Variety's Scores

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For 17,825 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 52% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 44% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 2.3 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 63
Highest review score: 100 IMAX: Hubble 3D
Lowest review score: 0 Divorce: The Musical
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 9,159 out of 17825
  2. Mixed: 7,029 out of 17825
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17825
17825 movie reviews
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    • 44 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Raw Deal
    Comic book crime meller suffers from an irredeemably awful script, and even director John Irvin’s engaging sense of how absurd the proceedings are can’t work an alchemist’s magic.
  2. Jobs
    Ultimately, Jobs is a prosaic but not unaffecting tribute to the virtues of defiance, nonconformity, artistry, beauty, craftsmanship, imagination and innovation, qualities it only intermittently reflects as a piece of filmmaking.
  3. The Libertine
    Starting out seductive but ending up tiresome, debuting director Laurence Dunmore's pic is an honorable misfire.
  4. The Losers
    The Losers is the sort of pyro-heavy exercise parodied in "Tropic Thunder," and no amount of production polish can hide the hollowness beneath its junk-food high.
  5. Southland Tales
    Rarely has a picture been so self-consciously designed to be a culturally meaningful touchstone, and fallen so woefully short, as Southland Tales.
  6. Nina's Heavenly Delights
    Stereotypes abound, dialogue is conventional and pace scattered. Still, resulting stew is pleasant.
  7. Devil
    Devil is nothing very special or original, but it gets the job done briskly and economically.
  8. Life Happens
    The film is ultimately an untenable muddle.
  9. Schizopolis
    Some of the filmmaker's keen intelligence remains on display, but only in fractured and often obscure form, and pic overall gives the impression of a giant expurgation of negative feelings about things in general rather than a carefully articulated brief on recognizable subjects.
  10. Aftermath
    Aftermath is one of those mopey coping-with-grief movies in which the characters grapple with intense emotions, while audiences feel nothing.
  11. Forever Young
    [Bruni Tedeschi] fails to make much of a case for why any of it should resonate with anyone outside this tiny, hermetically enclosed community. ... [An] indulgent, histrionic personal history.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Superman III
    Superman III emerges as a surprisingly soft-cored disappointment. Putting its emphasis on broad comedy at the expense of ingenious plotting and technical wizardry, it has virtually none of the mythic or cosmic sensibility that marked its predecessors.
    • Variety
    • 44 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Operator
    A mostly slick, intelligent psychological thriller/modern morality tale flawed by occasional lapses of subtlety and a central performance that veers just to the wrong side of empathetic.
  14. Snow Falling on Cedars
    Impeccably crafted but dramatically dull.
  15. Sex with Strangers
    Doesn't compare favorably with David Schisgall's similarly themed "The Lifestyle," released to arthouses last year.
  16. Gasoline
    Playing like a moribund hybrid of "Thelma and Louise" and "The Trouble With Harry," lesbian-themed thriller Gasoline lacks sex drive.
  17. America's Sweethearts
    Begins as a smartly promising, gently farcical comedy of manners and ends as sourly and haphazardly as the lives it is poking fun at.
  18. Birthmarked
    The material comes across as too far-fetched to be taken seriously, and too bland to elicit laughs.
  19. Lula, the Son of Brazil
    The screenplay by Daniel Tendler, Fernando Bonassi and Lula biographer Parana succumbs to many of the most unfortunate narrative tendencies of biopics, including a proclivity for piling on incident after incident as a substitute for real character insight.
  20. Killer Elite
    A macho, adrenaline-fix suspenser that plays like the bigscreen equivalent of those pulpy spy novels that once clogged grocery-store checkouts.
  21. Steve + Sky
    Promising frosh helmer Felix van Groeningen exhibits a fresh eye, though his script is full of too many self-consciously Tarantino-ish verbal digressions that serve to distract from the story, and self-conscious quirks he mistakes for character development.
  22. Dudley Do-Right
    One of the summer's more pleasant surprises. A silly bit of tiptop tomfoolery with cross-generational appeal.
  23. Redemption Road
    A lightly enjoyable road picture about a circuitous road to redemption, Black, White and Blues offers simple, down-home pleasures while spinning an undeniably familiar but emotionally satisfying tale.
  24. Prom Dates
    Unlike this teen raunch-com’s brilliantly conceived inspirations, its main friendship dynamic and ensuing shenanigans fail to resonate due to sloppy character construction and a cadre of cringe-worthy circumstances.
