Variety's Scores

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For 17,791 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: 9,139 out of 17791
  2. Mixed: 7,015 out of 17791
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17791
17791 movie reviews
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  1. Los Angeles Overnight
    Chrisoulakis and screenwriter Guy J. Jackson attempt a violent, moody neo-noir about Tinseltown fringe-dwellers, but their conceit is flimsy and under-realized, grafting a boilerplate heist story onto a bitter commentary about the corrupting forces of the film industry.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Once Upon a Time in America
    Once Upon a Time in America arrives as a disappointment of considerable proportions. Sprawling $32 million saga of Jewish gangsters over the decades is surprisingly deficient in clarity and purpose, as well as excitement and narrative involvement.
  3. Christopher Robin
    The movie basically ingratiates itself with kids by scolding adults for losing track of what’s important, and yet, both in the 1930s and today, a responsible father doesn’t really have the option of quitting his job.
    • 26 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Friday the 13th Part 2
    Horror fans will probably delight in seeing yet another group of sexy, teen camp counselors gruesomely executed by yet another unknown assailant, but the enthusiasm will dampen once they recognize too many of the same twists and turns used in the original.
  5. Our Blood Is Wine
    Oenophiles may swoon over the delicious native varietals that tease Quinn’s palate, but Railsback’s thin and disorganized documentary doesn’t go down so smoothly.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter
    Given, however, the consistent pro production value, the evisceration on parade is not campy.
  7. Unbroken: Path to Redemption
    It would be unfair, and not entirely accurate, to dismiss “Path to Redemption” as irredeemably dull and without merit.
  8. Duck Butter
    There’s dialogue, but very little interchange. The movie makes your average mumblecore mumblefest sound like Preston Sturges.
  9. Attack of the Southern Fried Zombies
    This genial but very silly gorefest looks like it was fun to make — practically the entire population of Charleston, Mississippi, seems to have pitched in. Still, horror fans will have to be in a generous, perhaps beered-up mood to feel the same way about watching it.
  10. Measure of a Man
    The conflicts come to no interesting fruition, and occasional comic flourishes (Bobby dancing to a “Soul Train” broadcast, vomiting after drinking alcohol) fall flat.
    • 21 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Mannequin
    Mannequin is as stiff and spiritless as its title suggests.
  12. Johnny English Strikes Again
    There are a minor handful of scenes in Johnny English Strikes Again that will make you laugh. A bit.
  13. Reality Bites
    The verite of this saga of Generation X is that it is no more fierce than a peck. "Reality Bites" begins as a promising and eccentric tale of contemporary youth but evolves into a banal love story as predictable as any lush Hollywood affair.
  14. Wanderland
    Real, inspired strangeness — not to mention laughs, and an actual point — prove elusive here, while the musical elements feel so inessential they might be excised entirely without notable loss. Wanderland deserves credit for trying something different. But such an effort shouldn’t end up so innocuous and inconsequential.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Leviathan
    It's a soggy recycling of gruesome monster attacks unleashed upon a crew of macho men and women confined within a far-flung scientific outpost.
  16. Feral
    This isn’t a dull film, but it lacks personality as well as originality.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Eraserhead
    Eraserhead is a sickening bad-taste exercise made by David Lynch under the auspices of the American Film Institute. Like a lot of AFI efforts, the pic has good tech values (particularly the inventive sound mixing), but little substance or subtlety.
    • Variety
  18. Here and Now
    This film barely scrapes the surface when it comes to conveying everything someone in Vivienne’s shoes might be feeling.
  19. Mapplethorpe
    To rob Mapplethorpe of his controversy is to strip the movie of its dramatic conflict. By doing so, the script (co-written with Mikko Alanne) reduces to a rather banal biopic, reenacting how a scrappy outsider achieved unconventional success.
  20. Ideal Home
    Ideal Home is a trifle, but more than that it’s caught between eras, poised between wanting to crack you up at what cranky prima donnas its characters are and to make you tear up at the revelation of their normal hearts. The result? A comedy of flamboyant banality.
    • 24 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Tarzan the Ape Man
    This endless romp through the jungle, lacking any focus, fun or excitement (sexual or otherwise), seems to exist merely as a reason for husband John to find another 1001 ways to photograph wife Bo in varying stages of undress.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Who's That Knocking at My Door?
    Zina Bethune, as the girl, is believable but Harvey Keitel, as the anti-hero, is alternatively boorish or bewildered. Scorsese occasionally brings the film to life.... Generally, however, his script and direction lack any dramatic value and give far too much exposure to sexual fantasies on the part of the boy.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Perfect
    Set in the world of journalism, pic is guilty of the sins it condemns - superficiality, manipulation and smugness.
  24. Girls of the Sun
    Clearly the director’s positive impressions from her research made her want to create something that would generate popular sympathy for the cause, but writing a glorified TV movie wasn’t the way to go.
  25. City of Lies
    The truth is out there, but when pot and kettle go to battle, Hollywood best be careful using the term City of Lies to describe anything other than itself.
  26. Pet Sematary
    The script ... is practically all plot, all the time, which is plenty efficient for those simply looking to be scared but a little anemic when it comes to making audiences care about these people
    • 48 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Less Than Zero
    Only Downey elicits the kind of sympathy to distinguish this drama from a photojournalist essay of the kind that might run in Vanity Fair. Of the secondary roles, James Spader as Downey’s pusher is terrifically smarmy. Unfortunately, this sick relationship doesn’t become involving until the last third of the film, when Downey really begins to fall apart and is forced into male whoring to pay his drug debts. Visually the picture is a treat.
  28. The Song of Sway Lake
    The Song of Sway Lake never finds a thematic center around which to pivot its action.
    • 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.
  30. Playmobil: The Movie
    An attempt to do for the smiling, claw-handed Playmobil collective what “The Lego Movie” did for the humble plastic brick — but without that blockbuster’s dizzy, self-aware wit and visual invention — Lino DiSalvo’s hyperactive film never transcends its blatant product-flogging purpose.
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