Variety's Scores

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For 17,837 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: 9,166 out of 17837
  2. Mixed: 7,034 out of 17837
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17837
17837 movie reviews
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  1. Old School
    This year's kinder, gentler "Animal House."
  2. Shark Tale
    With the combination of mobster characters and heavily R&B, hip-hop and disco/soul tune orientation of the soundtrack, pic has a more streetwise feel than most animated fare, which is not to say that it has street smarts.
  3. Signs
    All smoke and mirrors. With his third straight excursion into the supernatural, M. Night Shyamalan has begun revealing the hand that works his spooky tricks so much that the lack of substance is plainly seen.
  4. Super Troopers
    A fairly sustained barrage of broad undergraduate humor and gross-out gags that should tickle young auds looking for unsophisticated laughs.
  5. Ararat
    Egoyan's pedantic, lecturing approach makes the film a bit of a slog, although the basic material has an intrinsic interest that makes one at least want to know more about the historical events.
  6. Man on Fire
    One of the more absorbing and palatable entries in the rather disreputable "Death Wish"-style self-appointed vigilante sub-genre.
  7. The Way of the Gun
    Each of the talented thesps has some good moments, but, ultimately, none can rise above the limitations of the material and filmmaking.
  8. 2 Fast 2 Furious
    While this John Singleton-directed sequel provides a breezy enough joyride, it lacks the unassuming freshness and appealing neighborhood feel of the economy-priced original.
  9. BASEketball
    The vulgar, obvious humor of Zucker brother David and "South Park" creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone elicits easy, guilty laughs, yet the material has an underlying innocence that's just shy of good clean fun.
  10. Blade II
    May be too grisly to extend its appeal beyond its fan base.
  11. As Good as It Gets
    A sporadically funny romantic comedy with all the dramatic plausibility and tonal consistency of a TV variety show.
  12. The Lost World: Jurassic Park
    David Koepp's script, from the Michael Crichton novel, is schematic and largely predictable. There's an obvious threat and not too many ways to quell it. Underneath the technical virtuosity is a standard chase film, and director Steven Spielberg does little to elevate it dramatically.
  13. The Saint
    A generic suspenser that doesn't taste bad at first bite but becomes increasingly hard to swallow, The Saint comes off more as a pallid imitation of Paramount's Eurothriller "Mission: Impossible" than as anything resembling the further adventures of Leslie Charteris' charming rogue.
  14. Cowboy Bebop the Movie: Knockin' on Heaven's Door
    Though it isn't the entirely original creation "Metropolis" was, Bebop is more satisfying.
  15. Imaginary Heroes
    The film sways awkwardly back and forth between prickly humor and pathos, rarely ringing true in either register.
  16. Behind Enemy Lines
    An unembarrassed, high-octane demonstration of the virtues of a U.S. military with a mission, the latest war pic from 20th Century Fox -- a studio with a proud tradition in this field -- couldn't be better timed to fit the popular mood.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Dangerous Liaisons
    The real problem is Malkovich's Valmont. This sly actor conveys the character's snaky, premeditated Don Juanism. But he lacks the devilish charm and seductiveness one senses Valmont would need to carry off all his conquests.
  18. Shall We Dance
    An unabashedly old-fashioned entertainment loaded with traditional dancing and music.
  19. Blue Collar Comedy Tour: The Movie
    Unlikely to draw new fans but destined to please followers who couldn't catch the live act.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
    A curious amalgam of the visually striking, the dramatically feeble and the offensively sadistic.
  21. The Lizzie McGuire Movie
    Just two weeks after successfully targeting boys with "Holes," Disney is giving girls something they want with this mild, quasi-romantic romp.
  22. Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason
    Second time round, Bridget is still fat, funny and endearing -- but "all a bit, um, familiar, actually."
  23. Coffee and Cigarettes
    Holding the film together are simple but strong B&W visuals of offbeat types sitting around a table smoking and drinking java while they talk.
  24. Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star
    Offers a largely satisfying mix of broad slapstick, seriocomic sentimentality and mostly amusing satirical thrusts at easy targets.
  25. Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights
    Superficial but entertaining new pic offers equal parts freshness and kitsch appeal set to a pulsating Latin soundtrack.
  26. Home on the Range
    An engagingly rambunctious toon Western that likely will attract herds of family auds, if not multitudes of teens and tweeners, to megaplex corrals.
  27. In the Realms of the Unreal
    Documentarian Jessica Yu employs everything from animation and voiceover thesping to archival documents and eyewitness accounts while examining Henry Darger, a self-taught artist who has been posthumously lionized as a visionary genius.
  28. Ladder 49
    It plays, rather, like an old-fashioned, by-the-numbers drama that solidly connects with most of its well-worn cliches.
  29. Patch Adams
    Shamelessly sappy and emotionally manipulative, Patch Adams is an aggressively heartwarming comedy-drama that may be roasted by critics but embraced by ticketbuyers.
  30. The Stepford Wives
    Another "remake" that merits the title in name only, The Stepford Wives isn't the "troubled" disaster that media reports have suggested it might be, yet nor do its oddly matched parts ever congeal into a fully formed creation.
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