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. Slingshot
    Supplies no end of shock, but an underdeveloped emotional core keeps the viewer at arm's length.
  2. The Concert
    The story regurgitates the usual trappings of underdog tales, milking stereotypes as well as tear ducts.
  3. The Sicilian Girl
    Even if Matteo Garrone's "Gomorrah" hadn't dramatically raised the bar for mafioso movies, The Sicilian Girl would have repped a mediocre entry in the Cosa Nostra canon and a waste of an extraordinary true story.
  4. Cairo Time
    The fourth feature from Canadian writer-helmer Ruba Nadda ("Sabah") has a slightly breathless, old-fashioned feel, calling to mind the cliched fiction found in the type of ladies' magazine the heroine edits.
  5. Flipped
    A well-intentioned family pic about first love that's overly concerned with period details and life lessons, rather than the genuinely sweet characters at its center.
  6. Paranormal Activity 2
    Picture fares like most horror follow-ups, offering more of the same to somewhat diminished effect.
  7. Machete
    Wildly uneven as it doggedly strives (sometimes with obvious strain) to sustain a free-wheeling, anything-goes air of exuberant junkiness.
  8. I Spit on Your Grave
    Its straight-ahead rape, humiliation and ingenious revenge competently executed but not aestheticized, the essential grunginess never overly slicked up.
  9. Last Letters from Monte Rosa
    This low-budget curio feels remarkably authentic but lacks a core story structure.
  10. The Parking Lot Movie
    Unfortunately, picture's concept doesn't stretch to 74 minutes.
  11. Change of Plans (Le code a changé)
    Two's company, three's a crowd and eight is definitely way more than enough in writer-director Daniele Thompson's mismanaged comic ensembler, Change of Plans. Less a crowdpleaser and more a headscratcher than her previous hit, "Avenue Montaigne."
  12. Daniel and Ana
    The screenplay leaves it to the audience to map the psychological terrain, which will frustrate some but thrill others who prefer oblique storytelling.
  13. Bran Nue Dae
    Offering blandly stereotypical characters in a trite road-trip narrative, it's genial but too silly for most grownups, and likely to impress few "High School Musical"-indoctrinated kids.
  14. You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger
    Fitfully amusing and nearly saved by its distinguished cast.
  15. Nowhere Boy
    A respectable but surprisingly conventional feature-debut effort from Brit artist-turned-helmer Sam Taylor-Wood.
  16. Stone
    Though nearly sabotaged by the ridiculous sexual subplot at its center, this soul-searching drama works best at the character level, couching insights about sin and forgiveness under the guise of conventional genre entertainment.
  17. Conviction
    Although fiercely committed performances by Hilary Swank and Sam Rockwell provide director Tony Goldwyn's film with a core of emotional integrity, a less heavy-handed, more informative approach would have served them and the audience better.
  18. Megamind
    Comes off as a derivative wisecracking machine rather than a feat of sustained imagination.
  19. Burlesque
    An overwrought, underwritten hootchy-kootchy tuner that desperately wants to be "Cabaret," but lacks the edge and historical context to pull it off.
  20. Yogi Bear
    A bland and innocuous small-fry outing that retains a measure of the original Hanna-Barbera cartoon's charm, though scarcely enough to justify the time, expense and visual-effects trickery it must have taken to inflate an endearing 2D cartoon into a dopey 3D extravaganza.
  21. The Virginity Hit
    Those with the stomach for 90 slapdash minutes of nonstop crudity and cruelty will be tickled, while their elders will likely despair at these youngsters' lack of a moral center or ability to hold a camera steady.
  22. Make-Out with Violence
    Directed by the pseudonymous Deagol Brothers, the film invests in spacey horror tropes one moment, plunges into absurdist adolescent angst the next and begs questions every step of the way, but just about holds together with its strong compositional sense, killer atmospheric lighting and wall-to-wall music track.
  23. The Romantics
    While in some ways an improvement on the book, this seriocomedy toplining Katie Holmes remains short on truly involving characters or situations, and is likely to spark unflattering comparisons to such vaguely similar, more distinctive films as "Rachel Getting Married" and "Margot at the Wedding."
  24. Baghdad Texas
    David H. Hickey's Lone Star comedy never really develops, stalling this culture-clash clambake at the merely likable stage.
  25. Barry Munday
    Uneven but modestly diverting.
  26. Fair Game
    Fair Game serves up impeccable politics with a bit too much righteous outrage and not quite enough solid drama.
  27. Morning Glory
    A genially midrange if overlong romantic comedy.
  28. The Next Three Days
    Paul Haggis' middling fourth feature evinces a sometimes pulse-quickening fascination with procedural details, and climaxes with a good dose of swift, suspenseful filmmaking. But what was briskly diverting in the original has been rather laboriously overworked.
  29. Love and Other Drugs
    A jagged little pill that, in the end, goes down too smoothly.
  30. Don't Be Afraid of the Dark
    Rather than trying to frighten adults, this entire R-rated exercise feels engineered to emotionally scar any younger audiences who should happen to see it -- much as the original did del Toro back in the day.
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