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 Art of Racing in the Rain
    Granted, there aren’t a lot of surprises in The Art of Racing in the Rain. If anything, knowing — or at least anticipating — how the film’s myriad tragedies will unfold seems to heighten the effect.
  2. Anaconda
    The movie could have really used some of that anarchic, industry-skewering “Tropic Thunder” energy. The only risk taken here was asking Sony — plus any surviving members of the original cast — to poke fun at themselves, which only goes so far when the film has no fangs.
  3. Scoob!
    This attractive but calculated attempt to connect 'Scooby-Doo' to other Hanna-Barbera characters abandons the show's fun teen-detective format.
  4. Flipper
    The effectively offbeat casting of Paul Hogan and some impressive underwater cinematography do much to enliven Flipper, an otherwise unremarkable attempt to revive the franchise that spawned two features and a popular TV series in the mid-1960s.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Cruising
    Like any approach to the bizarre, it is fascinating for about 15 minutes. In many respects, Cruising [from the novel by Gerald Walker] resembles the worst of the ‘hippie’ films of the 1960s. Taking away the kissing, caressing and a few bloody killings, Friedkin has no story, though picture pretends to be a murder mystery combined with a study of Al Pacino’s psychological degradation.
  6. Donkey Punch
    Shows the sort of edge in places that will be appreciated by horror fanboys of all ages, but is mostly too overwrought and over-the-top.
  7. Office Christmas Party
    Turn them loose, and this cast has nearly endless potential to be outrageous, and yet, the script...keeps interrupting the festivities with unnecessary details about whether the company will even be around tomorrow.
  8. Postcards from London
    Pretty but hollow, Postcards From London isn’t quite clever enough to get away with being this deeply frivolous. It exudes a sense of high amusement at itself but doesn’t make that satisfaction so easy to share.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2
    Success of the low budget Chain Saw in 1974 spawned a generation of splatter films which largely have lost the power to shock and entertain. Not so Chain Saw 2. Director Tobe Hooper is back on the Texas turf he knows.
  10. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
    Mawkish, clunky and unenlightening about female suffering in this or any generation.
  11. Old Dads
    For a first movie, Old Dads shows promise. Bill Burr is onto something about how the new culture of control messes with the heads of ordinary people. Next time, though, he should channel the rage instead of flaunting it.
  12. My Father Die
    Not all of it works, but this is a bold and talented debut, all the more impressive for transcending (while embracing) some shameless exploitation tropes.
  13. Whisky Galore!
    Oddly stiff where Alexander Mackendrick’s original village farce was infectiously tipsy, Gillies MacKinnon’s interpretation is twee, tweedy and rather timid about putting its own stamp on a now-quaint story.
  14. Four Kids and It
    “Careful what you wish for” may have been the essential moral takeaway from the source books, but that wasn’t to discourage wishing for anything at all: In all respects, this serviceable but anodyne programmer could dream a bit bigger.
  15. The Walk
    The film’s insights about racism come as familiar baby steps.
  16. The Locksmith
    The plot is so straightforward and reminiscent of a thousand other crime movies that nothing will be missed. Alas, nothing is gained either, and the entertainment value is subpar at best.
  17. Unfrosted
    While broadly based in reality, the entire movie is a put-on, a wackazoid tall tale, a comedy that uses the breakfast wars as the jumping-off point for a high-camp exercise in nostalgic lunacy.
  18. The Lovely Bones
    Jackson undermines solid work from a good cast with show-offy celestial evocations that severely disrupt the emotional connections with the characters.
  19. Trespassers
    The result falls short of being especially credible, let alone memorable. Still, this is a polished genre exercise that provides a decent night’s home entertainment.
  20. G
    A handsome, compelling drama, about the African-American elite settling in the Hamptons, that more than stands on its own.
  21. My Father the Hero
    Offers some of the same breezy charm as its environs.
  22. Went to Coney Island on a Mission from God... Be Back by Five
    Though intermittently engaging and decently acted, the movie suffers from a repetitive format, with too many shifts in time that prove disruptive.
  23. Bones
    A sly mix of haunted house melodrama, slasher pic mayhem and retro-blaxploitation iconography, spiced with dollops of grisly, dark comedy.
  24. The Big Bounce
    Modestly engaging, albeit instantly forgettable shaggy-dog story only gradually reveals itself as a seriocomic take on standard-issue noir.
  25. The Time Machine
    Breaks down when it gets to the distant future, which in this case isn't a good place to be stranded.
  26. The Family Man
    A slickly produced slice of sentimental hokum that borrows freely from a half-dozen or so other, better feel-good fantasies.
  27. Drive Me Crazy
    Sloppy and dull in equal measures.
  28. Wet Hot American Summer
    Nearly half over before it finds a consistent groove, let alone a decent hit-to-miss joke ratio.
  29. Scumrock
    Actors who can't act, musicians who can't play, and storylines that go absolutely nowhere.
  30. Stuber
    It’s both funny and familiar to see these two incredibly different personalities thrust together for what’s meant to be a short ride. [SXSW work-in-progress review]
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