San Francisco Chronicle's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
For 9,302 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 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:
9302 movie reviews
  1. If they weren't so funny and real, and if Linklater hadn't done such a good job in writing their dialogue and casting them, their lack of ambition might seem depressing, and the movie might come off as some smug hymn to negativity. [9 Aug. 1991, p.F3]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
  2. Terminator 2 imagines things you wouldn't even be likely to dream and gets these visions onto the screen with a seamlessness that's mind-boggling. [3 July 1991, Daily Datebook, p.E1]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
  3. If anything is better about the sequel than the original, it's Leslie Nielsen, as deadpan as ever, but looking more relaxed than before, mugging and playing up his jokes with the subtlety and timing of an accomplished comedian -- which, at this point, I suppose he is. [28 June 1991, p.F1]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
  4. Kevin Costner's Robin Hood is big, sometimes exciting, funny in places and occasionally stupid, but it doesn't disappoint. [14 June 1991, p.E1]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
  5. City Slickers is a funny and affecting comedy, with wonderful jokes and a script flashing intelligence in every direction. [7 June 1991, p.E1]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
  6. Applegate gets by without a false moment in a role that's more serious and has more angles than the airhead she plays on television. I want to see the movies she'll be making in about five years. [07 June 1991, p.E6]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
  7. Despite the weakness of Sciorra's character, and the lack of development in her relationship with Snipes, Jungle Fever is a fascinating movie -- consistently provocative, brilliantly acted and written, in most cases, with a number of moments that transcend anything you've seen this year in their wit, sexual heat and emotional intensity. [7 June 1991, p.E1]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
  8. Just awful… There is probably not one interrupted 60-second stretch in which a line of dialogue doesn't clunk, an action doesn't ring false or an irritating plot turn doesn't present itself. [25 May 1991]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
    • 72 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    This latest visitation from heaven, written and directed by Anthony Minghella, isn't as sappy, slick or saccharine as "Ghost" - thanks largely to the pert performance of Stevenson and the irascible character displayed by Rickman. [24 May 1991, p.E8]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
  9. Billed as a comedy, it's draped over dreary gags and irritating manic overacting on the part of its co-star, British comic actor Rik Mayall. [24 May 1991, p.E7]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
  10. Despite its implausibilities, Only the Lonely disarms you with its innocence. [24 May 1991, p.E1]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
  11. Truth or Dare is like a detective story. You try to infer the truth by looking between the frames. The picture we get of Madonna is a contrived one, but it's revealing anyway, because it's the one she wants to present. [17 May 1991, p.E1]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
  12. It's a bomb - not the usual bomb, but a time bomb, despite a 20-minute stretch at the beginning that goes along nicely. [17 May 1991]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
  13. The main thing to like about Stone Cold is that the movie is honest enough to have things go wrong -- so wrong, and in ways that are unexpected. [18 May 1991, p.C3]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
  14. Things are generally cute in the film -- and that goes for the stars -- and it all chugs along in some curious bubblegum-chewing sort of way. But the flavor's decidedly flat. [18 May 1991, p.C3]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
  15. Gradually, FX2 ties itself into a knot it can't undo even with the most desperate of measures. Everything is left hanging, and by the end the plotting is so clumsy it's embarrassing. [10 May 1991, p.E3]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
  16. It's up to Ellen Barkin to carry the movie, and she manages until the thing just becomes a dead weight. [10 May 1991, p.E1]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    In recreating the fantastic adventures of Solomon Perel, director Agnieszka Holland not only shows a lively appreciation for his anguish and his adolescent desires, but she also illuminates the mentality of mass ideological movements -- both fascist and Communist. That is a large order and Holland, a Polish-born, Paris-based director, carries it out with acute, ironic flair. [03 July 1991, p.E3]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
    • 46 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Toy Soldiers is to terrorism what just say no is to the temptation of drugs: a will-o'-the-wisp notion that is either laughable or sad, depending upon how seriously one takes either solution to those problems. [26 Apr 1991, p.E7]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
  17. A Kiss Before Dying is a thriller without thrills, though it has some of the built-in kicks of a crime movie -- wondering what's going on, wondering why it's happening, wondering how it's going to end. Unfortunately, it ultimately gets so silly that the main thing people in the audience may end up wondering is why they're still sitting there. [26 Apr 1991, p.E1]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
  18. As dreary as Oscar is for the majority of its 110 minutes, the movie sings whenever Shearer and Ferrero are on screen. [26 Apr 1991, p.E1]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
  19. Alan Rudolph's direction is active but unintrusive, highlighting some of the more chilling moments with slow-motion sequences and odd cross-cutting. [19 Apr 1991, p.E1]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
  20. It's surprising to see John Malkovich and Andie MacDowell together in such a meandering mess as The Object of Beauty. It's also surprising that their being in it doesn't help. [19 Apr 1991, p.E1]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
  21. As entertaining an action movie as you're going to find. [13 Apr 1991, p.C3]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
  22. The Comfort of Strangers might look great and might seem to be heading somewhere, but ultimately the picture is just a lot of atmosphere dolling up a lot of hot air. [15 Mar 1991, p.E8]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
  23. Career Opportunities is a real strange one, a tasteless and completely off-key comedy that has the elements of the much-more serious and more interesting picture it could have been -- if only the film makers had a clue as to what sort of movie they were making. [30 March 1991, p.C3]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
  24. A delightful, witty picture that's short and sweet and presents one of the most accurate depictions of the behavior of teenage boys you're ever going to see on screen. [22 Mar 1991, p.E1]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
    • 58 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    With outstanding performances by Gene Hackman and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio as the embattled father and daughter, the film is a remarkably mature treatment of conflict in a family whose members are fully involved in the problems of our times. [15 Mar 1991]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
    • 64 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    A gripping film that re-creates the fear, bewilderment and anguish felt by thousands during the anti-Communist witch hunt in Hollywood. Robert De Niro gives one of the finest and most modulated performances of his career as David Merrill, a famous director trapped in the miasma of suspicion that haunted Hollywood in the '50s and '60s. [15 Mar 1991, p.E1]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
    • 35 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    An action movie has to be taken on its own terms, and on its own terms The Perfect Weapon still amounts to a 90-minute bore. [16 Mar 1991, p.C3]
    • San Francisco Chronicle

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