Variety's Scores

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For 17,847 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: 9,172 out of 17847
  2. Mixed: 7,036 out of 17847
  3. Negative: 1,639 out of 17847
17847 movie reviews
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  1. The Da Vinci Code
    Director Ron Howard and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman have conspired to drain any sense of fun out of the melodrama, leaving expectant audiences with an oppressively talky film that isn't exactly dull but comes as close to it as one could imagine with such provocative material.
  2. Earwig and the Witch
    Something’s clearly missing, and the most obvious answer is magic, both on-screen and in the project’s conception.
  3. The Basketball Diaries
    The Basketball Diaries is a weak-tea rendition of Jim Carroll's much-admired cult tome about his teenage drug addiction. Leonardo DiCaprio's committed lead performance deserves a better context than this gloss on the source material.
  4. Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins
    An in-your-face double helping of fat jokes, crude slapstick, wacky Southern-black stereotypes and occasionally inspired improv.
  5. Mortal Kombat II
    Mortal Kombat II, a sequel to the 2021 Mortal Kombat reboot, is still an old-school video-game trash extravaganza: all sound and fury and flying bodies and jargony world-building, propped up by a sludgy excuse for a story.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Solitude
    Despite good thesping, particularly from Belton, it's hard to imagine why anyone would want to spend time with this trio.
  7. Her Majesty
    Despite its faltering touch with the story's darker, more melodramatic threads, Her Majesty nonetheless proves winning overall thanks to a predominant emphasis on nostalgia, whimsy (heroine's royal audience fantasies include one full-on production number) and droll-to-broad humor.
  8. Nightmare Man
    Perfs are either absurdly stiff or over-the-top, and effects and makeup look like they were made in someone's garage.
  9. Bonneville
    A bland road movie running on empty. It's depressing to see a deluxe cast wasted on such by-the-numbers material -- from predictable plot to fabricated Hallmark sentiment to strenuous milking of warm-and-fuzzy laughs from the irrepressible spirit of three women whose youth is behind them.
  10. The Elephant King
    The film may be too mainstream for arthouses, and too arty for the mall.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Simian Line
    Though picture is at times undermined by a lack of unifying perspective, its glimmers of greatness are a testament to the talent involved.
  12. Hollywood Ending
    For those always on the lookout for the "funny" Allen, this one definitely has its moments, but too much of the picture is flat, dispiriting and frankly unbelievable in fundamental ways that defy the granting of poetic license.
  13. Anatomy 2
    A no-holds-barred, thoroughly generic follow-up to the medical horror-chiller that wowed German wickets in 2000.
  14. Bruce Almighty
    There's remarkably little done with a premise snatched from high-concept heaven, adding yet another file to the growing cabinet of under-realized comedies.
  15. Conspiracy of Silence
    Deery lays out a story devoid of subtlety, in which characters are too easily pigeonholed and issues exist only in absolutes.
  16. Saw
    A crude concoction sewn together from the severed parts of prior horror/serial killer pics.
  17. How the Grinch Stole Christmas
    Shrill, strenuous and entirely without charm, Ron Howard's attempt at a Christmas classic is an elaborately wrapped empty box that will fool many people into buying it but will not greatly please its recipients.
  18. Rhinoceros Eyes
    Not sufficiently compelling.
  19. Story of the Eye
    Evaluating this project in conventional feature terms is a lost cause; relevant contexts are purely avant-garde and pornographic. Suffice it to say that helmer's careful attention to framing camera, music and content signal primary allegiance to Art rather than Smut.
  20. 10 on Ten
    A self-contained master class on cinema.
  21. 95 Miles to Go
    An engaging crazy-quit of comedy.
  22. The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai
    If outrageous concepts were all, this latest fillip in the oft-eccentric history of Japanese "pink" (softcore sexploitation) cinema would be genius. But the crazy ideas in Takao Nakano's script just fitfully amuse under Mitsuru Meike's draggy direction.
  23. CJ7
    "E.T."-inspired comic fantasy about a poor boy adopting a cute alien catches the eye but not fully the heart with its undernourished father-son dynamics, critter hijinks and smattering of social commentary.
  24. Love Hurts
    An ungainly, at times cringe-worthy succession of tame, telegraphed romantic mishaps, well-intentioned if unconvincing sentimentality, and some of the least authentic teenage dialogue this side of the "Friday the 13th" franchise.
  25. A Journey in My Mother's Footsteps
    Part personal quest, part testimonial and part fund-raiser, A Journey in My Mother's Footsteps fulfills disparate agendas for helmer Dina Rosenmeier, a mildly resentful daughter wondering why her humanitarian mother prioritized orphaned Indian children over her own offspring.
  26. Matru ki Bijlee ka Mandola
    Agreeably amusing but unduly extended, Matru ki Bijlee ka Mandola suggests what might have resulted had Rodgers and Hammerstein lived long enough to attempt a Broadway musical about the Occupy Wall Street movement.
  27. Xingu
    A stirring, broad-strokes account of the founding of Brazil’s Xingu National Park... Boasting breathtaking cinematography, remote, rarely seen locations and charismatic thesping.
  28. Horns
    This overly devout adaptation of Joe Hill’s sacrilegious text benefits from the helmer’s twisted sensibility, but suffers from a case of overall silliness.
  29. Two Shots Fired
    The most remarkable aspect of Two Shots Fired is that, despite the distancing effect of the artificial performances and simplified, almost basic visuals, viewers manage to find enough diversion and attachment to care.
  30. The Free World
    [A] well-meaning, well-acted but otherwise clumsily executed parable about second chances.
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