Variety's Scores

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For 17,805 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:
  1. Positive: 9,148 out of 17805
  2. Mixed: 7,020 out of 17805
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17805
17805 movie reviews
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  1. Bandido
    The filmmakers seem split between doing it straight and gleefully ripping up the genre, and never make up their minds.
  2. Freak Weather
    Fiction writer and debuting helmer Mary Kuryla is clearly after a Big Statement on abuse and strength of character, but falls short by creating a self-destructive monster in lieu of a sympathetic protagonist.
  3. The Keeper: The Legend of Omar Khayyam
    Lofty ambitions and unaffected sincerity are not quite enough to sustain The Keeper: The Legend of Omar Khayyam, a reverentially pokey drama that plays less like a conventional movie than a lengthy series of hagiographic historical tableaux.
  4. God's Sandbox
    The serious subject of forced female circumcision becomes the stuff of predictable melodrama in God's Sandbox.
  5. Piggie
    Pic's quirky-for-quirky's-sake antics are neither particularly coherent nor enjoyably incoherent.
  6. Moonlight
    Menacing atmosphere created by Dutch helmer Paula van der Oest ("Zus & Zo") does not make up for the weak script's multiple improbabilities, flat dialogue or the discomfort of watching children, the handicapped and even animals being abused onscreen.
  7. Neal 'N' Nikki
    Fluff is hardly the word for Neal 'n' Nikki, a mismatched romantic comedy that makes most Bollywood twosomes look like art movies.
  8. The Tollbooth
    Lack of perspective and shaky comic tone plague Tollbooth -- sinking it in a morass of whiny cliches.
  9. Surge of Power
    There are potentially funny ideas, but the barely-there script, performances and direction go for a deadpan tenor that's not supported by much actual wit.
  10. In Her Line of Fire
    With Mariel Hemingway a credible Sapphic Stallone, this passable action trash should satisfy as fun original programming for gay-targeted Here! cable net.
  11. Highway Courtesans
    Earnest but prosaic.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Grbavica: The Land of My Dreams
    Central performance by Mirjana Karanovic is instantly endearing. Unfortunately, film coasts on thesp's ability to evoke sympathy and leaves her stranded in this yarn that's all setup and little payoff.
  13. Full of It
    Hormonally charged comedy is bound to make parents uncomfortable, as writers Jon Lucas and Scott Moore add a sexual dimension to the kind of after-school-special premise that might appeal to 10-year-olds (but is here twisted to suit older teens).
  14. American Cannibal: The Road to Reality
    Fails to draw any conclusions and, thanks to legal issues, leaves too many questions unanswered.
  15. Goodbye Momo
    Nocturnal settings and musical interludes create their own kind of allure, but picture feels like an art film imitation, not an authentic art film itself.
  16. Fakers
    Despite engaging performances from a cast led by Matthew Rhys and Kate Ashfield and pro direction by first-timer Richard Janes, yarn about art grifters lacks real snap, which ultimately stems from the so-so script and lack of real coin.
  17. El cantante
    A virtual template of every imaginable cliche of the musical biopic, picture suffers from a lack of narrative and character focus
  18. Macbeth
    Something indeed wicked this way comes in a mangled Macbeth set in contempo gangland Melbourne.
  19. Beauty Remains
    An unappealing, stiff melodrama.
  20. Badland
    A strenuously solemn film that wants to create some kind of American pastoral tragedy out of the nation's current angst with the war.
  21. 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.
  22. City with No Mercy
    Plainly disappointing as a well-sustained kick-butt thriller, and politically toxic.
  23. Jack and Jill vs. the World
    Parise no doubt intends the pic's attention to the disease -- plus animal adoption and fair trade coffee -- to be socially enlightening, but it feels suspiciously like sympathy-mongering.
  24. Deal
    Public fascination with Texas Hold 'em and other poker variations will likely bolster B.O., though more discriminating auds may choose to pass.
  25. Sangre De Mi Sangre
    Ochoa is such a masterful actor that he makes things fairly interesting despite the script, with Hernandez and Espindola well-cast as two young men operating by different moral compasses.
  26. Irina Palm
    Astonishingly, pic reaped hearty guffaws at Berlinale press show, suggesting this might play best in Europe, but Anglophone auds are more likely to give Palm the thumbs down.
  27. Red Roses and Petrol
    It all rings particularly hollow in light of several recent pics ("Last Orders" and "The Barbarian Invasions" chief among them) that have explored similar terrain with much greater emotion and intelligence.
  28. Year of the Fish
    That the film is animated gives it an appropriately magical feel, but it can't save the story from being drowned in devices and stereotype.
  29. August Evening
    Although guided by considerable empathy toward its small circle of kinfolk eking out a living in southern Texas, Eska's tale of a woman's unconditional support of her father-in-law is told with a faux-poetic sensibility that never really connects with his characters' lives.
  30. Shoot on Sight
    A disappointingly stilted melodrama masquerading as a political thriller.
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