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. Fourth of July
    Fourth of July is a trifle, and a facile, easy-to-watch one. But what it’s offering under the surface feels, in part, like a clandestine defense of Louis C.K.’s transgressions. In about 45 minutes, the family swings from being louts to saints. That’s supposed to be a lesson to us all. It’s not a convincing one.
  2. The Benefactor
    The movie ends in a more conventional place than the one where it begins, yet it still marks a surprising and graceful first fiction feature for writer-director Andrew Renzi.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    RoboCop 3
    This latest widget off the RoboCop assembly line is a bit better than the first sequel, which amounts to damnation with faint praise. Limiting the gore, but not the carnage, in pursuit of a PG-13 rating and more youngsters, pic remains a cluttered, nasty exercise that seems principally intent on selling action figures.
  4. Shade
    In the end, under-realized direction and characters deliver less than a full deck.
  5. The Man Who Cried
    Sally Potter, who leapt to critical attention with her 1992 adaptation of Virginia Woolf's "Orlando" -- makes a serious misstep with The Man Who Cried.
  6. Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid
    Sublimely trashy, this conceptual sequel to 1997's surprise hit, "Anaconda," doesn't expect to be taken any more seriously than its schlock predecessor, and keeps its tongue-in-cheek thrills flowing rapidly.
  7. Trouble Every Day
    Over-long, under-written and needlessly obscure instead of genuinely atmospheric.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Poltergeist III
    Director/co-writer Gary Sherman demonstrates absolutely no interest in whether this film ever has a modicum of meaning as he rushes from one special effect to another. Even there, Sherman arrives too late.
  9. Man on a Ledge
    This cloddishly contrived suspenser is too busy to bore, but too farfetched to thrill, combining routine heist-thriller machinations with dialogue that often thuds like a body hitting asphalt.
  10. Passengers
    Cruising somewhere between therapy drama and paranoid thriller, this middlebrow tone poem aims for ambiguity but often veers into soporific, suspending answers (and often, viewer interest) en route to an ending that explains all.
  11. Jack Frost
    Jack Frost is a slickly packaged and engagingly sentimental fantasy-comedy that stands out as one of the season's most pleasant surprises. Pic offers a shrewdly balanced mix of humor, high concept and heart tugging, along with some amusingly impressive special effects.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    A Kiss Before Dying
    Played with a satirical edge, this update on the pulpy 1956 thriller about a murderous social climber might have been good for a chill and a hoot, but played straight it's a real clunker.
  13. Deep Impact
    The season's first comet-targets-Earth special effects extravaganza is spectacular enough in its cataclysmic scenes of the planet being devastated by an unstoppable fireball, but proves far from thrilling in the down time spent with a largely dull assortment of troubled human beings.
  14. White Men Can't Jump
    Director Calmatic’s 2023 remake not only fails to recapture the energy of the first film but seems to misunderstand the cinematic language of streetball, and is largely uninterested in utilizing stars Sinqua Walls and Jack Harlow except as delivery systems for exposition.
  15. Double Dragon
    Even kids won't get much of a kick out of this high-energy, low-IQ futuristic slugfest, which plays down to, and in many ways, below the level of some Saturday-morning cartoons.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Porky's
    If, by chance, Porky's should prove to be Melvin Simon's swan song in the film industry, it will either be perceived as a thunderously rude exit or a titanic raspberry uttered to audiences everywhere.
  17. Wild Wild West
    As impressive as the industrial-style special effects may be, they're both too much and not enough for this mild mild West.
  18. The Day the Earth Stood Still
    This botched remake of "The Day the Earth Stood Still" seriously dishonors the seriously fine 1951 sci-fi landmark on which it's based.
  19. Casanova, Last Love
    Whatever the truth, there’s nothing in Jacquot’s vision of Charpillon to inspire devotion. There have been other unlikely Casanovas, yet the best of them conveyed not just the man’s charm but a depth of intelligence. Lindon’s downturned eyes have always exuded a world-weariness that fits with his characters, but there’s no spark here, no understanding of the man’s aura.
  20. Spiral: From the Book of Saw
    No, the “Saw” series hasn’t really changed. So depending on whether you’re a fan or not, eat up…or throw up.
  21. Duets
    Lack of much substance or dramatic payoff makes the whole significantly less than sum of its parts.
  22. The Cell
    A slender story that's not particularly suspenseful or involving, resulting in a movie that's a feast to the eye but not much for the intellect.
  23. Ash Wednesday
    Burns' films are invariably better directed and scripted than they are performed, and Ash Wednesday is no exception. Pic's biggest drawback is that the helmer has again cast himself in the leading role.
  24. Sueño
    Brimming with fanciful ideas about life, romance and the rejuvenating power of music, Sueno sings a lovely tune but chokes on its own banal lyrics.
  25. Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing & Charm School
    Juggles three separate time periods -- and is completely formulaic in each one.
  26. Peaceful Warrior
    Mere recitation of homilies for better living -- which is what Nick Nolte's gas station guru imparts to a struggling young gymnast -- and a half-baked account of the athlete's comeback are no substitutes for a complete movie.
  27. Freezer
    Freezer is a mediocre work built on a flimsy, nonsensical premise that squanders its modest potential with a cornucopia of bad plot twists.
  28. Paulette
    Politics aside, however, the movie delivers on the inspiration of its premise, featuring just the sort of laughs one hopes for.
  29. Butter
    Butter might have been a dark comedy; here, the humor is twisted but the world is bright as can be. Conservatives and liberals alike take a licking, and yet the art of butter carving emerges unscathed.
  30. Beastly
    A kiss may cure the monster, but not even campy performances from Mary-Kate Olsen and Neil Patrick Harris can save this ugly snarl of cliches.
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