Variety's Scores

For 17,786 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 2.4 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:
17786 movie reviews
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Pure pleasure. A fresh take on sex and the single girl, this buoyant, well-crafted romantic comedy blends pitch-perfect performances with deliciously smart writing.
  1. Intermittently funny movie. Almost every scene recreates or alludes to a Hollywood or foreign classic.
  2. Demonstrates the impossibility of separating the private from the public dimensions of politics, and the pain involved in trying to account for behavior that cannot withstand rational examination.
  3. A thriller more contrived than it is exciting.
  4. A mildly diverting, largely inoffensive teen laffer that's long on cartoonish high school hijinks but short on dramatic concentration and crucial story details.
  5. Limp comedy-drama.
  6. Modestly engaging but thoroughly formulaic drama about a boxer turned preacher who returns to the ring to fund a community-outreach center.
  7. Gruff and downright smelly, especially when star David Arquette is forced at one point to flop around in a pile of doggy doo.
  8. An intensely whimsical shaggy-dog crime story that ricochets between goofy violence and some endearing personal moments.
  9. It's equal parts wacky, sappy and sniggery.
  10. If drive-ins still existed, this film would rule there for weeks.
  11. Has a jaunty, cosmopolitan air that proves appealing for considerable stretches, and Chin's love of cinema and mostly humorous approach to weighty themes will win points with buffs who have seen the same films the director has.
  12. A consistently silly, occasionally funny but mostly forced account of how a mild-mannered teacher from Connecticut unwittingly triggered the Bay of Pigs fiasco.
  13. A very earthbound comic fantasy, a racially flip-flopped "Heaven Can Wait" redo stuck in a purgatory with just enough meager laughs to keep it from a more fiery fate.
  14. A contrived but entirely workable premise is given a well-tooled treatment in Sweet November, a femme-slanted doomed romance with a heavily calculated feel to it.
  15. Animation is dull and characterless, and vocal talent has evidently received blanket direction to, when in doubt, shout.
  16. Full of surreal occurrences and bizarre, sometimes overly precious humor that may make it too rarefied an exercise for wide acceptance.
  17. The continuing saga of one of contemporary literature and cinema's most fascinating villains, as played once again with exquisite taste and riveting force by Anthony Hopkins.
  18. Misbegotten, unimaginative buddy pic.
  19. Looking good but lacking much in the way of personality or gray matter -- rather like its characters -- Valentine is a straightforward slasher pic that's acceptably scary until a weak finale.
    • 27 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    A mildly amusing trifle.
  20. Might be extremely effective while preaching to the converted, but it's no great shakes as secular entertainment.
  21. Liv Ullmann, directing her second Bergman screenplay (after 1997’s “Private Confessions”), extracts every nuance from the tantalizing material.
  22. This tale of mismatched lovebirds begins with considerable charm but eventually loses its winning ways with an excess of ridiculous elements.
  23. Most discomforting of all is the sight of world-class actors stuck in such threadbare material.
  24. Nicholson is outstanding as he gradually but tellingly sketches in aspects of a man driven by a mission that outstrips his instincts as a professional lawman.
  25. Robbins is such a live wire that he's able to jumpstart his co-stars whenever they're interfacing onscreen.
  26. It's doubtful that anyone, even executors of Greene's literary estate, will be able to discern much of the source material in this frenetic trifle.
  27. Grounded in bedrock formula and earnestness.
  28. Enormously ambitious and masterfully made, Traffic represents docudrama-style storytelling at a very high level.

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