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. A Big Bold Beautiful Journey
    The film’s tonal inconsistencies hurt its impossibly talented co-leads considerably.
  2. Clover
    Despite a capable cast and reasonably energetic execution from director Jon Abrahams, this violent caper lacks any real wit or novelty.
  3. Steal Me
    A classic case of overreaching, Steal Me boasts unorthodox camera angles, dramatic shifts in its palette and a generally adventurous visual style. What it lacks is believable dialogue, credible relationships and a serious foundation for its overripe psychology.
  4. The Keeper: The Legend of Omar Khayyam
    Lofty ambitions and unaffected sincerity are not quite enough to sustain The Keeper: The Legend of Omar Khayyam, a reverentially pokey drama that plays less like a conventional movie than a lengthy series of hagiographic historical tableaux.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Skin Deep
    Revenge is sweet and Ritter gets his due in any number of silly and embarrassing situations which he handles with nearly perfect comic timing.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    True Colors
    True Colors represents a cloyingly schematic attempt to portray the political and moral bankruptcy of the 1980s in a neat little package. Pic condemns but doesn't begin to analyze the corrupted values of the Reagan years, leaving one feeling soiled but unenlightened.
  7. Wonderland
    Has absolutely nothing to say about its characters and their lamentable actions.
  8. Good Deeds
    Good Deeds is relentlessly unsurprising in its plotting and borderline comical in its melodramatic flourishes.
  9. In Dubious Battle
    The movie gives us bits and pieces of drama, but in a larger way it doesn’t invite us in.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Still of the Night
    It comes as almost a shock to see a modern suspense picture that's as literate, well acted and beautifully made as Still Of The Night. Despite its many virtues, however, Robert Benton's film [from a story by him and David Newman] has its share of serious flaws, mainly in the area of plotting.
  11. Death Race
    As hard as metal and just as dumb, Paul W.S. Anderson's Death Race couldn't be further from producer Roger Corman and director Paul Bartel's goofy, bloody 1975 original, "Death Race 2000."
  12. Machine Gun Preacher
    While the result is yet another story of African suffering told from a white do-gooder's perspective, this particular do-gooder is intrinsically fascinating enough to warrant attention, albeit more nuanced attention than he receives here.
  13. Segunda piel
    Starts out slow but ends up engaging both heart and mind, despite occasional slips into straight melodrama.
  14. Hey, Happy!
    Despite occasional bad-taste outrageousness, overall tone is surprisingly sweet, even lyrical and romantic at times.
  15. The Forgotten
    A spare, streamlined thriller for the conspiracy-minded, Area 51 crowd, The Forgotten perhaps wisely leaves more questions than it answers and for the most part manages to maintain its suspense.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Missing in Action
    Writer James Bruner and director Joseph Zito have marshalled a formula pic with a particularly jingoistic slant: even though the war is long over, the Commies in Vietnam still deserve the smack of a bullet.
  17. Retribution
    The film’s 90 minutes whiz by.
  18. Mother/Android
    Tomlin’s screenplay deserves credit for mixing things up, introducing new characters and narrative turnabouts. But nothing is again as bluntly compelling as the early going, and despite hardworking principal performances, these characters and their movie lack the emotional depth to pull off an earnestly teary, draggy finale.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    This Ain't No Heartland
    Given Horvath's multi-tasking, pic is unsurprisingly rough. Nonetheless, for a professional photographer, his DV lensing is disappointing.
  20. Back to Black
    At its best, Back to Black, the forthright and compelling movie that’s been made of Winehouse’s life, takes that light/dark balance and digs into the drama of it, making it sing.
  21. Eternal
    A handsome package whose atmospherics outclass merely serviceable plot and character elements.
  22. 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."
  23. The Takedown
    Leterrier manages a few modestly exciting chase scenes, including one that begins in a laser tag course, continues through a bowling alley and a go-kart track, and ends in a crowded supermarket. And his two leads are agreeably amusing and for the most part engaging throughout the film.
  24. Miss Meadows
    An eventual retreat into conventional thriller terrain isn’t managed with much panache or tension, and a limp happily-ever-after sequence underlines the pic’s failure to make very much of the twisted-fairy-tale aspect that is its most distinctive element.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Conan the Barbarian
    Director John Milius does a nice job of setting up the initial story.... But for whatever reasons, [Schwarzenegger] has a minimum of dialog and fails to convey much about the character through his actions.
  26. Trust the Man
    For those who appreciate the Woody Allen view of New York but would prefer fewer neurotics, Trust the Man provides a loving take on bourgeois Manhattan contentment that's usually only found in episodes of "Will & Grace."
    • 43 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Monte Carlo
    A frothy, innocuous smorgasbord of girlhood wish fulfillment that scores a direct hit with its target demo.
  28. Love N' Dancing
    Bland as its title, Love N' Dancing extends the cliches of the dance-and-romance genre -- so overplayed that it's targeted for a Wayans brothers spoof later this month -- to the world of West Coast Swing.
  29. Apart
    Editor-turned-writer-helmer Aaron Rottinghaus has a keen eye, but doles out the details of this mystery at such a dysfunctional pace, it's difficult to get engaged.
  30. Down and Dangerous
    Relying on a synthesized score, over-saturated cinematography and frustratingly cliched dialogue, this is an extremely generic, truly empty tale of a drug smuggler involved with cops and criminals alike.
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