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. The Invisible
    That rare mystery in which auds know everything upfront and the characters, rather than investigating, simply wait for the culprit to turn herself in. Previously adapted as Swedish thriller "Den Osynlige," Mick Davis' script brings out director David S. Goyer's emo side.
  2. Ithaca
    By turns poignant and plodding, affecting and affected, Ithaca is the sort of frustrating movie that’s just good enough to make you wish it were a lot better.
  3. This Revolution
    The street action is vivid, but the dramatics are distinctly not, lending the film an unintended sense of fakery.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Rambo III
    The battle scenes in Rambo III are explosive, conflagratory tableaux that make for wrenching, frequently terrifying viewing. Always at ground zero in the chaos is Rambo - gloriously, inhumanly impervious to fear and danger - whose character is inhabited by Stallone with messianic intensity.
  5. A Promise
    Led by a trio of lackluster performances from Alan Rickman, Rebecca Hall and “Game of Thrones” thesp Richard Madden, this awkward, passionless drama conveys neither the sensuality nor the drawn-out sense of longing required by its period tale of a young secretary who falls in love with his employer’s wife.
  6. Father of Invention
    Colorless exposition and a lack of imagination or wit stall Father of Invention at the starting gate.
  7. That Darn Cat
    It's not quite a catastrophe, but the updated remake of That Darn cat is a loud and largely charmless trifle. Very small children may be attracted in sufficient numbers for fair-to-middling opening weekend B.O., but this overbearing comedy isn't likely to pussyfoot very long in theaters before it high-tails to homevideo.
  8. Revenge of the Green Dragons
    This crudely made thriller plays like a stilted Cantonese riff on organized-crime cliches, substituting blood and brutality for novelty or insight.
  9. Stolen Summer
    Plays like an aggressively heart-tugging, exceedingly vanilla Disney telemovie.
  10. The Anarchist Cookbook
    An ill-conceived effort that starts OK but quickly goes off the rails.
  11. No Such Thing
    Deadly dull in stretches, and just plain embarrassing in others.
  12. The Next Karate Kid
    Leisurely and overly familiar pic should appeal to young teen girls, but won't be breaking any B.O. bricks with its bare hands.
  13. Tales From the Crypt Presents Bordello of Blood
    Neither funny enough nor scary enough to be satisfying as either a shocker or a spoof.
  14. We'll Never Have Paris
    A sporadically amusing, more often grating romantic comedy.
  15. Johnny Mnemonic
    Overall, pic’s conception of the future isn’t terribly original or inventive, and viewers not into the head trip of bigscreen computer graphics will want to download a lot sooner than Johnny does.
  16. Tarot
    Set in a world where every door creaks and there isn’t a single well-lit location, Tarot is little more than a clearinghouse of horror clichés.
  17. Saw IV
    Even by the standards of the recent "Saws," which have enjoyed considerably larger budgets than the first pic, the new edition is more frenetically cut (by editors Kevin Greutert and Brett Sullivan), more dimly lit (by lenser David A. Armstrong), sweatier in terms of perfs by the grimly serious cast, more madly packed with micro-incidents and action, and more brazen in requiring suspension of disbelief.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Fly II
    The Fly II is an expectedly gory and gooey but mostly plodding sequel to the 1986 hit that was a remake of the 1958 sci-fier that itself spawned two sequels.
  19. Perfect
    What it means, Alcazar leaves open for interpretation. He’s more a mood maker than a story teller, and the film feels like people watching at a fancy party and inhaling different wafts of perfume.
  20. Stuck
    “Oftentimes these connections are neglected or rejected,” sings Lloyd early on to complete the couplet, “but every now and then the universe succeeds.” So, in its sincere and refreshingly scrappy way, does Stuck.
  21. Lucky Bastard
    A new low for found-footage films, Lucky Bastard uses a porno shoot as the stage for a thriller with little mystery and lots of pointless moralizing.
  22. Kin
    The results are, in artistic terms, a modest success. In commercial terms, it’s a dicier prospect — viewers expecting the kind of bigger-budget spectacle that typically ensues when a screen teenager stumbles into sci-fi situations may be befuddled by what’s primarily a medium-scaled road trip drama with thriller elements … and a very special ray gun.
  23. Rupture
    This is a plot that feels lazily reverse-engineered from a collection of disparate, pre-existing scenes and elements, rather like one of those cooking shows where contestants are given a selection of random ingredients and forced to come up with a meal.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Guardian
    Who knows what possessed director William Friedkin to straight-facedly tell this absurd 'tree bites man' tale, but it's an impulse he should have exorcised.
  25. Blumhouse's Truth or Dare
    The movie isn’t scary, it isn’t gripping, it isn’t fun, and it isn’t fueled by any sort of clever compulsion. It’s just a strangely arduous exercise that feels increasingly frantic and arbitrary as it goes along.
  26. Coffee & Kareem
    Shane Mack’s screenplay is not without laughs, but it is certainly lacking in prudence.
  27. Universal Soldier
    In an equally damning commentary on the acting and Roland Emmerich’s direction, Lundgren and Van Damme are both more realistic as stoic cadavers than they are once their memories start to return.
  28. Contracted: Phase II
    The short running time means there’s nary a dull moment, but also that no new (or even old) ideas get explored in more than drive-by fashion, the occasion pause for gore aside.
  29. Camera Obscura
    “Camera” scores more points for an intriguing premise than for its execution, which grows more muddled conceptually as the horror elements grow more prominent. Still, this is an accomplished effort that holds full attention while you’re watching it, even if it leaves a few too many questions dangling at the end.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Inspector Clouseau
    Film is a lively, entertaining and episodic story of bank robbers. Good scripting, better acting and topnotch direction get the most out of the material.
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