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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  1. Barry Munday
    Uneven but modestly diverting.
  2. Fifty Shades of Black
    At a minimum, a parody should be funnier than the film it’s sending up, but Fifty Shades of Black, a quick-and-dirty riff on last year’s S&M romance “Fifty Shades of Grey,” falls a laugh or two short of even that low standard.
  3. The Ugly Truth
    The Ugly Truth is an arch, contrived, entirely predictable romantic comedy assembled with sufficient audience-friendly elements to put it over as both a good girls' night attraction and a date-night lure raunchy enough to leave couples in the right mood afterward.
  4. Deck the Halls
    A lifeless, workmanlike comedy conceived to provide holiday shoppers an inoffensive respite from the mall.
  5. 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.
  6. Rage
    Proficiently made but fatally unpersuasive in its portrayal of internecine gang warfare, this thuggish melodrama piles on the foreign accents and paint-by-numbers brutality, all served up with a grim, operatic self-seriousness that gives Cage’s antihero little room to maneuver.
  7. Survivor
    A sturdy wrong-woman thriller that feels grotesque in its citations of 9/11 and other intimations of real-world import, but also steals a few good moves from “North by Northwest” and “The Fugitive” for a solid middle section.
  8. McCanick
    If the drably derivative, infuriatingly improbable police drama McCanick is remembered for anything, it will be for its uniformly overqualified cast.
  9. Cam2Cam
    [A] rather sleazy time-killer.
  10. Hemingway's Garden of Eden
    Garden of Eden sends sleek, half-nude bodies glumly cavorting through lush Riviera landscapes in a paradigm of unintentional camp.
    • 28 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Amityville 3-D
    There is hardly anything original about the picture. A new cast of characters and the addition of 3-D does little to pump new life, supernatural or otherwise, into this tired genre.
  12. Tyler Perry's A Madea Christmas
    An exceptionally poor piece of holiday cash-in product, rushed and ungainly even by the low standard set by Perry's seven previous Madea films, yet it should be every bit as profitable.
  13. Pixels
    Where Sandler once exulted in our outrage (and frequently, our laughter), he now seems barely capable of mustering enough effort to carry a scene, let alone advance to level 255 of “Galaga.” There’s no joy left in his shtick.
    • 27 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Head Over Heels
    A mildly amusing trifle.
  15. Imagining Argentina
    Fails on almost every level…the film only succeeds in trivializing this shameful era.
  16. Pokémon Heroes
    Demonstrates no improvement or enhancement. But the action this time is even less inspired than past battles
  17. Stranded
    Another blandly competent, thoroughly forgettable low-budget sci-fier assembled from the stray parts of other, better movies.
  18. Peep World
    So lame that it barely gets a rise out of permanent erection jokes.
  19. The Perfect Man
    For most part, The Perfect Man is too bland to merit anything more censorious than a stifled yawn.
  20. Last Knights
    Last Knights is a fairly ludicrous mystery and a so-so action movie, but it’s nonetheless been constructed with an earnest attention to detail that shouldn’t be taken for granted.
  21. Sweet November
    A contrived but entirely workable premise is given a well-tooled treatment in Sweet November, a femme-slanted doomed romance with a heavily calculated feel to it.
  22. The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas
    Silly script, broad slapstick and overstated lead perfs by B-team cast might be acceptable to target audience.
  23. Beverly Hills Ninja
    This sweet saga of an underachiever who makes good is surprisingly appealing and sure to broaden the portly comic's fan base.
  24. Garfield
    Only very small children still easily impressed by interaction of human actors and CGI quadrupeds will be amused by Garfield.
  25. Mortdecai
    There’s a fatal shortage of zingers to supplement its exhausting zaniness.
  26. Nina
    Even when not fighting with her makeup, Saldana’s Simone rarely feels fully formed.
  27. The Book of Love
    Pseudo-revelatory bombshells and heart-healing epiphanies inevitably arrive by film’s climax, which only reaffirms that — no matter how it’s cleaned up, reconstituted and transformed into something new — garbage is still garbage.
