Variety's Scores

Select another publication »
For 17,779 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: 9,134 out of 17779
  2. Mixed: 7,009 out of 17779
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17779
17779 movie reviews
view
per page
  1. The Good Heart
    A picture too simplistic and sentimental for art seekers and too rough for general audiences.
  2. Letters to Juliet
    Jose Rivera and Tim Sullivan's script relentlessly piles on goopy conversation-stoppers like "Do you believe in destiny?" and "I didn't know that true love had an expiration date."
  3. Happiness Runs
    Sherman's personal wounds feel fresh, which makes for a superficially beautiful but otherwise bitter story.
  4. Multiple Sarcasms
    Timothy Hutton's fine, loose-limbed perf as a man adrift lifts Multiple Sarcasms, frosh scribe-helmer Brooks Branch's male menopause apologia, out of cliche-ridden territory -- at least temporarily.
  5. The Expendables
    A nearly incoherent all-stars-on-deck actioner that plays like "Grown Ups" on nitro or a brutish, blue-collar "Ocean's Eleven."
  6. The Sorcerer's Apprentice
    The magic here feels machine-made and depressingly state-of-the-art.
  7. Grown Ups
    Grown Ups delivers precious few laughs for the sheer volume of comedy talent on offer.
  8. South of the Border
    The documentary offers little genuine information and no investigative research, adopting a style even more polemical than Stone's earlier docus on Fidel Castro and Yasser Arafat.
  9. Stolen
    A technically polished thriller marred by textbook filmmaking that grows increasingly dull as the plot wears on.
  10. [Rec] 2
    A sequel to the Spanish cult hit that offers an explanation for something that was far more effective when left largely unexplained.
  11. Valhalla Rising
    With very little dialogue, and even less plot, five chapter stops lend the movie a skeletal structure: "Wrath," "Silent Warrior," "Men of God," "The Holy Land" and "Hell." But any discussion of the Dark Ages conflict between paganism and Christianity is reduced to just grunts or insults.
  12. Tales from Earthsea
    This dull and humorless production won't reap the same critical support as the work of Miyazaki Senior.
  13. Lottery Ticket
    The script is never nearly as clever as the premise ought to allow, and the madcap fun is far too frequently derailed by tonal inconsistencies.
  14. The Switch
    An unfunny, manipulative romance about two unlikable people and their prop of a son, the pic mangles the premise of its source material ("Baster," a 1996 short story by Pulitzer-winning novelist Jeffrey Eugenides) in ways that ought to baffle viewers of all sociopolitical stripes.
  15. Going the Distance
    This uneven effort saddles its likable leads, Drew Barrymore and Justin Long, with the kind of verbally exaggerated sexual humor that not only comes off as embarrassingly strained and calculated, but also compromises what the picture genuinely wants to be.
  16. Spring Fever
    Overlong and very Euro-flavored.
  17. Louis
    This cinematic anomaly falls flat as a stand-alone.
  18. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
    This f/x-heavy third adaptation of the Christian-themed fantasy series feels routine and risk-averse in every respect, as if investment anxiety had fatally hobbled its sense of wonder.
  19. Little Fockers
    A lazy attempt to milk a few more laughs and bucks from the enormously lucrative property spawned 10 years ago by "Meet the Parents."
  20. Enter the Void
    Not clever enough to be truly pretentious.
  21. Skyline
    An underwhelming and derivative sci-fi thriller that's only marginally more impressive than a run-of-the-mill SyFy Channel telepic.
  22. The Happy Poet
    Both subscribes to and somewhat departs from the bare-bones improvisational formula established by the mumblecore movement, sometimes sacrificing ambiguity for the sake of broader, telegraphed, one-note laughs.
  23. Inhale
    Icelandic helmer Baltasar Kormakur ("101 Reykjavik," "Jar City") injects notes of hysteria into the script's frenetic pileup of gratuitous cliches, as Dermot Mulroney pushes his square-jawed, desperate hero to near-masochistic extremes.
  24. For Colored Girls
    The result falls squarely in familiar territory, better acted and better lit, perhaps, but more inauthentically melodramatic than ever.
  25. The Tourist
    Like a beautifully tailored suit that starts to smell funny after a few minutes, this sumptuous but stultifying lark sets up a quasi-Hitchcockian intrigue between two strangers abroad, but smothers any thrills or sparks in a haze of self-regard.
  26. All Good Things
    The more the film implicates David, the more it distances itself and the viewer, playing out in the emotionally detached but sensationalistic, overripe manner of a tabloid freakshow.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Rocky Horror Picture Show
    Most of the jokes that might have seemed jolly fun on stage now appear obvious and even flat. The sparkle's gone.
  28. Speed-Dating
    Though it follows the reductive paradigms of men-on-the-make laffers, the low-budget, flatly shot picture rarely turns nastily shrill or swaggeringly stupid in tone; redemption and/or sanity is usually waiting in the wings.
  29. The Nutcracker
    The familiarity of the music may actually be a disadvantage; the ear wants the melodies to conform to one's memory of them, but instead they've been tortured into compliance with the needs of a standard movie musical.
  30. GhettoPhysics: Will the Real Pimps and Hos Please Stand Up?
    For all its street edge, GhettoPhysics pretty much delivers the usual New Age seminar sleight-of-hand, providing a temporary, generalized sense of empowerment without any practical tools to improve one's lot.
  31. BearCity
    Helmer/co-writer Doug Langway's first feature has the right basic elements for niche DVD and cable success, but its overly digressive storytelling cries out for considerable tightening.
  32. Ong Bak 3
    Too much contemplation and not enough demonstration sends Thai-socky Ong Bak 3 slumping to the canvas.
  33. The Roommate
    Formulaic and forgettable.
  34. Sucker Punch
    Like Quentin Tarantino, Snyder is unapologetic about his influences -- the trashier the better -- though he's far less skilled in the art of pastiche.
  35. Willets Point
    But atmospherics notwithstanding, the narrative unfolds unconvincingly in jerky fits and starts.
  36. Alien Girl
    Offering a smorgasbord of violence with liberal sprinklings of sex, Russian import Alien Girl delivers wearisome brutality but little finesse.
  37. Just Go with It
    Manages to misfire in two seemingly incompatible directions. A puerile kiddie-comedy without the anarchic energy, and a schmaltzy romantic comedy without the sweetness.
  38. Jumping the Broom
    A broad African-Amerian family comedy that manages to avoid many of the more predictable cliches of the genre, yet also leaves out the warmth and, too often, the laughs.
  39. Battle: Los Angeles
    Mostly, this is the cinematic equivalent of a first-person shooter game, one where the Marines possess only slightly more personality than the faceless invaders.
  40. Arthur
    Even the Brit-wit chemistry of Russell Brand and Helen Mirren can't offset the self-conscious degree to which this tame, calculated effort sticks to its source.
  41. Atlas Shrugged: Part I
    Part one of a trilogy that may never see completion, this hasty, low-budget adaptation would have Ayn Rand spinning in her grave, considering how it violates the author's philosophy by allowing opportunists to exploit another's creative achievement -- in this case, hers.
  42. Apollo 18
    Despite stretches of skillfully sustained suspense, Apollo 18 ultimately comes across as little more than a modestly clever stunt.
  43. Something Borrowed
    Try as she might, Hudson can't turn Darcy into a three-dimensional character: She's astonishingly easy to dislike, but not nearly amusing enough in what could have been an unforgettable camp performance.
  44. Dressed
    Tracks the race-to-the-deadline scramble of a personable young designer preparing an underfunded fashion show, but offers few threads that were not already more solidly and stylishly woven into "Unzipped," "Seamless" or "11 Hours."
  45. Waiting for Forever
    All the improbable, oddball and endless love in the world can't rescue Waiting for Forever from a premise that's irresponsible at worst and an example of profoundly bad timing at best.
  46. Carancho
    Here he's (Trapero) lost his way, tripped up by an unexceptional script and the kind of mood-killing artificial spot lighting more often seen on TV dramas than widescreen thrillers.
  47. Certifiably Jonathan
    Winters deserves better.
  48. Now & Later
    Without fully fleshed-out generic or social contexts, left-wing documentarian Philippe Diaz's preachy mix of graphic free love and polemical diatribe fails to mesh as fiction, though it does make for superior porn.
  49. Red Riding Hood
    Intermittently enjoyable hokum at best.
  50. Rubber
    Neither scary, funny, nor anywhere near as clever as it seems to think it is, picture offers audiences few reasons to want to see it beyond its one-joke premise.
  51. Bridesmaids
    A sluggish, charmless misfire in which even the most appealing players -- must try too hard to make anything close to an engaging impression.
  52. The Change-Up
    If "Freaky Friday" had an impudent, foul-mouthed little brother, it would be The Change-Up, an often needlessly crass, bromance-oriented spin on the body-swap comedy.
  53. Dream House
    Impressive as the combination may seem on paper, having Sheridan direct this sort of genre fare reps a clear miscasting of helmer and subject, as he displays no particular feel for the material and is unable to overcome the story's generic approach, lack of striking psychological ideas, and literal-minded denouement.
  54. Red State
    This sloppily constructed horror-thriller lacks the satirical bite and action chops to skewer extreme-right-wing zealots with the gusto Smith clearly feels they deserve, instead evincing the verbal incontinence and slack tension that have long dogged the writer-director's work.
  55. Immortals
    Navigating the film's mounting erotic bloodlust proves tedious, until the show-stopping final battle between gods and Titans in one chamber, Theseus and Hyperion in another, at which point logic melts away completely and the pic's raison d'etre emerges -- namely, to justify staging a fight scene for the ages.
  56. Texas Killing Fields
    Script by former DEA officer Don Ferrarone isn't that bad in itself, but matters aren't helped by the mumbled performances and poor sound, which make it hard to hear what anyone's saying, while sloppy editing wreaks havoc on the story.
  57. The Raven
    The Raven is a squawking, silly picture that never takes flight.
  58. Happythankyoumoreplease
    With the exception of Akerman's Annie, the characters are uniformly annoying, their stories insubstantial and the tone one of smug contentment.
  59. Horrible Bosses
    The manner in which the central scheme plays out is predictably moronic, vulgar and juvenile, though the parties involved just about make up for it.
  60. Jack and Jill
    Yet the picture's general stupidity, careless direction and reliance on a single-joke premise that was never really funny to begin with are only the most obvious of its problems.
  61. New Year's Eve
    Few of the plot strands connect to one another, much less resolve themselves with any degree of wit or daring.
  62. This Means War
    This screwball premise lives or dies by the chemistry between Pine and Hardy, who are too busy trying to out-appeal one another to make the buddy dynamic click.
  63. What's Your Number?
    A draggy, generally laugh-free outing that wastes a perfectly good Anna Faris.
  64. Ceremony
    Despite a few grace notes and mildly clever twists, this handsomely produced indie is such a grating turnoff throughout its first third that its minor virtues may be discovered only by insomniac latenight cable viewers.
  65. Monogamy
    A painfully dull plunge into the suffocating self-absorption that seems to be killing modern romance.
  66. Peep World
    So lame that it barely gets a rise out of permanent erection jokes.
  67. Skateland
    This wan, mundane coming-of-ager focuses on kids enacting a pale imitation of '50s car-centered, "American Graffiti"-style time-killing, with the impediment of exceptionally dull dialogue.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer
    Picture comes off as an exaggerated slapstick romp rather than the breezy, affecting tale of an 8-year-old tomboy it might have been.
  69. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance
    The picture is still much too rickety, slapdash and surprisingly dull to qualify as a good barrel-bottom pleasure.
  70. 47 Ronin
    As impressive as these visual elements prove to be, the film struggles to grab and maintain audiences’ interest, whether or not they know the underlying legend by heart.
  71. Motherland
    Lacks focus, stumbling from one emotionally fraught stopping place to another but arousing less and less curiosity along the way.
  72. Lord of the Dance in 3D
    Numbingly repetitive in its routines, and seeming to take a bow from the moment it begins, Lord of the Dance 3D makes crystal-clear the sometimes muddied distinctions between a live performance and the filmed alternative.
  73. Curling
    The emotional life of a Canuck bowling-alley handyman slowly turns to slush in Curling, the latest slice of arthouse misery from Quebecois director Denis Cote.
  74. Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters
    While the film rarely provokes any strenuous eye-rolling, it also can't drum up even the slightest interest in the fate of its characters, let alone suspense.
  75. John Carter
    Stanton has been given the resources to create an expansive, expensive world, but lacks the instincts to direct live-action, a limitation that shows most in the performances. Bare of chest and fair of feature, Kitsch doesn't exhibit enough charisma to carry a project of this scale.
