Variety's Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
  1. Love the Coopers
    Decked out in the usual tinsel-and-mistletoe trappings, the film lurches awkwardly between gloominess and giddiness, never hitting the boisterously bittersweet groove it seeks.
  2. Texas Chainsaw 3D
    Helmer John Luessenhop ("Takers") and a small army of scripters go back to the bloody roots of the long-running franchise to concoct a better-than-average horror-thriller that relies more on potent suspense than graphic savagery or stereoscopic tricks.
  3. Hot Pursuit
    A few mildly tone-deaf jokes are hardly enough to sink Hot Pursuit. What does, however, is its tendency to belabor the laziest, most obvious gags beyond the point of reason.
  4. Cop Out
    There's precious little of that tension to be found between co-leads Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan, but more than enough between director Kevin Smith and the shoddy script he's elected to take on, and neither seems willing to budge.
  5. House at the End of the Street
    Exploiting Lawrence's newfound fame is the only hope this ill-conceived, poorly executed venture has of connecting with audiences before poisonous word of mouth sends potential buyers in search of a more attractive address.
  6. 6 Month Rule
    Ensemble is sharp, although Adams and Dave Foley (as an obnoxious gallery owner) make more caricatured impressions.
  7. The Book of Henry
    The film’s muted yet still rather flamboyant terribleness derives from the fact that it seems to be juggling three or four borderline schlock genres at once.
  8. Crazy Eyes
    These two non-lovers have real chemistry, and it's hard not to be intoxicated by the strange cocktail of watching them together, even as the story appears to be going nowhere.
  9. The Disappointments Room
    There is more mood than matter to be sampled in “The Disappointments Room,” a spooky psychological thriller — or, perhaps, a psychological thriller with spooks — that is initially intriguing but ultimately, unfortunately, lives down to its title.
  10. Vampire Academy
    Mead’s six Vampire Academy books (there’s also an ongoing spinoff series, “Bloodlines”) are relatively brainy and complex within their young-adult subgenre, but their virtues have been reduced to a derivative hash here.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Highlander II: The Quickening
    Audiences unfamiliar with the first film will be hard put to follow the action as it incoherently hops about in time and space.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Silent Rage
    Silent Rage seems as if it were made with a demographics sampler entitled ’10 Sleazy Ways to Cash in on the Exploitation Market’. The result is a combination horror-kung fu-oater-woman in peril-mad scientist film with more unintentional laughs than possible in the space of 100 minutes.
  13. The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
    Reheating the ingredients can't disguise how stale they are, as setpiece after setpiece strains to whip up excitement, only to fall flat while reminding of previous sequences that did such things ever so much better.
  14. Dark Summer
    While competently made, Dark Summer makes no effort to lend its characters any psychological complexity, or even much distinguishing personality. Nor are the proceedings very scary.
  15. Abominable
    Abominable goes completely over the top into an Ed Wood-meets-"Rear Window" subspecies of giddy, gory amateurish abandon.
  16. Idle Hands
    Perhaps thinking he had a farce to play with, Flender encourages tons of mugging; by overplaying what should be underplayed, helmer and cast deliver a fatal stab to the intended comedy-horror.
  17. The Life of David Gale
    Punches the expected buttons without being entirely convincing.
  18. A Dark Truth
    A self-serious eco-thriller assembled with a competent but heavy hand, A Dark Truth decries corporate corruption and Third World oppression in an all-too-obvious manner.
  19. Josie
    While eschewing genre formula is admirable, England’s tack proves enervating, since Hank and Josie generally feel like archetypes devoid of purpose.
  20. Absolutely Anything
    It’s devastating to think how far Jones has fallen in the four decades since “Holy Grail,” in which he got more laughs banging a few coconuts together than he musters from his entire movie.
  21. Corporate Animals
    Corporate Animals is a character sketch in search of a plot.
  22. Winter's Tale
    The best miracles are those that creep up on you unexpectedly rather than endlessly announcing themselves, and the ones in Winter’s Tale are fatally obvious and self-congratulatory.
  23. A Fantastic Fear of Everything
    [A] stunningly joke-free comedy-horror hybrid.
  24. Happy Gilmore
    Added together, there are about three minutes of funny material in Happy Gilmore, and pretty much all of them are in the trailer, leaving a sometimes painfully unfunny 90 minutes with which to contend.
