Variety's Scores

For 17,833 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:
17833 movie reviews
  1. Nowhere to be found is any dramatic surprise, heightening of the pulse or genuine pulling of heartstrings. Gary Winick's direction consists of button pushing, and the mechanics are palpable at every step.
  2. The wild, unhinged life of Andy Warhol's favorite "superstar," Edie Sedgwick, is refashioned in Factory Girl as a tame biopic with little feel for the 1960s New York Underground.
  3. Helmer Douglas Mackinnon does what he can to make the most of emotional bullet points and gloss over the lack of connective tissue.
  4. It's not exactly good, but it's not bad, and far from boring.
  5. The dancing is more dynamic than the plotting in Stomp the Yard, an energetic if formulaic underdog tale about warring black fraternities specializing in an intensely competitive style of step dancing.
  6. Fun, if finally too silly.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    A so-so romantic dramedy.
  7. Aside from spasms of brutal violence, however, there's nothing rousing or new here.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    While never credible, story does point up the standard melodramatics and good playing to keep it all interesting. (Review of Original Release)
  8. Though the Pangs prove culturally adaptive on a visual level, they seem completely clueless as to the tonal modalities of Mark Wheaton's admittedly undercooked, all-American script.
  9. Undeniably topical but the lack of emotional investment in its characters renders it more intelligent than engaging.
  10. Modestly amusing in fits and starts, Fired! proves most potent when on-screen interviewees are playing for keeps, not for laughs.
  11. This upmarket slasher is a well-produced but slow-moving thriller that never quite roars to life.
  12. Michael Landon Jr.'s respectfully sincere but only fitfully involving film.
  13. Not content with a straight psychological police procedural, Alvart mixes in distracting -- and unconvincing --Biblical symbolism in a curious bid for weightiness.
  14. Scripter/helmer Sue Kramer's awkward freshman outing eventually coasts on the genuine charm of its leads. A strong vehicle for Heather Graham, who has never looked lovelier, "Gray" scores most convincingly in its reinvention of Carole Lombardian sexual screwiness as head-spinning gender confusion.
  15. Striking and self-indulgent in equal measure, Cam Archer's first feature, Wild Tigers I Have Known, is an impressive declaration of talent that nonetheless gets a little drunk and disorderly at the trough of High Art. Arresting visual and sonic textures frequently overwhelm sketchy narrative, leaving surface provocation too seldom ballasted by deeper psychological truths or emotional impact.
  16. 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.
  17. Mix Brigitte Bardot in "And God Created Woman" with Carroll Baker in "Baby Doll," sex it up times 10 and you have a notion of the effect of Christina Ricci in Black Snake Moan.
  18. Even with ties to the true story of high school hoops coach Jim Keith and his unlikely triumph with a 1960s Oklahoma high school girls' squad, the hackneyed, overlong Believe in Me is much too similar to a recent flood of inspirational basketball pics to distinguish it.
  19. The main drawback is that under director Rock, actor Rock doesn't possess quite the chops to pull off this character, and the humor and flights of fancy are simply too low-key.
  20. 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.
  21. 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.
  22. Engages but underwhelms.
  23. It's actually considerably better -- and far more intriguing -- than most entry-level horror pics, marrying a retro B-movie setup with the ghostly obsessions of recent Asian extreme cinema.
  24. Paul Osborne's script delivers an intriguing structure, though dialogue tastes like something warmed over after 12 years in Quentin Tarantino's freezer.
  25. 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.
  26. Results are breezy though toothless, with too much repetition and not enough originality.
  27. "Thing" suffers the familiar curse of Canadian seriocomedy -- just nice enough in content and stylistically like a telepic.
  28. At the risk of spoiling anything, Vacancy, is one strange movie. It ends so precipitously, one can only assume it's a setup for the sequel (which, given all that happens, seems a mite unlikely).

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