Variety's Scores

For 17,791 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:
17791 movie reviews
  1. Very striking stylistic control is exerted in this absorbing if overlong tale of angst-ridden high school competitors.
  2. Results are breezy though toothless, with too much repetition and not enough originality.
  3. "Thing" suffers the familiar curse of Canadian seriocomedy -- just nice enough in content and stylistically like a telepic.
  4. Thoughtful, surprisingly fast-moving documentary.
  5. With plenty of cheap shocks but little real suspense, Hoboken Hollow is nothing more than an uninspired cavalcade of carnage, much of it shamelessly gratuitous.
  6. Using a simple storytelling style that grows stronger with each passing scene, Dry Season draws the viewer into its small two-character drama set in post-war Chad, while it offers a deep reflection on injustice and frustrated revenge.
  7. Revisiting the book of Exodus in a feverish Southern-gothic context, this lurid, often ludicrously entertaining slab of Biblesploitation builds an earnest case for spirituality in a skeptical age.
  8. Supposedly based on "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House," but has about as much to do with that frothy Cary Grant confection as a Yugo has to do with a 1948 Buick Roadster.
  9. Leaving no heartstrings untugged and no doggie-fart jokes uncracked, scruffy pic reps a very mixed breed of obvious humor, gently moving father-son drama and sub-"Backdraft" trial by fire.
  10. Moves like an express train across almost 2½ hours without any sense of rush and with strong, empathetic characters etched en route.
  11. This Will Speck-Josh Gordon-directed farce is the triple axel of comedy.
  12. A stealthy neo-noir drama that isn't afraid to take its time developing characters on the way to the payoff of a neatly designed caper scenario.
  13. A sharp-minded, plenty entertaining toon that will keep children of all ages wide-eyed and on their toes.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Thanks to a tight script, sharp direction and excellent actors, new film by Danish helmer Susanne Bier manages to be both emotional and engaging.
  14. Already gasping for breath in its opening scenes, picture takes two bleak, unyielding hours to finally expire.
  15. It's a bad heterosexual date movie (more a date-gone-wrong), has too limited a gay angle for that demographic, and is about characters who are not particularly likable as individuals or as a couple.
  16. Paul Osborne's script delivers an intriguing structure, though dialogue tastes like something warmed over after 12 years in Quentin Tarantino's freezer.
  17. Criminally short on laughs as it tries to wring humor from dull activity by dim bulbs.
  18. Does a superb job of condensing an overwhelming mass of documentation, archival imagery and artistic representation into a concise yet passionate history lesson whose relevance could not be timelier.
  19. The modest splash made by Andreas Dresen's Dogme-styled 2002 drama "Grill Point" raised expectations his projects since haven't quite met, including the new Summer in Berlin.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    This version of Georges Bizet's frequently reinterpreted "Carmen" is spoken and sung in the click-punctuated African lingo of Xhosa and adapted to fit yarn's shift south, with a semi-cinema verite style cleverly disguising the artifice of the work's legit origins.
  20. An immediately involving yarn of an ace Marine sharpshooter set up to take the fall for an attempted presidential assassination, picture saddles itself with stereotypical villains, hokey contrivances and too-expedient crisis solutions.
  21. The politics of "Hills 2" won't enlist any new converts to the horror ranks, but existing fans will be drawn to the combination of visceral tension, violent payoff and the patented Craven gift for innovative gore.
  22. Kids will like Mimzy if for no other reason than it doesn't talk down to them.
  23. Despite a second half that feels more routine than its first, Pride is a definite crowd-pleaser.
  24. Sandler (never making a false step while maneuvering though vertiginous mood swings) and Cheadle (deftly commingling instinctive decency with quiet desperation) are individually excellent, and bring out the best in each other. And the picture itself transcends its real but relatively minor flaws to score a satisfyingly potent impact.
  25. Munroe's script denies fans the satisfaction of a decent story or amusing interactions. Rather than waiting for a screenplay that warranted their bigscreen return, TMNT feels like an attempt to exploit the phenomenon further.
  26. With equal measures of showmanship, patriotism and irony, hundreds vie at NYC's Pussycat Lounge for the East Coast Division of the first-ever nationwide air guitar championship for the right to eventually represent the U.S. at the world championship.
  27. A strong cast, formal visual style and cynical voiceover that propels the action help elevate this Seattle-set gay romp from the ranks of the stereotypical.
  28. A sly, enormously entertaining romp based on the antics of real-life Brit conman Alan Conway who rooked his way around '90s London posing as Stanley Kubrick.

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