Variety's Scores

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For 17,828 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: 9,160 out of 17828
  2. Mixed: 7,031 out of 17828
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17828
17828 movie reviews
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  1. Swing Kids
    A brash, busy and often bizarre genre mashup from South Korean blockbuster merchant Kang Hyeong-Cheol, this far-fetched tale of an African-American G.I. finding terpsichorean kinship with a group of Asian misfits in a POW camp brings a bit of “Footloose”-style pep to an otherwise bloodily solemn anti-war tragedy.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Hard Times
    The production has a very handsome mid-1930s New Orleans period flavour but the cast can’t lick the script.
  3. The Amityville Murders
    The gap between good intentions and effective follow-through is maybe the distinguishing characteristic of this latest “Amityville” movie, which takes itself with admirable seriousness, yet in the end can’t itself be taken very seriously.
  4. Totally F***ed Up
    This ultra-low-budget, Godardian "homo movie" feels like a step backward to his earlier group mopes rather than an advance beyond his provocative last film, The Living End.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Rolling Thunder
    Excellent cast performs well, but not well enough and Paul Schrader's story is strong, but not strong enough. In sum, it neither rolls nor thunders.
    • 30 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Bride
    While there is deliberate humor at times, most of it successfully produced by a lilting dwarf character who steals the movie (David Rappaport), the intention of the filmmakers is not camp. That’s both the pic’s virtue and, at the conclusion, its downfall.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Midway
    The June 1942 sea-air battle off Midway Island was a turning point in World War II. However, the melee of combat was the usual hysterical jumble of noise, explosion and violent death. Midway tries to combine both aspects but succumbs to the confusion.
  8. Dragon Ball Super: Broly
    If you’re among the heretofore uninitiated drawn to this new Dragon Ball extravaganza, which has been dubbed into English and booked into 1,440 North American theaters, you may often find yourself experiencing similar frustration as you struggle to make sense of a patchwork plot that seems derived from various strands of the ongoing mythos, and is filled with apparently major characters whose backstories are only fuzzily defined.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Honkytonk Man
    Honkytonk Man is one of those well-intentioned efforts that doesn't quite work. It seems that Clint Eastwood took great pains in telling this story of an aging, struggling country singer but he is done in by the predictability of the script [from Clancy Carlile's own novel] and his own limitations as a warbler.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Above the Law
    With a couple dozen stunt persons and an earthy, warm and supportive partner (Pam Grier), Seagal kicks, kills and crushes with his skillful hands one handful after another of street hoods who try and thwart his mission.
  11. Under Siege 2: Dark Territory
    Bogosian provides some much-needed comic relief to the slogging tale. He turns in solid work, as does Everett McGill as his head strongman, but they and others are saddled with pedestrian dialogue and motivation.
  12. On Deadly Ground
    This is a vanity production parading as a social statement. It nonetheless has enough sound, fury and flash to satisfy the action crowd who have propped up Seagal’s career.
  13. Fire Down Below
    Typical action fare for martial arts star Steven Seagal and, in his limited oeuvre, one of the more entertaining efforts. But the genre is pedestrian, and Seagal makes no new moves here in terms of screen personality or acting skill. What fun there is lies in the villains, some nifty stunts and a bouncy musical score rife with regional sounds.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Rio Lobo
    Rio Lobo is the sort of western that John Wayne and producer-director Howard Hawks do in their sleep. But by no stretch of nostalgia does it match such previous Wayne-Hawks epics as Red River or Rio Bravo.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Cocoon: The Return
    Not altogether charmless, Cocoon: The Return still is far less enjoyable a senior folks' fantasy than Cocoon. An overdose of bathos weighs down the sprightliness of the characters, resulting in a more maudlin than magic effort.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Cactus Flower
    Cactus Flower drags, which is probably the worst thing that can be said of a light comedy. It's due to sloppy direction by Gene Saks and the miscasting of Walter Matthau opposite Ingrid Bergman.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    American Flyers
    American Flyers is most entertaining when it rolls along unencumbered by big statements. Unfortunately, overblown production just pumps hot air in too many directions and comes up limp.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Dirty Mary Crazy Larry
    With more than a third of the footage devoted to spectacular chases and collisions deftly staged by stunt coordinator Al Wyatt, there’s little time left to hint at the reasons for Fonda’s increasingly unappetizing monomania.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    True Confessions
    Comes off as relatively mild fare which fails to pack a dramatic or emotional wallop.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Fort Apache the Bronx
    Driving relentlessly to make points that are almost pointless, Fort Apache The Bronx is a very patchy picture, strong on dialog and acting and exceedingly weak on story.
  21. Abominable
    The journey is wondrous for the characters, less compelling for the audience.
  22. Ma
    You can’t take Ma seriously. It’s a squalid formula picture that’s too busy connecting dots, hitting beats, engineering situations designed to make you squirm. But you will squirm.
  23. Piranhas
    To watch young people fall into old patterns is still to watch those old patterns, and the film cannot escape the familiarity of its archetypal, rise-to-power, fall-from-grace narrative.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Cutter's Way
    Cutter's Way suffers from a terminal case of creative indecision. With any number of initially intriguing plot lines, director Ivan Passer and scripter Jeffrey Alan Fiskin never come close to shedding light on what, if anything, this picture is really about. Jeff Bridges, John Heard and Lisa Eichhorn all deliver exceptionally fine topline performances, but their efforts seem wasted in such a weak vehicle.
  25. Finding Steve McQueen
    Finding Steve McQueen is a ramshackle indie heist drama that has a little bit (but not much) to do with Steve McQueen.
  26. Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom
    The movie, with all that combat, is staged on an impressively grand scale by the returning director, James Wan, but at the same time there’s something glumly standard about it.
  27. The Cannibal Club
    Guto Parente’s eighth feature is a mixed bag: a diverting, stylish, but ultimately rather trite satire whose social critique and grand guignol aspects never quite come to a full boil.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Straw Dogs
    Director Sam Peckinpah indulges himself in an orgy of unparalleled violence and nastiness with undertones of sexual repression in this production.
  29. Go Back to China
    The capable cast and brisk pacing keep attention held toward a happy ending that pleases even if it is a bit pat, not to mention inevitable.
  30. Porno
    Unfortunately, Porno gets more uneven as it goes on, with a somewhat slack midsection and a mix of earnestness, broad comedy, titillation, and moralizing that neither fully gels, nor makes something unpredictably wild out of those clashing elements.
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