  76. Sympathy for Delicious
    This offbeat effort proves more admirable for its ambition than anything else, as the uneasy mix of satire, allegory, grittiness and redemption never quite jells.
  77. Here Comes the Boom
    Hands of stone meet heads of air in Here Comes the Boom, a sports story so daffy it may as well star Kevin James.
  78. Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead
    With Cross jump-starting others on a liquid road to health, this glorified infomercial could saturate latenight TV after its April 1 bow.
  79. Mirror Mirror
    Poised between revisionist fairy tale and smirking sendup, this gaudy, over-frosted cream puff of a movie half-heartedly positions its famous heroine as a dagger-wielding proto-feminist, yet ultimately suffers the same fatal flaw as Julia Roberts' evil queen: It doesn't really care about anything except how pretty it looks.
  80. The Understudy
    Marin Ireland makes a winning lead, but the script by helmers David Conolly and Hannah Davis ran out of gas in 2008, which is when the film was made.
  81. A Little Help
    This tale of a Long Island dental hygienist dealing with various family crises is likable enough, but never really distinctive in character delineation, tone, atmosphere or plotting.
  82. Phillip the Fossil
    The edge achieved by director-editor-producer-scribe Garth Donovan is jeopardized by overreaching for topical relevance.
  83. Square Grouper
    Think of it as the cinematic equivalent of a buzz-kill.
  84. An Invisible Sign
    A tone of fanciful absurdity is maintained throughout.
  85. Go for It!
    Serves up a bland recycling of cliches and archetypes from just about every youth-skewing, dance-centric picture to hit the megaplexes since "Flashdance."
  86. Hesher
    The problem with the script by Susser and David Michod, working from a story by Brian Charles Frank, is that Hesher's uncouth behavior is so aggressively pushed to single-minded, crudely exploitative effect.
  87. The High Cost of Living
    Although there are moments when lead thesps Zach Braff ("Scrubs", "Garden State") and Isabelle Blais just about pull off the implausible conceit, the picture still suffers from major problems of tone as well as stilted camerawork and editing.
  88. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
    Mawkish, clunky and unenlightening about female suffering in this or any generation.
  89. The Ledge
    There's a great deal of on-the-nose talk here about faith, rationality, sin and so forth. But Chapman's sincerity is undercut by the crudely melodramatic explanations of why his principals believe as they do.
  90. The Perfect Age of Rock 'n' Roll
    Unfortunately, the unconvincing fictional storyline Rosenbaum weaves around this solid musical base hits every meller cliche in the "self-destructive rock star" playbook.
  91. The Robber
    With no emotional or stylistic hooks, there's not much compelling viewers to engage with what's happening onscreen.
  92. Hey, Boo: Harper Lee and 'To Kill a Mockingbird'
    An unremarkable documentary about Harper Lee and her single literary masterwork, Hey, Boo features what the French call a "structuring absence," that of Lee herself.
  93. American Reunion
    While it's poignant seeing the whole gang again, the tired gross-out antics and limp romantic reprisals keep this hapless if heartfelt effort from qualifying as a decent comedy, let alone a generational classic.
  94. We Go Way Back
    Ultimately too underdeveloped and slight to have much impact, though the helmer's impressionistic uses of image and sound are appealing.
  95. Day of the Falcon
    Helmer/co-scripter Jean-Jacques Annaud's rep for spectacle over screenplay is again borne out in this overblown yet oddly anemic epic of warring Arabian tribes during the nascent oil boom.
  96. Upside Down
    A dystopic sci-fi romance about inverted planets that will have audiences wondering which way is up, but not really caring much or for very long.
  97. Think Like a Man
    While the result deserves some credit for finding a creative way to bring the book to life, the overlapping storylines simply aren't compelling enough, despite the best efforts of a game and attractive cast.
  98. The Big Uneasy
    Well-intended and informative, but also unfocused, unwieldy and a little smug, picture pales in comparison to the really first-rate films on the subject ("When the Levees Broke," "Trouble the Water").
  99. Gone
    A low-pulse thriller that evaporates from memory with the last credit.
  100. Hotel Transylvania
    A stale overprotective-dad story set within a location that could easily house a more inspired mix of characters and events.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »