Paris.” But the biggest shortcoming is right there in the title, a tease if ever there was one.
  20. At times, with its stiff, charisma-impaired cast, its digital sets and slo-mo slaughter, The Legend of Hercules has a whiff of the Augean Stables about it — if you catch my drift.
  21. Planes looks, sounds and feels like a direct-to-video project, which in an earlier age when people still bought DVDs it would have been. In theaters, it’s nothing more than a laughless 90 minute commercial for toys available at a retailer near you.
  22. Filled with Smurf wholesomeness, Smurf puns and posi-Smurf messages about never giving up “on family,” The Smurfs 2 still sucks Smurfberries.
  23. A harmless but almost charmless adaptation of a book by L. Frank Baum’s grandson.
  24. Take Care manages, more often than not, to rise to the level of pleasant time killer, a rom-com with just enough surprises to justify getting those New York filming permits.
  25. A slight and somewhat demure romantic comedy/friendship comedy built around two mildly interesting characters.
  26. It’s never more than a theme park that isn’t worth the price of admission.
  27. A bloated all-star melodrama with none of the lean, mean legalese of a John Grisham adaptation, it’s a showboat’s movie cast with a lot of actors each promised “a big, cool scene.”
  28. Rapace is all over the place with her performance — needy, then self-assured, enraged, then in love. The always feral Farrell seems as dismayed by her as the rest of us.
  29. Color City is thin gruel, even by recent, weaker Pixar standards.
  30. Mostly, it’s just a clumsy lecture about who we’re becoming, haves vs have-nots, with the haves armed to the teeth.

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