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. Inspector Gadget
    A new standard for wretched excess is established by Inspector Gadget, a joyless and charmless disaster in which state-of-the-art special effects are squandered on pain-in-the-backside folly.
  2. Returner
    Kaneshiro is all long flowing locks and smoldering disdain, the visual F/X are only so-so, and pacing is almost brisk enough to hide the plot holes.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Jeepers Creepers II
    Substantially better than its predecessor, even while staying strictly within the genre's well-defined boundaries.
  4. A Man Apart
    Diesel makes a violent bid to align himself with the Clint Eastwood-Charles Bronson-Steve McQueen tradition, but he lacks the charisma, emotional strength and humor to do so.
  5. Last Love
    Last Love sticks to a flaccid middle ground lacking any real drama or pathos.
  6. Damascus Cover
    Unfortunately, Berk’s movie is too plodding and predictable to generate anything more than a modest level of suspense; worse, it lacks enough excitement to qualify even as instantly forgettable popcorn entertainment.
  7. Shanghai
    This derivative, ploddingly plotted WWII-set thriller goes through all the motions of an old-school wartime spy pic with plenty of technical competence but zero panache.
  8. War
    Quickly devolves into a standard-issue crime drama laced with routine martial artistry.
  9. Trigger Warning
    Indonesian director Mouly Surya’s well-crafted first English-language feature is too formulaically contrived to qualify as “elevated genre” or to boast the personal stamp of her prior work. Still, it’s an entertaining, pacey action melodrama.
  10. Life Is Hot in Cracktown
    Nowhere near as much fun as its title, playing out like an unusually obtuse episode of "The Wire."
  11. Guernsey
    Ravishingly lensed, widescreen pic's purely cinematic qualities slightly outstrip its narrative ones as central protag, as a result of the apparent suicide, slowly -- very slowly -- questions whether the aspects of her own marriage she thought were cast in stone may be made of less sturdy material.
  12. Reset
    Reset strings together a series of hit-and-miss ideas that never deliver an “aha!” payoff.
  13. Uncle Nick
    Even at a brisk 81 minutes, this indie can barely sustain its boozy comedic buzz.
  14. My Spy: The Eternal City
    The film is light enough without being funny enough, most of it staged, by director Peter Segal (“Tommy Boy,” “The Naked Gun 33 1/3”), in a kind of generic action overdrive.
  15. The Eye
    This slick effort is effectively creepsome until it bogs down somewhat in plot explication.
  16. The Tollbooth
    Lack of perspective and shaky comic tone plague Tollbooth -- sinking it in a morass of whiny cliches.
  17. Remember the Daze
    As high school zeitgeist stories go, Remember the Daze holds no great secrets or revelations, no iconic characters or “American Pie”-style set pieces, but it demonstrates considerable promise on the part of its director and her up-and-coming cast.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Under the Cherry Moon
    In Under the Cherry Moon, Prince tries to direct too, giving himself a lot of closeups kissing but hardly any of him singing. What is left is a trite story about a rich girl and a poor musician (Prince) that's set on the Riviera and shot in, of all things, black and white.
  19. Employee of the Month
    Falling short of being truly memorable but sharper than the general slagheap of comedies.
  20. Sherlock Gnomes
    The actors give little life to the proceedings, since no one’s bothered to figure what this movie has to offer beyond terrifically tactile stone figures going through the motions of what might be called Generic Animated Action Rescue Plot.
  21. Phat Girlz
    Mo'Nique, a vet standup and sitcom performer whose sassy, brassy shtick isn't nearly enough to support material this insubstantial.
  22. The Unholy
    The Unholy is a good tight scary commercial theological horror film. Its spooks and demons unfurl within a pop version of Christianity, which makes it sound no more exotic than last week’s “Exorcist” knockoff or last year’s helping of the “Conjuring” franchise. But The Unholy has a religious plot that actually works for it.
  23. The Canyons
    The major exception is Lohan, who gives one of those performances, like Marlon Brando’s in “Last Tango in Paris,” that comes across as some uncanny conflagration of drama and autobiography. Lohan may not go as deep or as far as Brando, but with her puffy skin, gaudy hoop earrings and thick eye makeup, there’s a little-girl-lost quality to the onetime Disney teen princess that’s very affecting.
  24. Space Jam: A New Legacy
    Space Jam: A New Legacy is chaotic, rainbow sprinkle-colored nonsense that, unlike the original, manages to hold together as a movie.
  25. Circuit
    All-encompassing drama.
  26. Big Fat Liar
    Though Muniz and Bynes make a somewhat likable team, their funniest skills are dampened by the material's insistent stupidity.
  27. Hard Rain
    A waterlogged would-be thriller deep-sixed by its misguided notion of high concept. [12 January 1998, p. 63]
    • Variety
  28. Kedma
    A largely dull history lesson…stripped of any backgrounding, peopled with archetypes rather than fully-drawn characters, and features self-consciously arty direction that gets in the way of story-telling.
  29. Thunderbirds
    The story rarely gets fired up to "maximum thrust," to use the rocket-speed parlance of its heroes.
  30. Victor Frankenstein
    This reimagining features some fun production design and a performance of undiluted bug-eyed flamboyance from James McAvoy as the titular pale student of unhallowed arts, but its reservoirs of energy and ingenuity run dry long before the finale, leaving the film to lumber to its half-hearted conclusion.
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