Variety's Scores

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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:
  1. Positive: 9,165 out of 17833
  2. Mixed: 7,031 out of 17833
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17833
17833 movie reviews
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  1. Cloverfield
    Despite its indie-flavored shooting style, first-rate visual effects, reasonable intensity factor, nihilistic attitude and post-9/11 anxiety overlay, this punchy sci-fier is, in the end, not much different from all the marauding creature features that have come before it.
  2. The Eye
    This slick effort is effectively creepsome until it bogs down somewhat in plot explication.
  3. Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert
    Movie picks up momentum midway through, when Cyrus is joined by the three Jonas Brothers, who know exactly how to play the crowd and the cameras. As 3-D goes, watching them criss-cross in space proves more engaging than observing one strutting performer.
  4. Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days & 30 Nights - Hollywood to the Heartland
    Ungainly titled, overlong, intermittently funny.
  5. Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins
    An in-your-face double helping of fat jokes, crude slapstick, wacky Southern-black stereotypes and occasionally inspired improv.
  6. Jumper
    Director Doug Liman churns out a serviceable sci-fi thriller/videogame template that plays like "The Matrix Lite" and, finally, isn't nearly as cool as its trailer.
  7. London to Brighton
    Does what it does well but too often seems a pointless exercise in British miserabilism crossed with a nasty gangster yarn.
  8. Bonneville
    A bland road movie running on empty. It's depressing to see a deluxe cast wasted on such by-the-numbers material -- from predictable plot to fabricated Hallmark sentiment to strenuous milking of warm-and-fuzzy laughs from the irrepressible spirit of three women whose youth is behind them.
  9. Penelope
    The whimsical ugly-duckling fable becomes more uneven as it proceeds, straining too hard to manufacture its quirky charms.
  10. College Road Trip
    This overplayed, underachieving laffer feels thoroughly manufactured to Disney specifications.
  11. Blind Mountain
    Low on drama and originality, and high on deja vu, sophomore outing by writer-director Li Yang ("Blind Shaft," 2003).
  12. Sleepwalking
    The overly simplistic script by Zac Stanford (“The Chumscrubber”) hits nothing but high notes, making the whole dramatically less than the sum of its parts.
  13. Drillbit Taylor
    A junior-league "Superbad" with an aftertaste of "The Pacifier," Drillbit Taylor is a just passable pubescent comedy with a modest laugh count by Apatow factory standards.
  14. Under the Same Moon (La misma luna)
    Wrapping the political hot potato of illegal immigration in the sentimental balm of a mother-son reunion drama, this stirring tale will be embraced most enthusiastically by Mexican audiences on both sides of the border.
  15. Stop-Loss
    A wildly uneven drama, by turns sincere and synthetic.
  16. Superhero Movie
    Given the abysmal quality of recent spoof pics, it's saying something that Superhero Movie provides a fairly steady stream of midsized laughs -- and even the 40% or so of gags that just lie there aren't actively painful.
  17. Leatherheads
    Arch and funny in equal measure, this looks like a theatrical non-starter that Clooney fans and football devotees might be tempted to check out down the line on DVD or on the tube.
  18. My Blueberry Nights
    As much a trifle as its title suggests, My Blueberry Nights sees Hong Kong stylist Wong Kar Wai applying his characteristic visual and thematic doodles to a wispy story of lovelorn Yanks.
  19. Dark Matter
    Never fully succeeds in burrowing under its protagonist's skin, despite conspicuous effort.
  20. The Forbidden Kingdom
    On its own terms, it's a handsome albeit unexceptional juvenile adventure shot on some magnificent Chinese locations.
  21. Kiss the Bride
    Formulaic gay comedy delivers its share of grins on the way to an (arguably) unexpected ending.
  22. Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?
    Morgan Spurlock, of the "Super Size Me" phenom, serves up a rehash of others' 9/11 reportage, bin Laden biography, Islamic theology and suicide-bomber psychology, in a tone so aghast you'd assume he knew nothing about the War on Terror -- which should make pic very appealing for those who know nothing about the War on Terror.
  23. Zombie Strippers!
    The kind of entertainment perhaps better suited to drinking games than full viewer attention.
  24. Bra Boys
    Opening with a bright history lesson about poor suburb Maroubra and its place in Sydney beach culture, the docu then fails to adequately answer any charges as members and sympathetic locals line up to praise the outfit for rescuing troubled youth.
  25. Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
    While roving interviewer Ben Stein extracts some choice soundbites from scientists on both sides of the creation-vs.-evolution debate, the film's flippant approach undermines the seriousness of its discourse, trading less in facts than in emotional appeals.
  26. Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts
    Another superficial film about music from Scott Hicks ("Shine"), picture runs a distant second to the superior new film on John Adams and Peter Sellars, "Wonders Are Many," which really captures how a composer works.
  27. Standard Operating Procedure
    Adds relatively little insight to the public understanding of wayward military behavior more incisively analyzed in "Taxi to the Dark Side."
  28. Fugitive Pieces
    The cool hand of Canadian writer-director Jeremy Podeswa proves a disappointing match for Fugitive Pieces, a generally dull and unmemorable adaptation of Anne Michaels' extraordinary prose-poetry novel.
  29. The Babysitters
    It ultimately fails to deliver on the audacity of its premise. Neither truly original nor a guilty-pleasure genre spin, the picture lacks a hook for general audiences who may find the subject matter distasteful as presented.
  30. The Fall
    This convoluted, arbitrary, overlong whimsy will strike most grown-ups as childish, and is far too violent and pretentious for kids.
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