    • 27 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    The Bonfire of the Vanities
    Unfortunately, the caricatures are so crude and the ‘revelations’ so unenlightening of the human condition, that the satire is about as socially incisive as a Police Academy entry.
  29. Dangerous
    Dangerous is a bits-and-pieces action thriller with a fluky premise and a lead actor good enough to embody it. Made in the slipshod, overlit style of a straight-to-streaming potboiler, it’s not a rip-off so much as a film built out of spare parts from other movies, to the point that it never fully becomes itself.
  30. The Happytime Murders
    It should come as no surprise that “Happytime” comes up farcically short as a metaphor for racism. But its most fatal miscalculation is the decision to frontload so many of its crassest setpieces into the first 15 or 20 minutes, depriving the rest of the film of the shock value that is its entire raison d’etre.
  31. I Spit on Your Grave
    Its straight-ahead rape, humiliation and ingenious revenge competently executed but not aestheticized, the essential grunginess never overly slicked up.
  32. Are We There Yet?
    Are We There Yet? traps the affable Ice Cube in a dismal kiddy slapstick saga that even his considerable charisma can do little to enhance.
  33. Flatliners
    As dull as it gets, Flatliners never sinks all the way into outright fiasco, and there’s enough talent both behind and in front of the camera to keep things on the right side of basic competence. The actors do what they can with the material, and Oplev happens upon a few decent visual ideas.
    • 27 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Jaws 3-D
    The Jaws cycle has reached its nadir with this surprisingly tepid [Arrivision] 3-D version.
  35. Sex and the City 2
    Part of the action occurs in the desert, which inadvertently proves apt, since the oases of enjoyable moments -- and they do exist -- suffer from being spaced too widely in what's otherwise a long, arid trek.
  36. Did You Hear About the Morgans?
    But the charm of the film is that it resists turning people into cliches and lets Parker and Grant work their particular magic -- before they get to Wyoming, their performances are as stressed out as their characters, and while it's a dubious conceit that going cowboy is a cure-all, they put the notion across as convincingly as possible.
  37. Crossroads
    Awfully lame bigscreen debut for pop diva Britney Spears.
  38. The Majestic
    A thick slice of bogus inspirational cheese that only makes itself look bad by recycling so many golden movie memories.
  39. A Guy Thing
    Does get slightly better as it goes along.
  40. Catwoman
    The lure of Halle Berry as the leather-clad feline should help this mangy misfire claw out a decent opening before a quick slink to DVD.
  41. Blacklight
    If you approach it with sufficiently lowered expectations, and have fond memories of the ’70s paranoid dramas that obviously inspired director and co-writer Mark Williams, this might be your house-brand jam.
  42. Gamer
    The audience gets played in Gamer. This latest eye-scraper from writer-directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor is as hopped up as their "Crank" pics, but with dour Gerard Butler as a soldier commandeered by a teenage gamer, it's considerably less interactive.
  43. Expecting
    Even when judged by the standards of broad farce, however, Expecting repeatedly strains credibility and defies logic in ways too glaring to ignore.
  44. Cherkess
    Despite much verbal huffing and puffing, rifle waving and scimitar rattling, Cherkess proceeds with an astounding lack of action.
  45. Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2
    There may be a lot more going on “Blood and Honey 2,” but let’s not kid ourselves. It’s mostly a shambles.
  46. John Henry
    Flashes of craft can’t make up for the director’s easy default to gore over story. Forbes and his co-writer knew how they wanted to depict Hell’s sadism but never nailed how to embrace the hero with the hammer.
  47. Wild Hogs
    Given his writer-producer credits on good-to-great recent sitcoms ("My Name Is Earl," "Arrested Development," "Grounded for Life"), one might expect more situational wit, or at least some snappy patter, from Brian Copeland's first bigscreen script. Instead, the humor rests primarily on slapstick wipeouts that have no physical consequence.
  48. Transformers: The Last Knight
    For the first time, the messy hyperactive form and nihilistic crunched-metal content seem to reinforce each other.
  49. The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things
    Though it's decidedly for perverse palates, some kind of cult audience seems assured for this one-note onslaught, which exercises a bizarre fascination despite its excesses.
    • 27 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Spy Next Door
    Chan struggles gamely to charm, but the picture's cartoonish jokes and misfired gags are likely to elicit more eye rolls than laughs.
    • 27 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Meteor
    Meteor really combines several disasters in one continuous cinematic bummer.
  52. The Darkness
    At some point in the production process, co-writer/director Greg McLean must have believed he was making John Cassavetes’ “Poltergeist,” but this odd fusion of psychodrama and supernatural hokum gets away from him.
  53. Now & Forever
    A preposterously convoluted and exasperatingly sappy saga.
  54. The Professor and the Madman
    For those that have been anticipating this curious, much-delayed oddity, the good news is that Gibson is fine; it’s everything else that doesn’t work.
  55. Coyote Ugly
    The latest and most calculated re-do on the formulaic fantasy of an innocent conquering Gotham.
  56. Open My Heart
    Has a perverse fascination, despite some technical clumsiness and stiff thesping.
  57. All the Devil's Men
    Resourceful and energetic, All the Devil’s Men is better than it might have been. But it’s still not very good.
  58. Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind
    As it goes on, this all becomes a marketing hook for an increasingly flaked-out fantasy.
  59. 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.
  60. When a Stranger Calls
    A modestly clever concept gets indifferent execution in When a Stranger Calls, another bigger-yet-blander remake of an allegedly "classic" '70s shocker.
  61. Playing for Keeps
    A modestly affecting reconciliation drama wrapped in a so-so sports movie by way of a misogynistic romantic comedy, Playing for Keeps can't stop tripping all over itself.
  62. Cool World
    Style has seldom pummeled substance as severely as in Cool World, a combination funhouse ride/acid trip that will prove an ordeal for most visitors in the form of trial by animation.
  63. The Fog
    Unfortunately, interest lags between the grisly deaths, and, worse, none of the characters generates rooting interest.
  64. Let's Go to Prison
    Unlike the vast majority of rude bigscreen comedies these days, "Prison" may actually improve with repeat viewings, since its best aspects are offhand enough to be missed the first time around.
  65. The Perfect Sleep
    Unfortunately, Alter's often inventive work is kneecapped by a deliriously nonsensical script, which misses the mark as both over-the-top parody and straight-faced homage, and could have been intended as either.
  66. Taxi
    Commits any number of comedic violations during an aimless pursuit of laughs.
  67. Shadow Force
    It takes a certain esprit to pull off this kind of bombastic yet larky star vehicle. Joe Carnahan’s film provides passable diversion for a couple hours, but the fun to be had is limited by uninspired action staging, less-than-sparkling dialogue and a maudlin streak of the “It’s about family!!” type.
  68. The Musketeer
    A handsome but ho-hum swashbuckler that springs to life only during a few spirited scenes of acrobatic swordplay.
  69. Dead Man on Campus
    Although it falls far short of fulfilling its full potential as a dark comedy of desperation, Dead Man on Campus is a modestly amusing trifle that merits a passing grade as lightweight entertainment.
  70. The Basement
    There’s a big twist at the end, but like everything else here, it aims for a shock effect that the film is simply too clumsy and psychologically far-fetched to pull off.
  71. The Warrior Queen of Jhansi
    Too tepidly sincere to consistently excite or amuse. What keeps it at least moderately interesting on a scene-to-scene basis is the novelty value of seeing a strong and self-confident woman, credibly portrayed by Devika Bhise.
  72. Norbit
    Murphy's story lacks even the basic form that held most of "The Nutty Professor" together.
    • 27 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Child's Play 3
    Noisy, mindless sequel.
  74. Simply Irresistible
    Much like a botched souffle that fails to rise, Simply Irresistible is a bland confection that remains doggedly earthbound while attempting flights of romantic fantasy.
  75. View from the Top
    Flubs nearly every opportunity to be the comedy it wanted to be.
    • 27 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    The Trumpet of the Swan
    Bland animated musical offers little to charm adults with fond memories of the book, and even tykes are likely to become bored by the halfway point.
    • 27 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Heartbreak Hospital
    Tries to combine romantic comedy, soap-opera parody and murder mystery, but the disparate elements never gel, and the film, about homicide at a daytime television serial, bounces around with no clue of how to reconcile or intertwine its genre conventions.
