Variety's Scores

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For 17,840 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: 9,167 out of 17840
  2. Mixed: 7,035 out of 17840
  3. Negative: 1,638 out of 17840
17840 movie reviews
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  1. Varsity Blues
    An unappetizing mix of raucously vulgar comedy and teen-angst melodrama.
  2. Billabong Odyssey
    Narrower focus may lend this less crossover appeal than "Step Into Liquid," which was practically a recruitment poster for the surfing lifestyle. But such a tight focus might also make Billabong a repeat must-see for more dedicated boarders and wannabes.
  3. People We Meet on Vacation
    What keeps things diverting, and sometimes even interesting, is the genuine but necessarily tentative chemistry between its stars, one staging an all-out charm offensive and the other projecting a flintier allure.
  4. Hoodlum
    Director Bill Duke renders the period saga with passion, but lacks the sort of fluid, organic style the material requires; the film falls short of its aim for mythic proportion. Still, there's a vibrancy that's engrossing, if uneven.
  5. Dog Sweat
    Great for ADD-style viewing but not for advancing Iranian cinema's currently challenged profile.
  6. PAW Patrol: The Movie
    Any crass consumerism is eclipsed by disarming, demonstrable themes and meaningful sentiments woven throughout the film’s textured fabric.
  7. True Story
    While never as gripping as a good piece of fiction, Goold’s treatment actually manages to improve on the book, even if that meant fabricating a few things along the way.
  8. I Give It a Year
    If the emotional mathematics don’t quite add up, enough diversion is provided by pic’s broader comic setpieces to paper over the cracks.
  9. Maze Runner: The Death Cure
    Downplaying some of the property’s sillier elements when not jettisoning them entirely, and streamlining the narrative into a rousing and at times even emotional action film, “Death Cure” is the most successful entry in the franchise by far.
  10. Road Hard
    This feature directing debut for Adam Carolla and frequent writing/producing collaborator Kevin Hench is an amiable, nicely assembled semi-autobiographical fiction that will please the former’s fans.
  11. Happy Feet Two
    Though it retains the buoyant musical stylings and splendid visuals that made its predecessor so distinctive, this chatterbox of a sequel loses its way with a raft of annoying side characters for which the slender narrative framework provides far too indulgent a showcase.
  12. Last Christmas
    As much as we go into Last Christmas eager to see a nicely wrapped package of acerbic fun, the film falls short of that. It’s not so much clever, toasty, and affectionate as it is the faux version of those things. It’s twee, it’s precious, it’s forced. And it’s light on true romance, maybe because the movie itself is a little too in love with itself.
  13. The Shadow
    Despite similarities as a vigilante creature of the night, however, the Shadow — a character that enjoyed its greatest success in radio after being created in pulp novels — lacks the visceral appeal of Batman and won’t strike the same chord with moviegoers.
  14. The Water Diviner
    An often capriciously mixed cocktail of war film and cross-cultural family melodrama, The Water Diviner marks an ambitious if emotionally manipulative directing debut for Russell Crowe.
  15. Final Destination 5
    This latest entry in the 11-year-old horror series duly adheres to tradition by providing inventively grisly demises for various characters.
  16. Now You See Me: Now You Don't
    The climax, picking up on the metaphysical sleight-of-hand that powered “Now You See Me 2,” lifts the veil of deception off reality itself. And does it all in good fun. Which is all this movie is or needs to be.
  17. The Marvels
    The director, Nia DaCosta (who made the intriguing remake of “Candyman”), stages the action efficiently, but she doesn’t center the narrative; the film is a series of goals in search of a higher mission.
  18. No Strings Attached
    As it is, No Strings Attached is content to be sweet rather than edgy, to make you go "awww" instead of "hmmm."
  19. In Their Skin
    An unnerving home-invasion thriller, In Their Skin has narrative bones we've certainly seen before, bearing perhaps the closest resemblance to Michael Haneke's two versions of "Funny Games." Nonetheless, the same simple premise achieves full creepy impact here without succumbing to cheap genre thrills or cool arthouse abstraction.
  20. A Bag of Hammers
    First-time feature helmer Brian Crano maneuvers some tricky tonal shifts with impressive ease in A Bag of Hammers, a droll, quirky comedy with a pleasant amount of heart.
  21. Closed Circuit
    [A] slick, smarter-than-usual conspiracy yarn.
  22. A.C.O.D.
    The ensemble’s crack comic timing can only go so far to compensate for uneven scripting.
  23. Finding Mr. Right
    Unwieldy and exasperating, but not without a certain pushy, ingratiating charm.
  24. Paul Verhoeven's Tricked
    Discerning Verhoeven’s hand in it all is difficult, though true to the helmer’s more intimate style, it largely revolves around sex, and has a few fun plot twists.
  25. Sneakerheadz
    The tone throughout Sneakerheadz is mostly light and bright, but the filmmakers don’t stint on anthropological detail, or shy away from the darker aspects of getting kicks by any means necessary.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth
    Well-produced effort is an effective combination of imaginative special effects with the strangeness of author Clive Barker's original conception, on which the characters are based.
  27. God Exists, Her Name Is Petrunija
    God Exists, Her Name is Petrunya positions itself as a feminist cry against a patriarchal Macedonia in the grips of bullying machismo and hidebound religion, yet the genial rushed ending undercuts its gender-equality thrust by presenting Petrunya’s emotional savior as a mustachioed guy in uniform.
  28. Burn
    The problem is that writer-director Mike Gan’s first feature, though competently handled in most departments, doesn’t commit enough to any approach to fulfill its potential.
  29. Bloodline
    Well acted (though Garriga doesn’t quite make a coherent character out of Lauren, or create believable marital chemistry with Scott), this is a smooth movie that maybe should have been a little less tidy for maximum impact.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Power
    Not so much about power as about p.r., this facile treatment of big-time politics and media, featuring Richard Gere as an amoral imagemaker, revolves around the unstartling premise that modern politicians and their campaigns are calculatedly packaged for TV. In spite of relentless jet-propelled location hopping that helps to stave off boredom, Power never gets airborne.
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