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. For most part, The Perfect Man is too bland to merit anything more censorious than a stifled yawn.
  2. Extraordinary perfs by a mostly young cast likely will be cancelled out by the grim subject.
  3. An entertaining ensembler marbled with wit and heartache.
  4. Brings a fresh perspective to age-old human dilemmas.
  5. Direction, performances and lensing blend into an immensely satisfying, if almost uncategorizable, whole in Pawel Pawlikowski's My Summer of Love.
  6. Brutally truthful, funny and touching in nearly equal measure.
  7. Messy admixtures of drama and mockery crucially undermine pic's serious message.
  8. Lacks the stylistic attention to psychological distress that might have lent it maximum impact. Instead, the pic is amiable, kinda charming, visually routine, and incisive in individual sequences.
  9. Ambitious, well made but not exactly rousing.
  10. Despite its merits, is neither an art movie nor an out-and-out, propulsive actioner like "Shiri."
  11. Taken strictly as a docu about a key Buddhist ritual, Wheel of Time is a perfectly pleasant, educational film, featuring pretty pictures, exotic locations and interview footage with the Dalai Lama himself. As a Werner Herzog film, it's flat and disappointing.
  12. An exhaustingly elaborate romantic fantasy actioner.
  13. Just funny enough to mollify purists and amuse the uninitiated.
  14. Deftly juggles gore and suspense, and punchline holds an intellectual frisson or two for fans of gender-role speculation, but basically this is one more horror pic on the distinguished road already trodden by "Texas Chain Saw Massacre," "Maniac" and the like.
  15. There's little chance of grabbing teens (or even many tweens) during summertime playdates. Still, small fry will be enchanted by this rambunctious action-adventure.
  16. The tireless volley of ideas and inventions make this a delight that should connect with kids and adults in both dubbed and original-language versions.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Sex frequently disguises itself as friendship and love in Wild Side, a morbid and self-important homosexual "Jules & Jim" for the new millennium.
  17. The stellar cast can do little to paper over the cracks in an awkward, unevenly-paced script that is composed of a series of sometimes-attractive scenes with little emotional undertow.
  18. 5x2
    Excellent perfs and writer-director Francois Ozon's sure, unfussy way with the camera add up to a viewing experience whose richness depends in large part on how much the viewer reads into the human templates on display.
  19. Endearing nature of the personalities involved makes a fine argument for weighing parental suitability on terms more profound than the prospective parents sexual orientation.
  20. Hou fans will find what they're looking for; others will wonder when the action starts.
  21. Respectable piece of work is reasonably involving if not compelling.
  22. An alarming if ultimately inspiring David-and-Goliath parable for today.
  23. Lofty ambitions and unaffected sincerity are not quite enough to sustain The Keeper: The Legend of Omar Khayyam, a reverentially pokey drama that plays less like a conventional movie than a lengthy series of hagiographic historical tableaux.
  24. An exquisite ode to a working-class hero, Cinderella Man takes the almost impossibly perfect elements of the saga of underdog boxer James J. Braddock and fills it with emotional gravitas, wrenching danger and a panoramic sense of American life during the Great Depression.
  25. It's a wipeout once the pic skids into melodrama and an overly schematic sense of how success tore the group apart.
  26. Irresistibly entertaining and full of unique character portraits.
  27. Elegantly written, well-thesped comedy is too hermetic and bittersweet to be laugh-out-loud funny, but sustains a fairly successful ratio of uncomfortable situations to amusing solutions.
  28. Jaw-dropping, sumptuous visuals, a lush George Fenton score, state-of-the-art technology and some of the oddest creatures ever seen without recourse to artificial stimulants.
  29. It's a fantastic-looking picture in search of a decent script.

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