  25. Let Them Chirp Awhile
    That Blitstein pulls off this tiredly self-reflexive conceit with relative panache is due in no small part to the scruffy grace of leads Justin Rice ("Mutual Appreciation") and indie fixture Brendon Sexton III.
  26. Inside the Mind of Leonardo
    The documentary envisions the groundbreaking visionary as a voracious polymath (true) while giving shockingly short shrift to the man as artist.
  27. Jack
    Blandness and lack of daring characterize nearly every minute of the very long two hours, which are marked by a high degree of professionalism at the service of little content.
  28. Friend Request
    We might lament declining attention spans in general, but more chilling than anything in Friend Request is the idea that anyone’s whole attention could possibly be absorbed by so flimsy and forgettable a film, one that seems made with the sole aim of being perfectly adequate background noise for something else.
  29. Artemis Fowl
    What a waste. Screenwriters Conor McPherson and Hamish McColl have taken a not-very-good book and turned it into a downright awful movie.
  30. Harry + Max
    Munch's usual stylishness and casual storytelling tenor lend persuasion to this curious drama about two brothers, both teen music idols, who demonstrate an incestuous attraction.
  31. Dylan Dog: Dead of Night
    Dylan Dog isn't a terrible movie, just one that feels like a tepid mishmash of secondhand concepts, never developing a distinctive atmosphere or unique personality of its own.
  32. 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.
  33. Bruce!!!
    The film moves along lackadaisically, without any knack for establishing scenarios, or setting up punchlines, that might lead to laughs — which, in turn, often makes it play like an enervating drama. Bruce!!!! makes a lot of verbal noise, but it says nothing worth remembering.
  34. The Crow
    This reinvention’s contrastingly elegant yet dislocated revenge-slash-love story is no slam dunk. But neither is it an unwatchable dud.
  35. Seventh Son
    Given the fine past work of its many parents, there was clearly potential here, but as delivered, Seventh Son amounts to nothing short of a creative miscarriage.
  36. A Day Without a Mexican
    Darkly amusing idea delivers an early salvo that fades as the film swings across a range of styles and tones director Sergio Arau gamely tries to corral. Even at its half-realized level, pic will anger some as it amuses others.
  37. The Cave
    Refreshing strokes of science-fact in the early sections give way to action strictly from the Ridley Scott-James Cameron playbook, but without a powerful helmer behind the camera or a memorable cast in front.
  38. Alex Cross
    The cross-dressing "Madea" star seems out of his depth playing the hard-boiled detective made famous by Morgan Freeman in "Along Came a Spider" and "Kiss the Girls." Even action helmer Rob Cohen ("The Fast and the Furious," "XXX") seems to be off his game here.
  39. The Final Destination
    With an array of gory mayhem only marginally enhanced by 3-D and a plot as developed as a text message, The Final Destination may finally sound the death knell for New Line's near-immortal horror franchise.
  40. America Latina
    America Latina may frequently look and sound terrific, but a Ferrari spinning its wheels is spinning its wheels just the same.
  41. Playing It Cool
    Even in a self-absorbed role, Evans, who also exec produces, manages to be eminently likable, though the narration he’s asked to spew isn’t half as smart as the filmmakers think it is. Monaghan is luminous, and indeed, the actors shake every last bit of believability out of the thin gruel that’s given them.
  42. Punisher: War Zone
    Along with torrents of gore, Punisher: War Zone has moments that are deliriously funny, because the violence is so awful and so casual.
  43. Half Brothers
    It’s a slick film that’s forgettable at best, annoyingly broad and unfunny at worst.
  44. Off the Lip
    Rich in its love of surfing but curiously short on such footage, well-meaning directorial debut by producer Robert Mickelson is boosted by winning performances, but ultimately about as memorable as a day of 3-4 foot swells.
    • 30 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Vampire's Kiss
    Cage's over-the-top performance generates little sympathy for the character, so it's tough to be interested in him as his personality disorder worsens.
  46. My Way
    Picture operates on the notion that indiscriminate action in service of a formulaic script will keep audiences clutching their armrests, but the results fail to grip.
  47. CBGB
    Transforms the glory days of Hilly Kristal’s Bowery punk/No Wave club into exactly the sort of moldy sitcom one might expect from writer-director Randall Miller.
  48. Badland
    A strenuously solemn film that wants to create some kind of American pastoral tragedy out of the nation's current angst with the war.
  49. The Spirit
    Plunges into a watery grave early on and spends roughly the next 100 minutes gasping for air.