  25. The Wendell Baker Story
    A loose-knit, character-driven comedy that percolates with good-vibe amusement, often earning industrial-strength guffaws with sneaky one-liners and tossed-off non-sequiturs.
  26. The Giant Mechanical Man
    Helmer-writer Lee Kirk's deliberately offbeat romance, a vehicle for wife Fischer, will undoubtedly win friends through its cockeyed-optimistic view of romance.
  27. The Prime Ministers: The Pioneers
    Moderately interesting as a once-over-lightly political history lesson best suited for home-screen consumption.
  28. 4th Man Out
    [A] thoroughly ingratiating, touchingly heartfelt comedy.
  29. Night Swim
    Everything is at once telegraphed and derivative.
  30. Firehouse Dog
    Leaving no heartstrings untugged and no doggie-fart jokes uncracked, scruffy pic reps a very mixed breed of obvious humor, gently moving father-son drama and sub-"Backdraft" trial by fire.
  31. Racing Stripes
    Frisky and funny enough to please pre-teens, but still witty enough to amuse even those parents who don't recognize Dustin Hoffman, Whoopi Goldberg and other notables among the unseen vocal talents.
  32. Eagle Eye
    The picture's first 35 minutes sizzle until a Byzantine plot nudges the story toward near-parody in the final act.
  33. A Piece of Eden
    A collection of sentimental and emotional moments in search of a movie.
  34. Teknolust
    While it's stylishly designed and shot in startling colors on digital high-definition cameras, this feels like yesterday's futuristic news, and it's more likely to surface as a video/DVD curiosity than a theatrical draw.
  35. Palmetto
    Surprises are reserved for the final half-hour, at which point the slow-paced Palmetto has long since fossilized as a routine exercise in ceiling-fan, sweaty-forehead noir-by-numbers.
  36. Malibu's Most Wanted
    Ultimately implodes, letting down the 'hood, hip-hoppers and Jamie Kennedy fans looking forward to his first major starring role.
  37. The Drowning
    Whatever suspense it musters feels artificial, manufactured in the first half by withholding information all the characters already possess from the audience, and in the second by adding more curlicues and flourishes to the elaborate plot at the expense of nourishing the milquetoast characters.
  38. Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials
    The Scorch Trials offers virtually no character development and only hints of plot advancement, mostly just functioning to move a group of obliquely motivated characters from one place to another without giving much clue where the whole thing is headed.
  39. City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold
    City Slickers II is a welcome sequel, much in the spirit of the original but keen to mosey into new terrain. It’s definitely the yee-hah! film of the season.
  40. The Princess
    A smarter script would’ve found ways to work a historical critique (or some “Shrek”-like satire, at least) into its relatively brainless string of set pieces.
  41. Survival of the Dead
    Steeped in fan-pleasing gore but woefully thin on ideas, originality (beyond new zombie-offing methods) or directorial flair.
  42. Larger Than Life
    Harmless, but also, unfortunately, almost entirely mirthless, this putative comedy about an unsuspecting man obliged to transport a pachyderm cross-country aspires to a winsome charm that never crystallizes, leaving what’s onscreen to wilt before it ever blossoms.
  43. Backwards
    Passably pleasant but thoroughly predictable.
  44. Step Up Revolution
    Step Up Revolution, the fourth entry in the venerable dance franchise, is a narrative failure but a triumph of sheer spectacle.
  45. Call + Response
    Remarkably informative yet gracelessly constructed, jumping between documentary and concert footage at random.
  46. Daniel and Ana
    The screenplay leaves it to the audience to map the psychological terrain, which will frustrate some but thrill others who prefer oblique storytelling.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Without Love
    Competent trouping and topflight production make Without Love a click. But there’s no gainsaying the general obviousness of it all, along with a somewhat static plot basis [from a play by Philip Barry].
  48. Poker Face
    This Australia-shot mix of intrigue, soap opera, thriller and tearjerker never quite gels, despite enough surface gloss and cast expertise to hold attention.
  49. Comandante
    If the characters, apart from Salvatore, had been more developed, there might be more drama to it, but Comandante, in its honorable and slightly gloomy way, has been conceived as the delivery system for a humanitarian message.
