Variety's Scores

For 17,810 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:
17810 movie reviews
  1. The results will be received with a large, loud yawn by all but the most loyal fans of Pinter and hard-working co-stars Michael Caine and Jude Law.
  2. Sure to inspire debate in France and Germany and of obvious interest to anyone who follows the roots of modern international terrorism, doc probes gray areas in the colorful life of its controversial, limelight-courting subject.
  3. Though fans might miss Perry's genre-exploding daring, the excellent cast injects enough pathos and zing to keep picture percolating.
  4. Adequately acted and flecked with the required quota of action to satisfy genre fans, pic recalls numerous good police dramas of the 1970s, but mostly in superficial ways that bring nothing new to the table.
  5. No doubt inspired to some degree by "Super Size Me," this equally engaging, slightly better-crafted documentary deftly balances humor and insight.
  6. Beads together complex ideas and gorgeously wrought segments like pearls on a string, but, with its emblematic characters and sometimes baffling, mystical storyline, pic ultimately remains emotionally distant.
  7. Rani Mukerji provides the star power, but up-and-coming actress Konkona Sen Sharma is the revelation in Laaga chunari mein daag, a glossy throwback to '90s Bollywood that proves a treat, if you check most of your brains at the door.
  8. An amusingly over-the-top horror comedy.
  9. Kagan's green-screen filmization, in its over-busy editing, ever-changing angles and constantly shifting backdrops, strips the play of its starkness, leaving disproportionate schmaltz and propaganda.
  10. Trifling time-killer.
  11. Filmmaker Daniel Karslake lobs a grenade into the culture wars with his heartfelt, provocative and unabashedly polemical For the Bible Tells Me So.
  12. Though its forays into the subconscious may strike more adventurous cinematic palettes as precious and unimaginative, few will be able to resist Martin Freeman's appealing lead turn or the wry Brit wit that gives this fanciful confection a robust comic core.
  13. Uproarious romp, grounded in believable if gleefully implausible human behavior, is a model of comic timing.
  14. Features strong performances and a solid story, drawn from the familiar well of faceless corporations grinding ordinary people through their profit-making machinery. Yet Gilroy's fidelity to his script comes at the expense of the pacing.
  15. The popular human-interest story of a child prodigy becomes an engrossing meditation on truth, media exploitation and the value of art in My Kid Could Paint That.
  16. Slick, good-looking, cluttered pic won't please fans of novelist Susan Cooper's original "The Dark Is Rising" sequence. But then, they are mostly grown-ups by now, and this very Hollywood-style adaptation of a very English book is aimed squarely at tweens.
  17. Younger filmmakers should be looking to Hershman Leeson for lessons on how to reinvent old forms while at the same time telling an urgently topical story.
  18. An extraordinary docu achievement. Handsomely filmed on silvery 35mm and high-definition by Kaye himself, the shrewdly edited picture balances a full spectrum of views from all sides of the abortion debate without obviously taking a position itself.
  19. Some fans will find the approach (which avoids Nirvana music and perf footage) too arty and indirect; but others will welcome the specialized theatrical release and the subsequent DVD.
  20. Inventively staged picture should satisfy the upscale, youth and cult auds Anderson has developed, though it's unlikely to draw significantly better than his earlier work.
  21. Little more than a slipshod, trashy, sometimes exploitative thriller.
  22. Bordertown straddles two realms: the worthy and the kitsch. The flimsy conspiracy theories floated here, coupled with pic's trite thriller plotting, risk trivializing the atrocities while it obfuscates their causes.
  23. Septuagenarian director Robert Benton brings his characteristically fine touch with actors and appreciation for the female form to this tastefully erotic ensembler, but compassion finally outstrips insight in a drama as soft-headed as it is soft-hearted.
  24. Wrestler-turned-actor Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is the most valuable player here, revealing impressive comic chops and megawatt charisma even while serving as a human punchline for many of the pic's predictable sight gags.
  25. A realist thriller that mixes crowd-pleasing mayhem with provocative politics.
  26. Too much caution and too little lust squeeze much of the dramatic juice out of Ang Lee's Lust, Caution, a 2½--hour period drama that's a long haul for relatively few returns.
  27. A solid and affecting piece of work.
  28. This unaffected charmer treats a hot-button contempo issue with old-fashioned grace and benevolent wit, rendering it a sure-fire word-of-mouth crowd-pleaser.
  29. Sean Penn delivers a compelling, ambitious work that will satisfy most admirers of the book.
  30. An imperfect but compelling thriller.

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