Variety's Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
  1. Hotel Transylvania
    A stale overprotective-dad story set within a location that could easily house a more inspired mix of characters and events.
  2. Turkey Bowl
    This ongoing improvisation, along with the completed passes and resulting chest-bumping celebrations or recriminations, serves to define these otherwise "ordinary" ciphers and lend shape and momentum to an otherwise plotless movie.
  3. The Lone Ranger
    Extravagant but exhausting...this over-the-top oater delivers all the energy and spectacle audiences have come to expect from a Jerry Bruckheimer production, but sucks out the fun in the process,
  4. Playing for Keeps
    A modestly affecting reconciliation drama wrapped in a so-so sports movie by way of a misogynistic romantic comedy, Playing for Keeps can't stop tripping all over itself.
  5. Man of Steel
    The humorless tone and relentlessly noisy (visually and sonically) aesthetics leave much to be desired.
  6. Act of Valor
    A mechanically efficient yet soulless dramatization of the U.S. Navy SEALs in action, Act of Valor ultimately misses its target: The hearts and minds of American audiences.
  7. The Family Tree
    Suffers from severe problems of tone, a surfeit of undeveloped plot points and characters, and bland direction.
  8. Pacific Rim
    Although assembled with consummate care and obsessive attention to visual detail, Pacific Rim manages only fitful engagement and little in the way of real wonderment, suspense or terror.
  9. W.E.
    Burdened with risible dialogue and weak performances, picture doesn't have much going for it apart from lavish production design and terrific, well-researched costumes -- and it's in focus, which is more than can be said for the script.
  10. Summer of Goliath
    Pereda moves into territory where atmosphere and tone are more important than story or character.
  11. Ironclad
    Ironclad might be the perfect actioner for gorehound fanboys gaga for medieval trappings, but all others may find this British-American-German co-production a bit of a drag.
  12. Septien
    Duly offbeat without ever being very compelling in content or aesthetic.
  13. The Undefeated
    Slickly produced and blatantly manipulative, Bannon's hagiographic tribute is a celebratory cavalcade of career highlights and glowing testimonials that doubtless will please Palin's devoted followers, appall her fiercest critics -- and, perhaps, occasionally surprise the undecided.
  14. Machine Gun Preacher
    While the result is yet another story of African suffering told from a white do-gooder's perspective, this particular do-gooder is intrinsically fascinating enough to warrant attention, albeit more nuanced attention than he receives here.
  15. Aarakshan
    While its questions of affirmative action and charter schools could theoretically resonate with American audiences, the picture's corny theatrics, talky, preachy approach and taxing 164-minute running time will not translate.
  16. Another Happy Day
    Mistaking over-the-top dysfunctional family cruelty for comedy and drama, Another Happy Day tries and fails to channel "Rachel Getting Married" in its protracted tale of a wedding-party weekend that turns predictably from scabrous to redemptive.
  17. 11-11-11
    One and one (and one and one and one and one) never quite add up to two in Darren Lynn Bousman's 11-11-11, a rather anemic entry in the biblical-prophecy horror subgenre.
  18. 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.
  19. True Adolescents
    The result is Sam (Mark Duplass, "The Puffy Chair" and "Humpday"), a 34-year-old unemployed rocker whose mediocre musicianship is matched only by his abysmal people skills; he's like Jack Black without any energy or confidence.
  20. Good Neighbors
    A romantic-comedy-cum-serial-killer-movie that bends genre to the point of snapping.
  21. Red Tails
    Apart from the occasional thrill provided by CG-enhanced aerial dogfights, this stuffy history lesson about the groundbreaking African-American fighter pilot division never quite takes off, weighed down by wooden characters and leaden screenwriting.
  22. The Big Wedding
    The film isn’t so much funny as it is merely amusing — a laundry list of inappropriate and potentially embarrassing moments that strive mightily, but never quite manage to land the laugh.
  23. The Last Circus
    Loud, tedious and unattractive in every sense, this barrage of blood set during the Franco regime combines the helmer's customary cartoonishness with horror and ups it a thousand notches.
  24. A Horrible Way to Die
    Where helmer Adam Wingard's prior "Pop Skull" used a jittery style to convey its delusional, possibly meth-addled protagonist's mindset, here, too much handheld camera wobble and wavering image focus only alienate the viewer from this somewhat sluggish tale.
  25. Pearl Jam Twenty
    Finding a pulse only in the band's late-reel performance of "Alive," a lusty passage that would've begun a pic intent on making a case for the group's greatness, "Twenty" simply counts the years from 1991 via sludgy backstage and onstage footage whose rarity can't forgive its inclusion. Crowe's critic mentor, the late Lester Bangs, would cringe.
  26. The Lucky One
    When a novel gives you soapsuds and washboard abs to work with, what other choice does a director have but to provide the most aesthetically pleasing actors, scenery and sets to disguise the thinness of the underlying material.
  27. Sarah Palin: You Betcha!
    Shovels enough dirt on the Tea Party guru and self-described hockey mom to satisfy her haters, but lacks sufficient humor and insight to make it a must-see for anyone outside the Brit muckraker's fan base.
  28. Fireflies in the Garden
    Clumsy melodrama, which looks and sounds no better than an average made-for-cabler.
  29. One Fall
    Clunky allegorical elements, however, remain unsatisfyingly ambiguous throughout the picture.
  30. A Bird of the Air
    Unable to establish a consistent tone, picture goes derivatively screwball one minute and stickily sentimental the next.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »