Variety's Scores

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For 17,832 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: 9,164 out of 17832
  2. Mixed: 7,031 out of 17832
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17832
17832 movie reviews
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  1. Flight of the Phoenix
    Shows both how far Hollywood's tech departments have advanced in 40 years and how shallow the pool of solid action thesps has become.
  2. Kung Pow: Enter the Fist
    Consistently silly and intermittently laugh-out-loud funny spoof.
  3. The Life of David Gale
    Punches the expected buttons without being entirely convincing.
  4. National Treasure
    Tries to combine the suspense of old Saturday morning serials with the gusto of producer Jerry Bruckheimer's action pics. Falling short on both counts, this long, and long-winded, series of middling cliffhangers won't pump the adrenaline of action aficionados or -- the family crowd.
  5. The Polar Express
    This visually impressive yet emotional frigid fable could perhaps more accurately be tagged "The Bipolar Express."
    • 33 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Raise Your Voice
    Duff makes an engaging heroine, but her immaculately coifed blonde locks and undiminished lip gloss remind viewers just how much of a star vehicle this actually is.
  7. Remember the Titans
    Earnest and well-intentioned.
  8. Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War
    Kang remains a superb technician, but somewhere the movie forgot to pack any genuine emotion along with its ordnance and K rations.
  9. Benji: Off the Leash!
    A mildly pleasant, aggressively retro kidpic that should please undemanding moppets without unduly boring their parents.
  10. Wicker Park
    All of this was more enjoyable when Bellucci, Cassel and Bohringer were the stars. Hartnett is overly methodical here as Matthew, and Kruger, as in "Troy," is beautiful but lacking in dramatic intensity.
  11. Wimbledon
    A fanciful tennis-themed romance that compounds the old dilemma of "Will he get the girl?" with "Will he get the trophy?" But the answers are too predictable and laughs too scattered for this middling Universal release to generate much in the way of humor or suspense.
  12. Without a Paddle
    An unstable -- if mostly painless -- mix of low comedy, stabs at higher silliness, and schmaltz.
  13. I, Robot
    A humans vs. robots saga that feels machine-made, I, Robot looks to have been assembled from the spare parts of dozens of previous sci-fi pictures.
  14. Peter Pan
    Handsome, respectable and well cast, elaborate production lacks the excitement and magic that would elevate the film to beloved status, and sheer abundance of CGI work weighs on it too heavily.
  15. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
    The effect is often soporific.
  16. Meet the Fockers
    Te laughs "Fockers" generates are the type you feel embarrassed about almost immediately afterward.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    High School High
    Like a student who studies hard but just doesn't have the smarts, this joyless send-up of the "Dangerous Minds," "Stand and Deliver," idealistic-teacher-in-a-ghetto-school genre plods along earnestly with barely passing grades.
  18. Beautiful Girls
    A great title in search of a movie to live up to it, this startlingly uneventful compendium of thick-headed boy-talk and female tolerance squanders a fine cast on incredibly ordinary characters and situations.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey
    These guileless airheads with the outrageous vocabulary are obviously a beloved creation, and filmmakers might have gotten more mileage if they'd rooted their adventure a bit more in reality.
  20. Dante's Peak
    Physicality of the second half, then, will keep the audience going, but it is not quite sufficient to camouflage the elemental silliness of storyline.
  21. Event Horizon
    Despite game efforts from a first-rate cast and acres of impressive production values, Event Horizon remains a muddled and curiously uninvolving sci-fi horror show.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Excess Baggage
    Director Marco Brambilla does a serviceable job, without adding much distinction to the piece, and the script --- credited to Max D. Adams, Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais --- seems patched together, consisting of a series of scenes lacking a strong narrative hook.
  23. A Life Less Ordinary
    Part kooky romance, part screwball comedy, part quirky fantasy and part Roadrunner cartoon, this is a movie that has everything except an involving storyline and characters.
  24. Mad City
    In actuality, however, what unfolds onscreen is a simplistic and obvious expose about the manipulative power of the news media that by now is so familiar that its cynical perspective is not likely to upset or provoke anyone.
  25. Prefontaine
    This first dramatic feature by "Hoop Dreams" director Steve James has one foot still squarely planted in the docu aesthetic and notably lacks any psychological interest or emotional depth.
  26. Speed 2: Cruise Control
    Lacking the manipulative structure of "Speed," which shrewdly interspersed rousing set pieces throughout the story, Speed 2 is vastly uneven, trying in its second hour to recoup energy and compensate the audience for all the exposition of the initial reels.
  27. The Substance of Fire
    But what presumably was powerful in Jon Robin Baitz's play has been diluted in opening it up for the screen.
  28. Die Hard: With a Vengeance
    An overinflated mishmash that compels the audience to sift through a lot of rubble for the few requisite thrills, this second "Die Hard" sequel leaves a lot of creative wreckage in its wake.
  29. Jumanji
    The screenplay, however, denies the film a solid foundation. Jumanji is diverting in a splashy , eye-catching manner, but is about as substantive and durable as filigree.
  30. Eraser
    Compared with high-powered action specialists like James Cameron, director Charles Russell seems content to accomplish just one thing per shot, getting the essentials on the screen but creating no special dynamic or look.
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