Variety's Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
  1. Remember Me
    The modestly scaled film delivers some moving and affecting moments amid a preponderance of scenes of frequently annoying people behaving badly.
  2. Message from the King
    It’s a dark and all-around unpleasant journey to take.
  3. Shawn Mendes: In Wonder
    Singer does find a slight bit of drama to seize on at about the two-thirds point of the film, which, for understandable purposes of having anything at all happen in the movie, he trumps up to the point it becomes nearly comical.
  4. Phantom
    The potential for screw-tightening suspense gets lost amid the ineffectual dramatics in Phantom, a feeble fictionalization of a crucial but little-known moment when a rogue Soviet submarine brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.
  5. Fantastic Four
    A wildly uneven, sporadically slapdash action-adventure that amuses in fits and starts.
  6. Deliver Us From Evil
    A professionally assembled genre mashup that’s too silly to be scary, and a bit too dull to be a midnight-movie guilty pleasure.
  7. The Comedian
    Even with a bona fide icon at its center, The Comedian doesn’t dig deep enough to add anything substantial to the subgenre.
  8. Salinger
    It’s difficult to get past the film’s restless, ill-fittingly bombastic style.
  9. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III
    The music is overbearing, the camera and lighting too bright and obvious, and the production design borders on the cheesy. Performances range from competent to just plain embarrassing.
  10. Lift
    Practically every scene is a cliché, every line of dialogue an echo of a better one you’ve already heard in a better film.
  11. The Slammin' Salmon
    It is the presence of Duncan as a Mike Tyson-esque, malaprop-spouting ex-champion that, at least momentarily, lifts the pic out of its mediocrity.
  12. Sleepwalking
    The overly simplistic script by Zac Stanford (“The Chumscrubber”) hits nothing but high notes, making the whole dramatically less than the sum of its parts.
  13. Alexander
    At best an honorable failure, an intelligent and ambitious picture that crucially lacks dramatic flair and emotional involvement.
  14. House of Boys
    Thesping is more engaging than accomplished, as Anderson's constant smile cracks around the edges and Northover's dourness is a bit overdone.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Club Paradise
    Williams can be a terrific actor/comedian, but the spark isn’t there. Somehow, Murray might have come up with cleverer ways of getting back at complaining guests (Andrea Martin, Steven Kampmann), nerdy, sex-crazed weaklings (Rick Moranis and Eugene Levy, respectively) and the other expected amalgam of folks.
  16. Scary Movie 4
    Scary Movie 4 finds horror parody overshadowed by ho-hum groin blows, C-list celebrity cameos, slapstick child abuse, soon-to-be-forgotten hip-hop personalities, plus scatalogical and gay jokes; real laughs are few.
  17. How to Kill Your Neighbor's Dog
    While the direction is a little anonymous and could use some verve, the comedy-drama gets by thanks to a solid script, witty dialogue and engaging performances.
  18. Mango Yellow
    Like characters out of some Carnival hell, a macho butcher and his born-again wife, a forlorn barmaid, a sinister sadist and the gay manager of a flophouse called the Hotel Texas run in and out of each other's lives in a film as sloppy, sluttish, scruffy and vital as they are.
  19. Bulletproof Monk
    Not surprisingly based on a comic book series by Brett Lewis and R.A. Jones (whom pic fails to credit), pic hurtles along at a pace designed by vet music vid and ad helmer Paul Hunter to engage short attention spans.
  20. Clockstoppers
    A blandly conceived youth adventure lacking zing or style.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Boys from Brazil
    With two excellent antagonists in Gregory Peck and Laurence Olivier, The Boys from Brazil presents a gripping, suspenseful drama for nearly all of its two hours - then lets go at the end and falls into a heap.
  22. Fire Down Below
    Typical action fare for martial arts star Steven Seagal and, in his limited oeuvre, one of the more entertaining efforts. But the genre is pedestrian, and Seagal makes no new moves here in terms of screen personality or acting skill. What fun there is lies in the villains, some nifty stunts and a bouncy musical score rife with regional sounds.
  23. Abattoir
    Though it’s handsome enough to look at, Abattoir can’t quite seem to decide just how supernatural it wants to be or how meta its horror content should play
  24. National Treasure
    Tries to combine the suspense of old Saturday morning serials with the gusto of producer Jerry Bruckheimer's action pics. Falling short on both counts, this long, and long-winded, series of middling cliffhangers won't pump the adrenaline of action aficionados or -- the family crowd.
  25. Shrink
    The film may be too inside-baseball, with strained sympathy and contrived emotions.
  26. It's a Wonderful Afterlife
    It's a Wonderful Afterlife is a movie to make Frank Capra roll over in his grave from indigestion.
  27. Dark Tourist
    Character actor Michael Cudlitz’s first leading role is the sole selling point of Dark Tourist, a well-acted but rote and ultimately repellent character study of a psychologically disturbed loner.
  28. The Thousand Faces of Dunjia
    Bloated with visual effects, martial artists combat and amorous shenanigans, the one thing missing in The Thousand Faces of Dunjia is a comedic touch, which might have made this elaborate blockbuster more appealing.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Three Fugitives
    As for the Nolte-Short pairing, it’ll do, but it’s no chemical marvel. Nolte, not really a comic natural, gruffs and grumbles his way through as hunky straight man to Short’s calamitous comedian.
  30. Margaret Cho: Assassin
    Inspiration is running thin in comedian Margaret Cho's fourth concert film, a routine stand-up set that compares poorly to her oft-hilarious first two.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »