Variety's Scores

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:
17847 movie reviews
  1. A watchable but super-silly mix of superheroics and evil-child horror that mashes together singularly uninspired ideas from both.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Teens and genre fans should eat up John Landis' latest mix of horror and camp comedy. They will 'ooh' at the various gross-out scenes and nifty special effects, 'aah' at the film's sensuality and Anne Parillaud's easy nudity, and savor the numerous in-jokes and horror references, from cameos by other goremeister directors to clips from various late-show staples.
  2. Picture veers unsteadily between melodrama and light comedy, with no confidence in either.
  3. Despite the preposterous, kissing-your-sister premise of A Good Old-Fashioned Orgy, a very likable cast and some terrific sketch-style comedy should please (if not deeply satisfy the lustful yearnings of) audiences lured by the film's title.
  4. Churchill is a small, watchable, rather prosaic backroom docudrama.
  5. As a self-aware guilty pleasure, The Belko Experiment may not quite seize greatness, but it does give it a playful squeeze.
  6. Pain Hustlers takes an off-putting mock-documentary approach to this tragedy, focusing on a handful of sleazebag salespeople who bent the rules to incentivize doctors to prescribe Lonafin (the film’s fictional Subsys substitute) first for treating cancer pain, and later for conditions as mild as migraines.
  7. What sends this initially tense thriller over the precipice is a plot scheme that never knows when enough is enough.
  8. While Second Best is mildly engaging thanks largely to an appealingly self-effacing turn from Joe Pantoliano, writer-director Eric Weber's script could have used an extra polish or two.
  9. As a showcase for rising young star Michael Angarano and Christopher Plummer, pic offers the pleasures of connecting Hollywood traditions and generations in the spirit of Peter Bogdanovich's films about and inspired by the movies.
  10. Moves along at a clip and provides a terrific action lead for Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson.
  11. Attention is retained by the commendably unhistrionic leads, who convincingly etch the pair’s enduring devotion even when passions run dry.
  12. The term “crowd-pleasing” is frequently overused, but it applies to this — the latest in a line of so-so baseball movies, which serves up its corn so unabashedly it’s hard to take offense at its sappiness.
  13. A ghastly concoction of razzle-dazzle circus maximalism, poorly CG’d supernatural whimsy and sentimentality so cloyingly sweet you can feel it in your fillings, “Freaks Out” is, however, almost admirably unaware that its over-egged, unironically “Springtime for Hitler” production design, and its lazy invocation of the Holocaust as a narrative shortcut to high emotional stakes, might be in questionable taste. Instead, this is a sincere, if deeply misguided attempt to fabricate weepy wonderment amid the ruination of World War II.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Foolishness in the right hands can be sublimely funny, and combo of star John Candy and director Paul Flaherty (former SCTV cohorts) puts the perfect spin on Who’s Harry Crumb?, a Naked Gun-style farce about a bumbling private eye who succeeds in spite of himself.
  14. This mangy, dimwitted gender switch on "The Last Detail" won't even have the benefit of trial before being sentenced to the video brig, since it's virtually there already.
  15. The film oscillates, rather awkwardly, between grandiose cartoon heroics and a kind of dutiful flatness.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Hal Ashby's Lookin' to Get Out is an ill-conceived vehicle for actor (and co-writer) Jon Voight to showcase his character comedy talents in a loose, semi-improvised environment.
  16. A cringingly syrupy tale of overdue bonding between an estranged father and his only offspring.
  17. Brit sitcom The Inbetweeners, which tracked the travails of four male misfits in their last years at high school, makes a satisfying leap to the bigscreen in summer holiday adventure The Inbetweeners Movie.
  18. Marshall has tried to do too much, dealing with certain subplots too sparingly to deliver on their promise.
  19. Foe
    Foe wants to end with a big “Whoa.” Instead, it leaves us going “Huh, interesting” and “Whuuut?” at the same time.
  20. A really small movie done up in a big, moody package, Saawariya entices, fitfully springs to life but finally outstays its welcome by a good half-hour.
  21. Serves up a bland recycling of cliches and archetypes from just about every youth-skewing, dance-centric picture to hit the megaplexes since "Flashdance."
  22. While there’s no great originality on display here, Beijing Love Story handles its full range of stylistic and tonal gambits with impressive assurance. A strong performance or a well-placed sober moment always brings things back to terra firma whenever they turn a bit over-the-top.
  23. Don’t Swallow My Heart, Alligator Girl! aims for poetry yet, like its ridiculously clumsy title, manages only an odd mix of magical realism with over-heated Lynchian touches.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Director Tom Gries and the entire cast perform as though they all had better things to do.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Culturally rich story is aided throughout by the pic’s all-Israel shoot, nicely highlighting the different worlds these two lovers come from.
  24. Cena makes it impossible to imagine another person in the part. He’s game to go big, which fits Rod’s frustrated-actor persona, while also having the capacity to play vulnerable and sincere.
  25. The circumstances may be contrived, but the characters feel refreshingly genuine.

Top Trailers