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 Forgiven
    It’s Eric Bana, cast as a fictionalized composite of various white-supremacist apartheid criminals, who comes closest to electrifying proceedings in what’s at heart a one-room two-hander, unconvincingly padded and populated for the big screen.
  2. A Girl and a Gun
    More entertaining than especially revelatory, this timely documentary adds a sprightly note to a somber subject.
  3. Mojave
    Monahan isn’t required to satisfy bloodlust or to pay off conventional plot points, even if his screenplay for “The Departed” displayed an abundant talent for doing so. But he assumes too much in believing that the audience will connect in any way with a sour, prickly narcissist who’s trapped in the gilded cage of wealth and fame.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Nowhere to Run
    Action hero Jean-Claude Van Damme takes a career step backward in Nowhere to Run, a relentlessly corny and shamelessly derivative vehicle.
  5. O'Dessa
    There’s too much passion and creativity on display to declare “O’Dessa” a complete catastrophe, but the committed performances and detailed production design and costumes all come across as the product of bibles’ worth of backstory that couldn’t possibly be carried over with the constraints of time.
  6. Easter Sunday
    Instead of character and chemistry, the film employs a series of running gags meant to support the star’s likability and not compete with his wisecracks.
  7. White Chicks
    As lowbrow comedies go, it pretty much delivers.
  8. The Most Hated Woman in America
    Though he clearly admires the woman, O’Haver doesn’t want to let her off easy, which makes for a more nuanced portrayal than the stock canonization another director might have chosen (it would have been just as easy to paint her as a devil).
  9. Chappie
    Intelligence, artificial or otherwise, is one of the major casualties of Chappie, a robot-themed action movie that winds up feeling as clunky and confused as the childlike droid with which it shares its name.
  10. Hop
    Why rock, rather than hip-hop, is anybunny's guess, though either way, the basic overnight-sensation pop-star fantasy will surely appeal to a demographic weaned on "American Idol."
  11. Romeo & Juliet
    Shorn of eroticism, intensity or purpose... it strikes familiar beats in a manner more strained than inspired.
  12. Britney Vs. Spears
    This shapeless doc feels overlong at just over 90 minutes, because it’s unclear what, exactly, Carr and collaborator Jenny Eliscu want to say about Spears.
  13. Wild Target
    Nearly every element here is wildly off-target, from Jonathan Lynn's ("The Whole Nine Yards") lazy helming and Lucinda Coxon's shambolic script to the embarrassed-looking perfs from usually excellent lead thesps Bill Nighy and Emily Blunt.
  14. The Quiet Ones
    The 1970s setting offers a retro feel that should strike appealing chords for fans of old-school horror, but there’s little here that’s exactly new or fresh.
  15. The Week Of
    While some gags are funny the first time around, practically everything in The Week Of overstays its welcome.
  16. Priest
    Not exactly an unholy mess, but still a rather too pious retread of classic sci-fi/action/horror riffs that lacks originality or pizzazz.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Darling Companion
    It meanders about as much as its eponymous pooch.
  18. House of Wax
    Direly predictable, with candle-drip pacing and a pervasive unpleasantness.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Metro
    Murphy and the filmmakers clearly want to establish Murphy as an action hero in the mold of Stallone and Van Damme (Carter wrote the Stallone starrer “Tango & Cash” and co-scripted the Van Damme feature “Nowhere to Run”), but they lack the courage of their convictions. Pic is bracketed by scenes of Eddie the funny man, just in case anybody forgets the performer’s roots.
  20. Our Day Will Come
    Once it’s evident that there’s hardly a point to all the random mischief — or that the point is precisely that there isn’t one — the idea of watching a pair of grown men inflect violence upon innocent bystanders feels awfully tedious
  21. Illegal Tender
    Too muted to have much lasting impact, and remains modestly diverting only on a scene-to-scene basis. There's no quotable dialogue, no standout action sequence, no flashy supporting performances -- in short, nothing to lift Illegal Tender from the level of competent but inconsequential B-movie.
  22. Spiral
    The film toys with audience expectations and perceptions by playing fast and loose with circumstances and clues, while leading to an almost unavoidable and dismayingly obvious conclusion.
  23. Infamous
    One can always make the argument that it’s not absolutely necessary to have sympathetic protagonists for a drama to enthrall or enlighten. But Infamous pushes way, way too far in the opposite direction: Dean and especially Arielle seem so irredeemably psychotic even before they begin to mount a body count, you actively wish for them to be caught or killed.
  24. Outlander
    Not helped by a wooden perf from Jim Caviezel as a humanoid alien who accidentally imports a real alien to eighth-century Earth.
  25. Jakob the Liar
    A markedly better picture than Roberto Benigni's far more sentimental Oscar collector.
  26. The Hunted
    Routine, superficial manhunt stuff.
  27. Some Body
    Has a quasi-verite, improvisational feel that appears truthful. But it doesn't lend much sympathy, or depth, to characters who never seem worth knowing.
  28. Khumba
    The voice ensemble is game, if not especially well matched.
  29. Here Today
    What’s good about the movie is that Crystal, who co-wrote and directed it, has an inside knowledge of the showbiz comedy world (as he demonstrated in 1992 when he directed and starred in the acerbically accomplished “Mr. Saturday Night”), and the prickly vivacity with which he portrays it roots the movie in something real.
  30. America the Beautiful
    Wide-ranging educational documentary attaches itself to the rise and fall of a 12-year-old fashion model, and indeed, its sincere, cautionary tone seems best suited to younger auds and small screen exposure.
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