  50. Hunter Killer
    Hunter Killer has good enough actors, but it never figures out what to do with them. They’re stuck in an underwater vacuum, a submarine movie that submerges anything of interest.
  51. Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway
    This superior sequel serves as both a meta-commentary on his humbling past antics and a pivotal point for the eponymous protagonist. It’s an astute, entertaining, light-hearted mix of slapstick and self-reflexive humor commingling with enlightened, sharp sentiments about individualism and commercialism (the latter of which Potter herself wrestled with, and eventually pioneered).
  52. Anamorph
    Beyond its cool, reflective surfaces and infinite plays with perspective lies nothing -- character, relationships, motives all seemingly irrelevant. Even Willem Dafoe as a haunted cop cannot ground these artfully grisly optical illusions, unconnected to any comprehensible storyline.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
    Even die-hard Trekkies may be disappointed by Star Trek V. Coming after Leonard Nimoy's delightful directorial outing on Star Trek IV, William Shatner's inauspicious feature directing debut is a double letdown.
    • Variety
  54. San Andreas
    After providing some blissfully stupid B-movie thrills for its first hour, the film suffers from spectacle overkill.
  55. American Pastoral
    Groping for grand tragedy and finding only actorly melodrama, shooting for political contrarianism but landing instead on reactionary conventionalism, American Pastoral is as flat and strangled as its source is furious and expansive.
  56. Madison
    Inspirational but uninspired sports movie.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Catch and Release
    A so-so romantic dramedy.
  58. The Tempest
    A Tempest so kitschy, yet curiously drab and banal.
  59. The Omen
    Will a movie that scared the bejezus out of moviegoers 30 years ago pack the necessary wallop and carnage to satisfy fans of blood-soaked modern horror? The answer is a qualified yes.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Dad
    There’s certainly much that’s funny, warm and endearing about Dad, which, based on William Wharton’s novel, deals with the familiar theme of a grown child resolving his sense of duty toward an ageing parent. Unfortunately, prolonged tilling of that emotional terrain and seemingly endless verbalization of feelings diminish most of what’s good about the film.
  61. The Great Role
    Predictable yet charming, The Grand Role is a crowd-pleasing dramatic comedy about love, friendship, role-playing and Jewish pride.
  62. Choose or Die
    While there have been worse-crafted, even more routinely formulaic Netflix horror efforts, this one takes the cake for sheer whateverness of barely-there plot, concept, character detailing and so on.
  63. Suicide Kings
    A smart and snappy drama tinged with dark humor and brimming with self-confidence.
  64. The Mexican
    An intensely whimsical shaggy-dog crime story that ricochets between goofy violence and some endearing personal moments.
  65. The Animal
    A sweethearted trifle.
  66. Jersey Girl
    A bland slab of sentimental hokum that proves even the most smart-alecky of indie auteurs can turn warm and fuzzy on occasion.
  67. Fathers' Day
    Robin Williams and Billy Crystal can each provoke a lot more laughs in a minute of standup than they jointly manage during the entire running time of Fathers' Day.
  68. 9 Songs
    A touching, often poetic, sometimes achingly real snapshot of a brief encounter related almost entirely through the bedroom.
  69. The Vow
    The Vow represents that most welcome kind of Valentine's Day offering, focusing on the feelings that bring couples closer.
  70. Bob Marley: One Love
    The point of the new biopic mode was to reveal totemic figures in a more complex way. “One Love” flirts with complexity but slides into the banality of hero worship.
  71. Hot Rod
    Those hoping for feature-length doses of Samberg's "Lazy Sunday" wit will have to settle for just plain lazy, as Hot Rod aims low and still manages to miss its target.
  72. Antebellum
    While Antebellum is no zombie movie, it treats systemic racism as a kind of contagion that refuses to die, eating the brains of successive generations. There’s only one way to stop it, and that’s by blowing the minds of all those infected — which is precisely the impact Antebellum achieves.
  73. The Angry Birds Movie
    A fast, fizzy and frenetically entertaining extension of the manic gaming franchise.
  74. Le Chef
    Poking fun at the restaurant world, French helmer Daniel Cohen’s genial, broadly played comedy The Chef dishes up easily digestible laughs.
  75. Equals
    From Doremus’ side of things, it can’t be easy to depict something as subtle as “intermittent feeling” or “increased sensitivity,” though the helmer does a fine job of laying the groundwork for the attraction blooming between Silas and Nia — boosted by the resonant collection of electronic tones and chimes that constitute Equals’ futuristic score.
  76. Rabid
    Overlong, undercooked Rabid can’t settle on a unified tone for its actors, let alone its narrative. Even its misanthropy ultimately feels indecisive and trifling.
  77. The Seventh Day
    The movie is diverting enough when it flirts with clerical politics, and that made me think it might be cool to make an exorcist film that dramatized the true-life ins and outs of the Catholic Church’s relationship to exorcism. There’s a major story there, and it could fuel a heady thriller. But The Seventh Day, having established Father Peter as a new kind of exorcist renegade, soon gets down to business as usual.
  78. The Girl in the Spider's Web
    It was probably inevitable that Hollywood would neuter the best elements of Stieg Larsson’s “Millennium” franchise, but did the producers really need to shift it into a commonplace cross between a superhero flick and James Bond?
  79. Sorry, Haters
    Penn looks bewildered in a role that simply doesn't track, but Kechiche rises to the occasion. Stanzler's helming, shot blandly in digital vid, amounts to point-and-shoot.
  80. MacGruber
    How much mileage can a comedy get from a single joke? Quite a bit, judging from the guffaws-to-groaners ratio in MacGruber.
  81. The Shaggy Dog
    This fur-fetched tale is bearable family viewing.
  82. Maleficent: Mistress of Evil
    If America goes to war sometime in the next year, pundits will have a field day with this movie. But barring that, it’s just another ugly, unpleasant slog through a disposable fantasy universe. The true Disney villains in this case are off screen, sabotaging the studio’s canon from within.
  83. X Games 3D: The Movie
    A relatively unimaginative take on the proceedings, coupled with occasionally bizarre stereoscopic work and awkward narration, causes the picture to bail out more often than it soars.
  84. Light It Up
    Never quite catches fire in its too-deliberate attempt to appeal to all ages and all tastes.
  85. American Pie 2
    A remarkably boring comedy.
  86. Anything Else
    The younger casting brings a freshness to the material and, with Allen as the weird mentor, there are plenty of laughs, even if the pacing's slow and the running time over-extended.
  87. The Beach
    Visually resplendent but dramatically uneven.
  88. Hellbenders
    Hellbenders becomes what it intends to burlesque, and that’s not so damn funny, even with 3D gimmickry.
  89. Why Did I Get Married Too?
    Married offers a positive, if melodramatically heightened, portrait of upper-middle-class African-American life, one broadly appealing enough to satisfy even the Nancy Meyers set, if only they'd give it a chance.
  90. The Long Kiss Goodnight
    With the help of his stunt and special effects teams, Harlin delivers more than enough goods to satisfy genre fans, so main question is whether a female action hero, and Davis in particular, is ready to be embraced by the huge public the film is clearly targeting.
  91. All I See Is You
    Look past the gimmick, and all that remains is an overly arty study of a lopsided marriage in which super-attentive husband James (Jason Clarke) actually seems to prefer when his wife Gina (Blake Lively) can’t see — and another opportunity for Lively to prove that she’s more than just a pretty face.
  92. Redemption
    A debut effort that occasionally bogs down in its own symbolism.
  93. Sherman's Way
    An agreeable tone and cast make Sherman’s Way go down easy.
  94. My Best Enemy
    Entertaining, though conventionally told war story.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Medicine Man
    An indelicate attempt to create some African Queen-style magic while curing cancer and saving the rainforests in the bargain, this jumbo-budget two-character piece suffers from a very weak script and a lethal job of miscasting.
  96. A Family Affair
    Sadly, the film plays more like an artless quickie than a fully fleshed-out romance.
  97. Night School
    Night School has a handful of laughs, but it’s a bloated trifle that, at 111 minutes, overstays its welcome.
  98. Wish I Was Here
    The result is unquestionably an auteur film, but one festooned with so many bad and unnecessary ideas that one can’t help wondering if a more modest, hemmed-in version of the same project might not have proved more effective.
  99. Total Recall (2012)
    Crazy new gadgets, vigorous action sequences and a thorough production-design makeover aren't enough to keep Total Recall from feeling like a near-total redundancy.
  100. Suspended Animation
    A psychological drama cum genteel shocker that's long on ambition and short on delivery.
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