Philadelphia Inquirer's Scores

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For 4,176 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 70% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 27% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 3.2 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 68
Highest review score: 100 Hell or High Water
Lowest review score: 0 The Mangler
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3,145 out of 4176
  2. Mixed: 682 out of 4176
  3. Negative: 349 out of 4176
4176 movie reviews
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  1. The Swan Princess
    There are points, most notably and predictably in the action sequences and set numbers, where The Swan Princess comes within hailing distance of the Olympian standards that are now almost routine at Disney. What the film lacks is an equal sophistication in story-telling that talks to children on an almost subliminal level about their fears and fantasies while royally entertaining them. It is that quality, as much as technical skill, that sets Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King in a class by themselves as the finest achievements of the Disney renaissance. [18 Nov 1994, p.06]
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  2. Heavenly Creatures
    That's exactly why Heavenly Creatures is the small masterpiece that it is: because the film roots so deeply and eagerly into the psychology - and pathology - of its characters. It takes us to a lush place, defined by passion and imagination, where reality intrudes with surprising, gruesome results. [25 Nov 1994, p.03]
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  3. Oleanna
    Oleanna is Mamet's form of intellectual hazing, and we seated in the theater are, alas, his victims. [11 Nov 1994, p.05]
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  4. Double Dragon
    The best stuff in this dopey, intermittently amusing live-action cartoon is the look that the film's effects and computer crews have given New Angeles - the ruined urbanscape of Southern California after an 8.5 quake and a massive tidal wave have sundered the city. [04 Nov 1994, p.05]
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  5. Stargate
    The movie devolves into a kind of high-tech Flash Gordon, with Ra as a cross- dressed Ming and Russell and Spader as the heroes required to chase big lugs with ray-guns around the inside of a pyramid. Things get pretty brainless before it's over, although Russell does get to deliver a great send-off line. [28 Oct 1994, p.5]
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  6. Love Affair
    It is not unforgettable, like the original Love Affair. It is not An Affair to Remember, like the remake. It is not laden with ironic humor, like Sleepless in Seattle. This Love Affair is . . . fair. [21 Oct 1994, p.03]
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  7. Hoop Dreams
    The most moving aspect of this indelible documentary is that it chronicles its subjects' growth from instinctively going for the goal to deciding which goals are worth shooting for.
  8. Wes Craven's New Nightmare
    Often ingenious, funny and unnerving. [14 Oct 1994, p.14]
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  9. The River Wild
    The River Wild is not a picture that tries to break new ground or even part fresh waters. Yet it is a crisp and exciting exercise, and while it may not be a watershed in Streep's career, she shows that you can take the plunge into an action movie and go swimming without going slumming. [30 Sep 1994, p.03]
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  10. The New Age
    Although it's fascinating, intelligent and scathingly accurate in its depiction of a certain milieu, The New Age is a more problematic picture than 1991's The Rapture - where Mimi Rogers played a sexually adventurous woman who finds spiritual succor in fundamentalist Christianity. [23 Sept 1994, p.03]
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  11. Quiz Show
    Because the filmmakers have framed this fame game so much like a conventional love story, the audience, like Goodwin, is seduced by Van Doren's pretty face. This is precisely what the film warns us to guard against, so the experience of watching Quiz Show is supercharged. As the wedge is driven in between what we think (lying is bad) and what we feel (that nice Van Doren boy can't have lied) - Redford and Attanasio make us aware of how readily we accept style divorced from substance. [16 Sept 1994, p.03]
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  12. The Next Karate Kid
    All things are possible, Julie-san, Miyagi constantly encourages his young charge. All things may be possible, Miyagi-sensei, but not this movie. [10 Sep 1994, p.D9]
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  13. A Good Man in Africa
    A Good Man in Africa, which has been adapted to the screen by Boyd from his first novel, isn't an out-and-out dud, but it too seems to have been sucked dry. [09 Sep 1994, p.03]
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  14. What Happened Was...