  50. The Outsider
    Dull, flavorless, and fundamentally incurious, “The Outsider” is a clueless misfire, the cinematic equivalent of a study-abroad student showing off the kanji forearm tattoo whose meaning he never bothered to learn.
  51. Feeling Minnesota
    Meant to be an offbeat, darkly comic tale of a triangle of losers desperately clinging to their versions of the American dream, pic comes across as a charmless high-concept indie.
  52. Saw VI
    A film so frighteningly familiar it could well be called "Saw It Already."
  53. Bulletproof
    The criminal activity onscreen in “Bulletproof” is penny ante compared with the felonious slaughter of story, character and logic exacted by the pic’s filmmakers.
  54. Phil
    Phil is a trifle, and there’s no harm in that, but it’s an unconvincing trifle. The words “coy” and “whimsical” scarcely do justice to its coy whimsicality.
  55. Over Her Dead Body
    Even the weakest "Desperate Housewives" episode packs more heat than this tepid romantic comedy-fantasy, whose basic plot gimmick has been done as far back as "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir."
  56. The Babymakers
    Yet another attempt to mix raunchy excess and romantic-comedy sweetness in an anything-goes raucous farce, The Babymakers offers a few big laughs between ho-hum stretches of frenetic vamping.
  57. Live at the Foxes Den
    The pacing is tortured. Plot doesn’t so much twist as rupture and spill forth, and character arcs, as if part of a case being built by a cut-rate lawyer, frequently skip discovery and are forgotten before summation.
  58. The Hangover Part III
    Ditching the hangovers, the backward structure, the fleshed-out characters and any sense of debauchery or fun, this installment instead just thrusts its long-suffering protagonists into a rote chase narrative, periodically pausing to trot out fan favorites for a curtain call.
  59. The Pacifier
    If auds swallow this odoriferous exercise in calculated career repositioning, they'll swallow anything.
  60. Love in the Time of Money
    This kind of episodic chain of interlocking encounters has become a formulaic favorite in American indie cinema, and Mattei's take on the genre is narrow and schematic.
  61. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
    Robinson's script is alive to the material's literary roots, although there is a sense that the brakes have been applied so as not to push into territory perceived as too esoteric for American teenagers.
  62. Gods and Generals
    Gods and Generals is American history transformed into a museum movie, consistently making the flawed human characters at the heart of the Civil War into flawless figures Olympian in their statuesque remoteness.
  63. Kill Me Three Times
    Director Kriv Stenders’ tiresome tale of scheming adulterers, cruel spouses and one bemused hitman (Simon Pegg) feels like poser noir all the way, never achieving the darkly comic flair or freshness of style needed to sell its fatalistic twists.
  64. Oh My God
    Compacts nearly three years' worth of globe-trotting interviews into an often visually vibrant but rhetorically muddled package. So intent on giving (almost) every perspective a fair shake that it winds up saying little of consequence.
  65. Affluenza
    A splashy-looking yet depressingly empty exercise that is never more shallow than the times when it tries to go deep.
  66. USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage
    "USS Indianapolis” is a World War II “epic” that’s overscaled yet underimagined. It’s a tale of survival that never provides the audience with a basic entry point into how and why we should care.
  67. Little Boy
    The problem here isn’t theological; even if it were in service of a different message entirely, the sheer gracelessness of Monteverde’s storytelling would be a massive turnoff.
  68. The Boy Next Door
    The film’s initial formulaic competence gives way to outright preposterousness rather quickly, hinging on idiot-plot character motivations.
    • 30 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    The Swarm
    Killer bees periodically interrupt the arch writing, stilted direction and ludicrous acting in Irwin Allen's disappointing and tired non-thriller.
    • 30 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Troll
    Troll is a predictable, dim-witted premise executed for the most part with surprising style.
    • 30 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    The Cassandra Crossing
    The Cassandra Crossing is a tired, hokey and sometimes unintentionally funny disaster film in which a trainload of disease-exposed passengers lurch to their fate.
  72. The Art of War
    Almost every element in Art of War is slightly off.
  73. Queen of the Damned
    Handsomely mounted, this direly conventional bit of vampire business is enlivened by flashes of humor and game performances. It isn't great entertainment or camp, but pic sets its ambitions so low, it can't help partially delivering on them.
  74. Waiting...
    The wait for laughs lasts the entire length of Waiting ..., first feature from writer-director Rob McKittrick that aims to be a "Clerks"-type comedy set in a chain restaurant but ends up somewhere below a "Porky's" sequel.
  75. Expend4bles
    This is true 21st-century trash: a movie in which the action itself is expendable.
  76. Invisible
    Begins as a morosely melancholy study of a thirtysomething couple on the verge of divorce, then devolves into an unpleasant thriller about their confrontation with psychos.
  77. American Milkshake
    Milkshake sucks all the flavor out of a tasty premise.
  78. White Noise
    An unsatisfying supernatural thriller with an effectively unsettling build-up and a frustratingly muddled pay-off.
  79. American Virgin
    Ambitious but flawed comedy.
  80. Exorcist: The Beginning
    Earns points simply for not being bad enough to leave a stain on the screen. Unfortunately, this annoyingly disjointed shocker stumbles badly after promising early scenes, and quickly devolves into a chaotic blur of underdeveloped characters, illogical transitions and standard-issue scary-movie tropes.
  81. The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild
    While there are certain shots that provoke an emotional pull, whether that be fear, sadness or wonderment, there’s a synthetic quality to them. It leaves us yearning for a full immersion into this world of make-believe. Environments lack depth and dimension, coming across flat and uninteresting.
  82. Measure of Revenge
    A mess from start to finish, this would-be thriller about a mother seeking vengeance (Melissa Leo) never comes close to raising the pulse but does raise more than a few eyebrows along the way.
  83. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning
    Liebesman hews close to the 2003 pic’s bile-tinged snuff-film aesthetic. His approach falls somewhere between the overwrought sadism of the “Saw” series and the giddy gore-for-gore’s-sake energy of “The Devil’s Rejects,” sharing those films’ twisted notion that today’s auds are willing to embrace such homicidal maniacs as heroes.
  84. The Electric State
    The filmmakers have diluted the source material, showing a clear lack of interest in making their creation just as haunting, searing and satisfying as the original product.
  85. Basmati Blues
    Basmati Blues is one of those movies that isn’t terrible but still leaves you wondering why it exists.
  86. Boo! A Madea Halloween
    It’s another of Perry’s raucous and slovenly comedies of responsibility, which means that its heart is in a very old — and right — place. If only a message that was this solid equalled solid laughs.
  87. Marmaduke
    With extended closing credits, Marmaduke clocks in at 88 minutes and feels longer.
  88. Paulo Coelho's Best Story
    A dramatically flat and tediously disjointed drama that comes across as a standard-issue, cliche-littered, struggling-writer-finds-fulfillment biopic that has been cut-and-pasted into borderline incoherence.
  89. Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore
    A faster, funnier follow-up in which CGI-enhanced canines and felines effect a temporary truce to combat a common enemy.
  90. Billionaire Boys Club
    There are no billionaires here, just a lot of testosterone where the movie’s brains ought to be.
    • 30 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter
    Film is effective in its own right, but as with most sequels, it lacks freshness. American actress Burt is any adolescent boy’s fantasy seductress. Rest of the cast is adequate, but a letdown compared with the original’s.
    • 30 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Legend
    Legend is a fairytale produced on a grand scale, set in some timeless world and peopled with fairies, elves and goblins, plus a spectacularly satisfying Satan. At the same time, the basic premise is alarmingly thin, a compendium of any number of ancient fairytales.
    • Variety
  93. John Q
    A shamelessly manipulative commercial on behalf of national health insurance.
  94. Blue Iguana
    Blue Iguana strains to be antic in every joint, from gimmicky editorial and camera choices to a soundtrack cluttered with early ’80s New Wave tracks by the B-52’s, Violent Femmes, Only Ones — great stuff, but they can’t get a party started that’s already flatlined.
  95. Grown Ups
    Grown Ups delivers precious few laughs for the sheer volume of comedy talent on offer.
  96. 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.
  97. Stonewall
    Stonewall is no disaster, and to all those waiting to tear it apart, perhaps the best that can be said is that Emmerich’s film is neither as bad nor as insensitive as predicted, though it’s politics certainly are problematic.
  98. The House
    The House, like too many Hollywood comedies of outrage, turns the extreme into the innocuous.
  99. Always Woodstock
    Even by its genre’s comfort-food standards, this movie feels blandly circumscribed, almost child-proofed, as if any sharper reality or wit might be harmful to the intended audience.
  100. The Marc Pease Experience
    The finished product appears particularly stale, with an unfunny script that squanders its game cast, including a valiantly emotive Jason Schwartzman in the title role.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »