San Francisco Chronicle's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
For 9,306 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 52% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 46% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 2.1 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 63
Highest review score: 100 Mansfield Park
Lowest review score: 0 Speed 2: Cruise Control
Score distribution:
9306 movie reviews
  1. Creative and bizarre, maybe too bizarre, but since most action films adhere to a cookie-cutter formula, its quirkiness is most welcome.
  2. Though the script and storytelling could have used more polish, Lapica's honesty provides the lasting impression.
  3. The real trouble is that it's supposed to be an outrageous comedy, but in fact it's fairly tame and not all that funny.
  4. In the end, all the bitterness seems like window-dressing to disguise a trite story.
  5. One of this year's better studies of the human soul.
  6. Never gets the mixture right, lurching between bullet-happy shootouts and overwrought domestic content.
  7. Only intermittently funny.
  8. There's something painful about watching Scarlett Johansson, who looks as if she never had an indecisive moment in her life, struggle to seem ineffectual.
  9. It's the complexity of Lurie's moral universe that makes it linger in the mind.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Grows more and more incredible leading up to a twist ending worthy of an O. Henry short story that is as appropriate as it is ridiculous.
  10. War
    If you want to see Li and Statham in an underwhelming martial arts film, rent "The One" instead. Li talks considerably more in that movie, but at least he punches a lot of people out.
  11. Would have worked better if it had stuck more closely to real estate as the source and target of satire.
  12. Hawke has created a standard-issue, Sundance-friendly indie film that's full of the predictable angst suffered by Manhattan artistic types, but unfortunately the lead characters are both so callow that you finally don't care much about them.
  13. Though it has merit and is recommended for the curious and adventurous, Joe Swanberg's film wears out its welcome about halfway through its 83 minutes. I'd say it doesn't go anywhere, but that's the point of these movies.
  14. For pure laughs, for the experience of just sitting in a chair and breaking up every minute or so, Superbad is 2007's most successful comedy.
  15. The humor manages to be simultaneously sophisticated, supremely silly and very dark.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    There's some serious food for thought here.
  16. Connects on a gut level in two ways, political and existential.
  17. As impressive as it is geeky. Most of the principal characters look like they haven't seen daylight since "Pac-Man Fever" was on the charts.
  18. Wonderfully giddy meditation on the nature of fame.
  19. Better than its promotional description: "A stir-fried journey of self-discovery" - but not by much.
  20. Perhaps the most promising thing in 2 Days in Paris is that Delpy shows that she can direct herself.
  21. Rocket Science has the makings of either a tragedy or a crowd-pleasing underdog story, but writer-director Jeffrey Blitz instead takes the movie on a different, and ultimately more rewarding, direction.
  22. It works primarily because of the chemistry between Chan and Tucker, which is at its combustible best this time out.
  23. Unlike "Pirates," Stardust is anything but a wretched mess. It's a charming and smartly plotted fantasy.
    • 13 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    Too predictable, but kids should like it.
  24. A thoughtful, satisfying action thriller.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Fundamentalists might take umbrage, but The Ten is not so much blasphemous as it is very silly, and it lives up to the one unbendable commandment of comedy: It's funny.
  25. Its weaknesses are clumsy plotting and a less-than-satisfying ending.
  26. While often cliche ridden and preposterous, it's too busy and loud to put anyone to sleep.

Top Trailers