    An examination of loneliness and the need to connect in an increasingly disconnected world, What Happened Was . . . is disturbing, funny and unpredictable in the way people themselves are disturbing, funny and unpredictable. [07 Oct 1994, p.05]
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  15. Fresh
    One might shudder at the occasional Yakin visual metaphor, as when Fresh and a friend enter their young hound in a dogfight. Yes, it's a dog-eat-dog world. But even more powerfully at work here is that Yakin, aided by the coolly honest performance of young Sean Nelson, makes us see that it's really a king-eats-kingpin world. [31 Aug 1994, p.F02]
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  16. Killing Zoe
    It's riveting stuff, but unlike Tarantino's work - layered with casual irony, deadpan dialogue and encyclopedic pop-cult references - Killing Zoe is what it is and nothing more: a nihilistic crime film, steeped in carnage and chaos. [14 Sep 1994, p.E02]
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  17. Color of Night
    An entertaining mess. [19 Aug 1994, p.03]
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  18. Airheads
    Cross Dog Day Afternoon with This is Spinal Tap and you have the concept behind Airheads: heavy metal trio seeking record contract holds radio station employees hostage, much mayhem and moshing ensues.... Airheads isn't nearly as good as its antecedents, but it does manage to produce a stream of lowbrow laughs. Or smiles, anyway. [5 Aug 1994, p.3]
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  19. The Little Rascals
    A throwback to the days when gangs met in clubhouses instead of crack houses, raced go-carts instead of stolen cars and brandished slingshots instead of semiautomatics, The Little Rascals is the best 1936 movie made in 1994. [05 Aug 1994, p.03]
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  20. Eat Drink Man Woman
    A sort of full-course Father of the Bride, Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman is tender without being mushy, sweet without being syrupy - and surprising in ways that can only make you smile. [17 Aug 1994, p.E01]
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  21. It Could Happen to You
    While all three principals are perfection, the movie belongs to Cage's Charlie, whose sad beagle eyes dance merrily whenever he sees Yvonne. His is a measured, gravity-bound performance, one that anchors many of the helium-light shenanigans surrounding him and adds melancholy shadings to the brightness of the dialogue. [29 July 1994, p.03]
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  22. North
    Reiner, who demonstrated an affinity for storybook yarns with The Princess Bride and sensitively addressed coming-of-age issues with Stand By Me, has trouble getting beyond the episodic nature of Zweibel and Scheinman's screenplay. [22 Jul 1994, p.03]
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  23. The Client
    In effect, The Client is a clever and pliant variation on the classic Hitchcock situation that puts a kid, instead of an adult, between the authorities and villainous criminals.
  24. Angels in the Outfield
    The kind of saccharine exercise that ought to do wonders for the cause of atheism. [15 July 1994, p.03]
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  25. The Shadow
    Like its own hero - and so many recent films - The Shadow suffers from a split personality. At some moments, this can have a poetic impact. More often, though, it seems the result of sloppiness. [01 Jul 1994, p.05]
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  26. That's Entertainment! III
    Next to the cheerleader grunts and aerobic struts that pass for dance numbers on most music videos, the sequences in the compilation film That's Entertainment! III are like treasures from a highly evolved ancient civilization. [06 Jul 1994, p.E01]
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  27. Getting Even with Dad
    Getting Even With Dad desperately panders to the youth it hopes to attract. [17 Jun 1994, p.03]
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  28. The Lion King
    It is a gorgeous triumph - one lion in which the studio can take justified pride. [24 June 1994, p.03]
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  29. City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold
    City Slickers I managed to poke fun at the whole Iron John/discover-your- maleness movement at the same time the film was able to embrace it. But while City Slickers II tries for the same mix, it doesn't work. Instead, we get shots of three smelly, unshaven guys getting blubbery and hugging each other. [10 June 1994, p.03]
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  30. Fear of a Black Hat
    Though Black Hat is not as tightly structured as Spinal Tap or as pointed as the blaxploitation-movie parody I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, in its rambling way it is the ultimate comic indictment of rap as a kind of equal- opportunity opportunism. Hats off to Cundieff. [15 Jun 1994, p.F02]
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
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