Variety's Scores

For 17,779 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:
17779 movie reviews
  1. This underground scene makes other "extreme sports" look as harmless as tiddlywinks.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Good action caper.
  2. Marvelously involving family saga.
    • 29 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Film explores the abuses rampant in woman's prisons and the powerlessness of the inmates, while telling the uplifting story of one inmate, Frances (LisaRae).
  3. A nicely contempo mood, engaging characters energized by solid perfs from a good-looking, high-profile young cast, and genuinely witty scripting are let down only by over-length and some generally turgid tunes.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Substantially better than its predecessor, even while staying strictly within the genre's well-defined boundaries.
  4. A delightfully unpredictable sleeper that proves new Argentine cinema really exists, Suddenly, by 26-year-old Diego Lerman, starts scary, moves through deadpan comic and comes out with a whimsical tenderness for its characters.
  5. Director David Zucker, a master of whacked-out visual comedy during his “Airplane!” era, drops the ball here.
  6. It's too arty to cut it as a violent action pic and too gore-spattered to appeal to the arthouse crowd.
  7. At times plays as if it were aimed at children, but more often simply seems to be aiming blind at whatever genre cliche the five credited writers fix upon in any given scene.
  8. The trio is so individually and collectively charismatic that the film eventually neglects fully fleshed-out narrative in favor of sublime characterization.
  9. It's a pungent study of fads, trends and the way everything once genuine ends up being homogenized and exploited beyond recognition by corporate America -- a fine companion piece to Stacy Peralta's "Dogtown and Z-Boys," but with a more raw, punkish aesthetic.
  10. Though shot from the Palestinian P.O.V., the Dutch/Palestinian Film Foundation co-production is remarkably balanced, offering a convinced message of hope for the future.
    • 97 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Film is done in the grand manner of silent-day spectacles with sweep and breadth of action, swordplay and hand-to-hand battles between Norman and Saxon barons.
  11. An utterly fascinating, beautifully crafted exploration of the world of drag kings -- women who dress, perform and/or live as men.
  12. Although Erica Beeney's script beat out more than 7,000 entries, the screen version dulls her potentially distinctive voice with deadly doses of sentimentality.
  13. Plays like an overextended variety-show sketch.
  14. An acid portrait of contemporary Austria (and by extension, the whole middle class) as unspeakably dull, violent and stupid. The film itself, miraculously, is just the opposite: vibrantly inventive, aesthetically rigorous, sardonic and occasionally quite brilliant.
  15. Deliberately unvarnished shock piece designed to give pause to anyone with a daughter approaching teenhood.
  16. Rambles into unexpected places, some more interesting than others, but it stays on track long enough to take auds somewhere special.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Light, occasionally charming and reasonably well-crafted.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    A lovely, albeit imperfect fable marked by strong performances and infused with glorious bursts of soulful fado folk music.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Love, hate and violence, with little sympathy for the characters, is stirred up during the overlong film.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The basic formula of iconic supernatural beings slaughtering plucky teenagers continues with even more graphic violence.
  17. Sad, tender, wise and beautiful film... It's a profound tribute to lives lived on the fringes of society -- to the introspective loners who are the most observant chroniclers of our times.
  18. An intensely scenic, refreshingly humanistic oater that dares to be sincere and open-hearted.
  19. A textbook example of the charm-free ephemera dumped by studios during the waning days of summer.
  20. The evolving drama of the amateur, crisis-strewn production creates its own tensions, internal structure and time frame. Pic constantly surprises.
  21. This supposed comedy of manners about Americans in Paris feels artificial at every turn, its characters so devoid of backstory and nuance their behavior often makes little sense.
  22. A martial arts fantasy in modern dress, but set in an unidentified country and era, The Princess Blade is a tough toasted sandwich with a soft filling.

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