Variety's Scores

For 17,782 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:
17782 movie reviews
  1. Breezy, enjoyable romp gratifyingly zigzags in directions that aren't apparent at the outset and features some intriguingly personal subtext for longtime Woody watchers.
  2. Be forewarned: After you see Road Trip, it may be months, if not years, before you can order French toast with a straight face and a settled stomach.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tech elements, including music, lensing, costumes and production design are blazingly impressive and strikingly evocative on all levels.
  3. An eye-popping visual spectacle that serves up a vivid picture of what the planet might have looked like when reptiles ruled the Earth.
  4. A shoddy vehicle for Jamie Foxx to ride into the summer season on.
  5. Unfortunately, Center Stage is directed and shot (by Geoffrey Simpson) in a way that doesn't let the audience feel the exhilarating pull of the dance world.
  6. This slacker prince (Hawke) comprises a sinkhole at the center of adaptor-helmer Michael Almereyda's otherwise compelling contempo update.
  7. Latenight cable TV filler disguised as a feature film.
  8. Yet the overall look, though derivative ("The Matrix," "Blade Runner," "Waterworld," etc.), rates as Battlefield's one non-guilty pleasure.
  9. John Mathieson's widescreen cinematography is magnificent, and the pacing across 2½ hours is well modulated.
  10. Visually gratifying but dramatically weak, the film falls short of its aspiration to be a sweeping romantic epic.
  11. This least affected of their (Haases) movies is also the most dramatically and emotionally convincing.
  12. Well cast, engagingly played and directed with a stylistic pedal to the metal, Human Traffic is a lot of energy adding up to very little.
  13. Arguably the finest athlete in living memory deserves better than Michael Jordan to the Max, an honorific but unmoving portrait of the Chicago Bulls' No. 23.
  14. So understated as to sometimes lack a pulse.
  15. An oddly schizophrenic fantasy thriller that ultimately succumbs to a fatal case of sentimentality.
  16. Silly script, broad slapstick and overstated lead perfs by B-team cast might be acceptable to target audience.
  17. Imagine a '30s screwball comedy played to a sensuous Brazilian beat and you're ready for Bossa Nova, a delightfully amusing romantic roundelay.
  18. Banal and trite where it could have been insightful and emotionally truthful, this Fox release is also notable for featuring the first disappointing performance by teen star Natalie Portman.
  19. If the satire feels familiar, and the dramatics often contrived, there's rarely a moment here when something funny, intense or cleverly interconnected doesn't keep one's synapses firing on overdrive.
  20. Like hard-edged "Masterpiece Theater."
  21. The submarine goes deep but the story never does in U-571, a good old-fashioned WWII picture that is exciting in only the most superficial way.
  22. Humor prevails throughout, but it doesn't deflate the disturbing elements of the tale, which miraculously manages to stay droll, heartfelt and poignant to the end.
  23. The pic is so well directed and lead performance by Sanaa Lathan so charismatic that audiences will overlook the script's flaws and root for the central duo.
  24. Newman's charismatic, multishaded performance elevates the hodgepodge caper comedy a couple of notches above its preposterous plotting and self-consciously movieish texture.
  25. Norton directs with assurance.
  26. A sprightly acted, warm and often extremely funny ensemble comedy.
  27. Pace is sleek, airless and apt.
  28. A simplistic, highly contrived romantic comedy about the mysterious workings of fate.
  29. A broad and obvious approach to ambiguous material that's virtually all plot mechanics with little nuance or characterization.

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