Variety's Scores

For 17,786 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:
17786 movie reviews
  1. Thoughtful, incisive, controversial.
  2. Mere recitation of homilies for better living -- which is what Nick Nolte's gas station guru imparts to a struggling young gymnast -- and a half-baked account of the athlete's comeback are no substitutes for a complete movie.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Offers a rarely seen view of the barrio in Havana and demonstrates the importance of dance and music in dealing with pervasive racism and crippling poverty.
  3. A melodramatic step backward for writer-director Victor Nunez after his last two pictures, the first-rate "Ruby in Paradise" and "Ulee's Gold."
  4. The result, though it delivers only in fits and starts, is still sharper and more inventive than most comicbook-adapted fare, and eventually gets the job done as far as action buffs are concerned.
  5. For a guerrilla-style, no-budget Yank indie to even tackle issues of jihad terror and naive Western thinking is noteworthy in itself, but Gamazon and Dela Llana inflame the issues with a gutsy, athletic filmmaking package that shows what can be done with a minimum of tools.
  6. The title alone should alert auds that The Big Buy: Tom DeLay's Stolen Congress is a hatchet job on the controversial politico known as "The Hammer."
  7. Director Hrvoje Hribar gives a lively professional look to this good-humored film.
  8. A straightforward record of the lecture Gore has toured for years, juiced by elaborate graphics. An excellent educational tool, picture may prove an awkward fit for theatrical distribution.
  9. Viewers who like their conclusions tidy may rebel, but those who relish outstanding performances in the service of an intriguing idea will be entertained.
  10. By turns comical and compassionate.
  11. Director Ron Howard and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman have conspired to drain any sense of fun out of the melodrama, leaving expectant audiences with an oppressively talky film that isn't exactly dull but comes as close to it as one could imagine with such provocative material.
  12. Despite a sprinkling of laughs and eye-catching moments, this adaptation of a popular comicstrip reps a middling effort from the house that "Shrek" built, a rather narrowly conceived tale that makes only modest hay from the overworked conflict between wildlife and encroaching humans.
  13. Throats are ripped, heads are crushed and limbs are severed with brutal efficiency throughout See No Evil, but that's not nearly enough to dispel the sense of deja vu that pervades this generic slasher thriller.
  14. The story of a veritable devil who comes to test and destroy a family of faith, The King is a noxious film morally and an aggravating one dramatically.
  15. Spooky, intellectually titillating and darkly funny picture is definitely the kind of film where the less you know going in, the better.
  16. Emerges an uneven, occasionally vivid, ultimately unsatisfactory treatment of themes that should've packed more punch.
  17. Deals in sometimes queasy areas of underage sexuality and emotional extremes; again, deftness and confidence ultimately put across a screenplay (this time by Anthony S. Cipriano) overloaded with sensational incident.
  18. Thanks to its simple construction, Wolfgang Petersen's large-scale liner moves reasonably well, though anyone with the faintest memory of its 1972 predecessor will wonder where most of the plot went.
  19. Helmer Donald Petrie seems at times to be making the modern-day equivalent of a Doris Day comedy, setting the pic in a lacquered fantasy New York, piling on cutesy-coy dialogue and mining a fluffy premise for all manner of far-fetched cleverness.
  20. A slickly mounted slice of can-do nonsense.
  21. Film plays as a quirky Brit riff on everything from U.S. slasher pics to revenge oaters but without Meadows' usual psychological complexity.
  22. Chock-a-block with incisive commentaries both pro and con, pic's sole drawback is its quick finish on that fateful September day without updating Rudy's subsequent rise and fall.
  23. A sure-fire audience-pleaser, Scott (son of Garry) Marshall's winning comedy bow could have been titled "My Big Fat Jewish Bar Mitzvah."
  24. May be naive and narratively simple, but it's prime fare for the always underserved family audience.
  25. Flavorsome performances by a seasoned cast, held in check by Grant's traditional but well-crafted, always cinematic direction.
  26. Lucid and engaging, Sketches of Frank Gehry provides the enormously gratifying opportunity to spend an hour-and-a-half with an artistic giant.
  27. Generates genuine suspense as it follows a group of American actors in the former Soviet Union during a fateful period of the Perestroika era.
  28. Viewers who thought the protags were superficial and annoying first time around will find little to change their minds here, but original pictures fans will probably embrace the now-scattered group's marginally more mature dilemmas centered on work and romance.
  29. For all its far-fetched formulations, this new entry maintains more of a dramatic throughline and has the bonus of a villain played with unsparing meanness by Philip Seymour Hoffman.

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