  78. Nightlight
    The relative restraint of keeping any supernatural creatures and most violence just offscreen works well to maintain suspense. It’s too bad Beck and Woods didn’t exercise equal caution in the dialogue department.
  79. Endless
    Scott Speer’s direction and the script (by Andre Case and Oneil Sharma) assures there are no baddies here. Although it shamelessly nods to the popcorn classic “Ghost,” it doesn’t rely on a culturally vexing villain to score points. This is one of the movie’s charms — and truths.
  80. Assassin Club
    What Assassin Club lacks in fully developed characters, it more than makes up for in kinetic thrills. Golding proves that he can carry both the romantic and physical aspects of such a project, while looking delectable, and that’s probably as much as the audience for this film expects.
  81. The Anomaly
    From its elaborate but incoherent premise to its clunkily staged time-freeze fight sequences, not one detail of “The Anomaly” hasn’t been borrowed from a better movie. That magpie opportunism would matter less if the film at least had barreling narrative momentum.
  82. Miss Wonton
    Cluttered, unfocused script attempts too much.
  83. 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."
    • 27 Metascore
    • 0 Critic Score
    Problem Child
    The film marks an atrocious bigscreen debut for actor and episodic TV director Dennis Dugan.
    • 27 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Who's That Girl
    Fortunately, Dunne’s playful personality eventually counter-balances Madonna’s shrillness, and their adventures together, while completely farfetched, finally become involving. What’s lacking is pure and simple good humor.
  86. I.T.
    Brosnan is very effective at playing Regan as a wary technophobe who has become too comfortable with his power and success.
  87. How to Rob a Bank
    Amateurish, half-hearted romantic comedy-cum-heist film twists itself into unconvincing knots to pull off a guilt-free bank robbery.
  88. Fantastic Four
    Ultimately, Fox’s stab at reviving one of its inherited Marvel properties feels less like a blockbuster for this age of comics-oriented tentpoles than it does another also-ran — not an embarrassment, but an experiment that didn’t gel.
    • 27 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Orca
    Orca is man-vs-beast nonsense. Some fine special effects and underwater camera work are plowed under in dumb story-telling.
    • 27 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
    Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band will attract some grown-up flower children of the 1960s who will soon find the Michael Schultz film to be a totally bubblegum and cotton candy melange of garish fantasy and narcissism.
  91. Brooklyn Babylon
    A case of means exceeded by ambition.
  92. Twisted
    A dreary, weary psychosexual thriller that's neither sexy nor thrilling.
  93. The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia
    The helmer generates suspense with shrewd pacing, deft emotional manipulation and efficient use of familiar tricks -- jittery editing, flickering lights and unsettling sounds -- common to haunted-house pictures.
  94. Little Man
    There are probably some moviegoers who can laugh at the sight of a groin-punching, breast-grabbing baby, possibly even find it cute. Everyone else should steer clear of Little Man, which welds Marlon Wayans' head to a diminutive body double, offering up the creepiest bigscreen dwarf since the last David Lynch movie.
  95. Change in the Air
    Without a compelling, coherent narrative drive, the film’s own spirit sags.
  96. Because I Said So
    An exercise in canned cuteness, Because I Said So pushes its normally appealing stars, Diane Keaton and Mandy Moore, over the edge of sitcom hysteria.
  97. Everybody Wants to Be Italian
    A clumsy but inoffensive romantic comedy.
  98. 11-11-11
    One and one (and one and one and one and one) never quite add up to two in Darren Lynn Bousman's 11-11-11, a rather anemic entry in the biblical-prophecy horror subgenre.
  99. War Room
    It’s easy to laugh at the arrant contrivances and heavy-handed dialogue in the script penned by Alex and Stephen Kendrick. But it’s even easier to admire the persuasive sincerity and emotional potency of the lead performances by Shirer and Stallings, who do not transcend their material so much as imbue it with conviction.
  100. A Thousand Words
    Alas, even Murphy's largely wordless, physically adroit performance can't redeem this tortured exercise in high-concept spiritualist hokum.
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