Variety's Scores

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For 17,782 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 2.4 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: 9,136 out of 17782
  2. Mixed: 7,010 out of 17782
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17782
17782 movie reviews
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    • 36 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Space Chimps
    Enjoyably slim family entertainment.
  2. Death Defying Acts
    A handsome contraption that's never very engaging, let alone convincing.
  3. Cthulhu
    The acting is so emotionally unhinged and erratic it borders on camp, diluting any suspense.
  4. College
    Hardly superbad, but sorta OK.
  5. Everybody Wants to Be Italian
    A clumsy but inoffensive romantic comedy.
  6. Phoebe in Wonderland
    Partly produced by Lifetime, the pic attempts to elevate the disease-of-the-week movie into a moral dialectic between conformity and imagination.
  7. Righteous Kill
    Unable or unwilling to match the visceral chops and moral provocations of superior serial-killer chillers, Righteous Kill is content to be a twisty genre exercise; it's like "Seven" as reimagined by M. Night Shyamalan.
  8. The Women
    The Women is less about getting even than about inspiring that same mushy sense of female empowerment you might find in a Tyler Perry meller, complete with manic mood swings and full-blown diva moments.
  9. The Lucky Ones
    It's hard to find the genuine heartfelt moments in The Lucky Ones.
  10. Choke
    Palahniuk's antic absurdism is duly present, but the hurtling pace and barely-underlying nihilism that transferred to screen so vividly in "Fight Club" aren't much in evidence here.
  11. Sex Drive
    Since the new pic contains little that's genuinely amusing or minimally original, it likely will fail on its own merits.
  12. Breakfast with Scot
    Suffused with the bargain-basement blandness of an Afterschool Special, Breakfast with Scot is the kind of gay-themed pic that won't ruffle the feathers of a granny in Manitoba, though it's bound to make more discerning auds groan.
  13. Good Dick
    An annoying example of self-therapy posing as art.
  14. Four Christmases
    Oddly misanthropic, occasionally amusing but thoroughly cheerless holiday attraction that is in no way a family film.
  15. The Day the Earth Stood Still
    This botched remake of "The Day the Earth Stood Still" seriously dishonors the seriously fine 1951 sci-fi landmark on which it's based.
  16. Dark Streets
    As a dancing chanteuse, Bijou Phillips gives it her all, which isn't enough, and a wooden Mann doesn't help, although Izabella Miko brings a modicum of unaffected charm to her role as the Other Woman.
  17. Good
    Considering its theme and setting, there's something very wrong with a Good that seems merely competent, uninspired and a bit old-hat.
  18. The Unborn
    Whereas Japanese horror movies have been criticized for not making sense, The Unborn errs on the opposite extreme, coming off all the more ridiculous for over-explaining itself.
  19. Chandni Chowk to China
    As with many a Bollywood epic, you can bring the kids, your lunch, your cell phone, your unfiled taxes. There's so much here, and in such heaping, lengthy portions, you could probably weave a sari before the end credits.
  20. Paul Blart: Mall Cop
    An almost shockingly amateurish one-note-joke comedy.
  21. The Uninvited
    Weak even by the standard of uninspired recent Asian-horror remakes, The Uninvited is more likely to induce snickers and yawns than shudders and yelps.
  22. The Last House on the Left
    If the original could be accused of having a real point (even a subtext), the uninspired redo has none whatsoever.
  23. Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience
    At 76 minutes, the film is nearly twice as long as even the band's most dedicated admirers might need, with weariness setting in around the 40-minute mark.
  24. Julia
    The miscalculated and overlong Julia proves a startling misfire for "The Dreamlife of Angels" writer-helmer Erick Zonca and dependably fearless actress Tilda Swinton.
  25. Little Ashes
    For much of its running time, Little Ashes wavers between the polite, stuffy style of a "Masterpiece Theater" production and the more pointed agenda of gay indie cinema, with real Spanish locations classing up the otherwise low-budget affair. Acting is stagy and hindered by thick Spanish accents.
  26. Love N' Dancing
    Bland as its title, Love N' Dancing extends the cliches of the dance-and-romance genre -- so overplayed that it's targeted for a Wayans brothers spoof later this month -- to the world of West Coast Swing.
  27. Next Day Air
    An altogether bumbling excuse for an action-comedy.
  28. The Big Shot-Caller
    The result is a rough-edged, head-scratching mix of tones. Fortunately, musicvideo vet Rhein's competent helming skills counterbalance her off-putting dialogue and flat acting style so that the picture doesn't come off strictly amateur.
  29. Dance Flick
    This slapstick and scatological spoof settles for obvious punchlines, delivering just enough laughs to justify its existence without coming anywhere near the bar set by "Scary Movie."
    • 34 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    My Life in Ruins
    Feels like warmed-over souvlaki.
  31. Pontypool
    A zombie flick sans bite.
  32. Life Is Hot in Cracktown
    Nowhere near as much fun as its title, playing out like an unusually obtuse episode of "The Wire."
  33. Surveillance
    A mildly amusing trifle with one of the genre's dafter plot twists.
  34. Blood: The Last Vampire
    While foreign viewers are apt to focus on the action, native English speakers can't help but notice the sheer awkwardness of the performances.
  35. Homecoming
    Competent but unimaginative horror entry.
  36. The Answer Man
    Jeff Daniels' gleeful misanthropy and Lauren Graham's emotional openness are poorly served by the pic's transparently phony story and therapeutic uplift
  37. Deadgirl
    Arriving on the heels of America's torture-porn wave, Deadgirl takes a disturbing adolescent male fantasy and glosses it up just enough to pass for a legitimate horror movie.
  38. Post Grad
    As fiction characters go, Ryden seems as dull as they come, making it hard to muster much sympathy for her plight.
  39. Spread
    With "Shampoo" and "American Gigolo" now distant memories, the time evidently seemed ripe for another Hollywood stud movie. Despite Ashton Kutcher’s believability as an older woman’s kept boy, Spread isn’t a patch on those previous films.
  40. 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.
  41. Fame
    This PG-rated offering thus dances along a fine line -- one that suggests a shelf-life well short of its "I wanna live forever" anthem.
  42. Eating Out: All You Can Eat
    Eating Out: All You Can Eat somewhat departs from the series' gay spin on the raunchy teen sex comedy in favor of semi-sincere romantic comedy -- after a crass and abysmal first stretch, that is.
  43. Gentlemen Broncos
    Napoleon Dynamite seems perfectly well-adjusted (not to mention downright charismatic) compared to homeschooled mama's boy Benjamin Purvis in Gentlemen Broncos, the latest oddball character portrait from one-trick helmer Jared Hess.
  44. Serious Moonlight
    A less-than-frothy domestic showdown starring Meg Ryan and Timothy Hutton, it owes as much to Edward Albee as to Nora Ephron, with an occasional nod to "A Clockwork Orange."
  45. Frozen
    Don't be surprised if the movie's most wince-inducing moments come not from the "disturbing images" (as the MPAA describes the sight of a leg bone sticking six inches out of one character's ski pants) but rather of the bad acting and worse dialogue.
  46. She's Out of My League
    This appealingly cast movie seesaws from unlikely thoughtfulness to imbecilic vulgarity.
  47. The Bounty Hunter
    This dire battle-of-the-exes action-comedy severely tests audience goodwill by running an indulgent 110 minutes, crammed as it is with half-baked thriller subplots and aimless supporting characters, as if to distract from the central duo's nonstop bickering.
  48. Clash of the Titans
    This "Titans" reboot merely demonstrates that building a more elaborate mousetrap doesn't necessarily produce a more entertaining one.
  49. Invincible
    This potentially intriguing story winds up being dull and at times faintly silly.
  50. The Tuxedo
    This bad idea is then underlined by pallid direction from tyro helmer and TV ad vet Kevin Donovan, a virtually incomprehensible plot line and a less-than-satisfying co-starring turn from Jennifer Love Hewitt.
  51. Skins
    Has a patched-together feel, and its aims as human drama, social documentary and vigilante movie are never quite reconciled.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Kiss Me, Stupid (re-release)
    Wilder, usually a director of considerable flair and inventiveness (if not always impeccable taste), has not been able this time out to rise above a basically vulgar, as well as creatively delinquent, screenplay, and he has got at best only plodding help from two of his principals, Dean Martin and Kim Novak.
  53. En kærlighedshistorie
    It often resembles John Cassavetes' "A Woman Under the Influence," but just as often devolves into a series of bravura acting exercises strung together by an increasingly sketchy narrative theme.
  54. Fidel
    Worth seeing for its wealth of archival footage hitherto little-seen outside Communist bloc nations, Fidel nonetheless errs badly by slapping a quasi-objective journalistic tenor onto content so flattering and uncritical it might pass for an old "This Is Your Life" episode.
  55. Joshua
    Emerges as a curiously mild-mannered if not downright tepid drama.
  56. DysFunktional Family
    The attempt to draw certain connections between Griffin's material and its autobiographical origins feels slapped together, shortchanging both aspects of the film.
  57. Stolen Summer
    Plays like an aggressively heart-tugging, exceedingly vanilla Disney telemovie.
  58. Strange Fits of Passion
    Technically raw, and amusing only in hit-and-miss fashion, the no-budget independent production recalls too many other entries about erudite young adults wrestling with questions of love and sex.
  59. Brooklyn Babylon
    A case of means exceeded by ambition.
  60. Texas Rangers
    Has the frustrating feel of a rousing, epic oater sadly compromised.
  61. In This Tricky Life
    A colorful, enjoyable ride most of the way but could have been even better if Beatriz Flores Silva's direction had more often risen above the functional and had not gotten a bad attack of conscience in the closing reels.
  62. Return to Never Land
    Represents a passable follow-up to the venerable Peter Pan story and mercifully, at 72 minutes, is exactly half the length of the last attempt at same, Steven Spielberg's lamentable "Hook."
  63. Drift
    Lee crafts actions and situations that are credible without being particularly engrossing -- recognition doesn't necessarily translate into absorbsion.
  64. Mutant Aliens
    Some viewers may feel as though, instead of watching a feature, they're paging through a book of rough sketches by a deranged Disney alumnus.
  65. Light It Up
    Never quite catches fire in its too-deliberate attempt to appeal to all ages and all tastes.
  66. Smokers Only
    A walk on the "dark side" that moves far more slowly than limited character insight requires.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    America So Beautiful
    Pictures general subject matter was given a more intimate and graceful treatment in last year's Los Angeles Film Festival entry "Maryam." This comparatively jumbled, unevenly paced item lacks nuance or distinction.
  68. The Cherry Orchard
    Chekhov has never seemed such a long haul as in this awkward adaptation of The Cherry Orchard by veteran director Michael Cacoyannis, 77, who's assembled a good roster of names but ones that are not necessarily right for their roles.
  69. Returning Mickey Stern
    Undone by an idea capable of hanging together for 30 minutes at best.
  70. Blow Dry
    Limp comedy-drama.
  71. When Brendan Met Trudy
    Intermittently funny movie. Almost every scene recreates or alludes to a Hollywood or foreign classic.
  72. Novocaine
    A Steve Martin vehicle that's not prankish or weird enough by half.
  73. The Road to El Dorado
    A strained and pallid concoction that won't fire the collective imaginations of modern children.
  74. I Am Trying to Break Your Heart
    May leave itself open to charges of being little more than a promo feature posing as a documentary, but pic nevertheless is a warts-and-all look at a group of musicians -- and the music biz -- likely to make most record label flacks flinch.
  75. Little Otik
    An unsettling piece of filmmaking whose grimly vivid images are guaranteed to give impressionable viewers nightmares.
  76. Under the Moonlight
    Though its subject has curiosity value, its critical view of religious institutions is compromised by an ending that evidently was necessary for the film to be made and released at all.
  77. Cet amour-là
    A limp-to-wilted film version of Duras' 16-year-long love affair with a young man who became her secretary and literary executor.
  78. Went to Coney Island on a Mission from God... Be Back by Five
    Though intermittently engaging and decently acted, the movie suffers from a repetitive format, with too many shifts in time that prove disruptive.
  79. Poor White Trash
    At its best, in its early, more subdued passages, Poor White Trash provides a couple of pristine comic moments. At its worst, it spirals uncontrollably into an unfunny void.
  80. Tokyo Eyes
    Brings nothing new to the table, and spends far too long making the audience think it will.
    • 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.
  82. The Weekend
    Despite some memorable high points, pic plays like "Love! Valour! Compassion!" -- without the laughs.
  83. Mercy Streets
    No mere crime drama, but rather the latest in the recent resurgence of independently financed, spiritually themed pics that seek to couch religious dogma within the shells of B-grade genre entertainment.
  84. The Mesmerist
    Plays like a mercilessly extended version of an uninspired "Saturday Night Live" sketch.
  85. Boys Life 3
    A typical grab bag of works of varying depth, all of them breezy and entertaining.
  86. The Crew
    The sentimentality is gently but firmly restrained in a potentially treacly subplot.
  87. Mumford
    Kasdan's direction here is even less energized than his writing.
  88. Naqoyqatsi
    Possessed of another outstanding wall-to-wall score by Philip Glass but rather fuzzy in its message, entry differs from its predecessors in that roughly 80% of its images are derived from existing sources and have been "tortured and recontextualized" to unusual and sometimes extreme effect.
  89. Random Hearts
    An ideal rainy day matinee attraction for well-to-do ladies of a certain age.
  90. P.S. Your Cat Is Dead!
    Lacking the knockout lead perfs or more whimsical tone that might have transcended script's dubious logic, pic comes off as a so-so theatrical stunt delivered via the wrong medium.
  91. Edtv
    A certain staleness hangs over the proceedings despite the best efforts of the cast and the fun-minded creative team.
  92. Martin & Orloff
    Extending skit comedy into full-length form is a tricky and, despite lots of snappy acerbic wordplay and inspired zany moments, pic works only intermittently.
  93. Snow Falling on Cedars
    Impeccably crafted but dramatically dull.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Vatel
    Vatel, a no-expense-spared costumer, is further proof that all the money and technical expertise in the world are no substitutes for a good screenplay and creative direction.
  95. Sex with Strangers
    Doesn't compare favorably with David Schisgall's similarly themed "The Lifestyle," released to arthouses last year.
  96. Hotel Room
    Spanish writer-director Cesc Gay and Argentine co-director Daniel Gimelberg cook up one or two agreeably tart episodes in this uneven pic, but ultimately, it plays like "Four Rooms" without a budget.
  97. Camera Obscura
    Unable to blend artfilm with psychological thriller, writer-director Hamlet Sarkissian makes something opaque indeed out of Camera Obscura.
  98. Man of the Year
    Ensemble proves improvisationally capable, but film overall is rather conventional, a Hollywood idea of an experimental film presented with a heavy serving of showbiz-type cynicism.
  99. Time Changer
    There is something sweetly naive about pic's astonished contention that this is because morals were taught in a nonreligious context. But it's not a compelling argument for the Apocalypse.
  100. Atlantis: The Lost Empire
    Recycles familiar adventure and cartoon devices with minimal wit and flair, and the lack of imagination will seem all the more dramatic to audiences in comparison to the winningly sophisticated "Shrek."
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