Variety's Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Shag
    As a dance flick, Shag suffers from an unexciting dance-style and so-so choreography but compensates with a fine young cast and likable story.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Licence to Kill
    The James Bond production team has found its second wind with Licence to Kill, a cocktail of high-octane action, spectacle and drama...The thrills-and-spills chases are superbly orchestrated as pic spins at breakneck speed through its South Florida and Central American locations.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    When Harry Met Sally...
    Rob Reiner directs with deftness and sincerity, making the material seem more engaging than it is, at least until the plot machanics begin to unwind and the film starts to seem shapeless.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lethal Weapon 2
    Loaded with the usual elements, Lethal Weapon 2 benefits from a consistency of tone that was lacking in the first film. This time, screenwriter Jeffrey Boam and director Richard Donner have wisely trained their sights on humor and the considerable charm of Mel Gibson and Danny Glover's onscreen rapport.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Do the Right Thing
    Combines a forceful statement on race relations with solid entertainment values.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Twister
    Appealing for its ambition to achieve a unique tone and for its wildly disparate cast, pic never entirely comes together.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    The Karate Kid Part III
    The makers of The Karate Kid Part III - also responsible for its successful predecessors - have either delivered or taken a few too many kicks to the head along the way, resulting in a particularly dimwitted film that will likely spell the death of the series.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Great Balls of Fire!
    It's a thin, cartoonish treatment of the hellbent, musically energetic young Jerry Lee Lewis.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Batman
    Nicholson embellishes fascinatingly baroque designs with his twisted features, lavish verbal pirouettes and inspired excursions into the outer limits of psychosis. It's a masterpiece of sinister comic acting.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Honey, I Shrunk the Kids
    Pic [story by Stuart Gordon, Brian Yuzna and Ed Naha] is in the best tradition of Disney and even better than that because it is not so juvenile that adults won’t be thoroughly entertained.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Dead Poets Society
    Sings whenever Williams is onscreen.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ghostbusters II
    Ghostbusters II is babyboomer silliness. Kids will find the oozing slime and ghastly, ghostly apparitions to their liking and adults will enjoy the preposterously clever dialog.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
    Even die-hard Trekkies may be disappointed by Star Trek V. Coming after Leonard Nimoy's delightful directorial outing on Star Trek IV, William Shatner's inauspicious feature directing debut is a double letdown.
    • Variety
    • 30 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Vampire's Kiss
    Cage's over-the-top performance generates little sympathy for the character, so it's tough to be interested in him as his personality disorder worsens.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Renegades
    Renegades offers some rollercoaster thrills thanks to Jack Sholder's full-throttle direction but ultimately exhausts itself with unrelenting bedlam.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
    The Harrison Ford-Sean Connery father-and-son team gives Last Crusade unexpected emotional depth, reminding us that real film magic is not in special effects.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Road House
    With Road House, United Artists hotwires Patrick Swayze a star vehicle shackled by a couple of flat tires in the script department. Ill-conceived and unevenly executed, pic essentially is a Western - a loner comes in to clean up a bar, of all things, and ends up washing and drying the whole town - but its vigilante justice, lawlessness and wanton violence feel ludicrous in a modern setting.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    See No Evil, Hear No Evil
    With Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder in the lead roles, See No Evil, Hear No Evil could only be a broadly played, occasionally crass, funny physical comedy .
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Rachel Papers
    The basic material is as old as the hills, but Martin Amis, who wrote the original novel some 15 years earlier, explored it in fresh directions.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Earth Girls Are Easy
    Earth Girls Are Easy is a dizzy, glitzy fish-out-of-water farce about three horny aliens on the make in LA. The two val-gals and their alien ‘dates’ take off for a weekend of LA nightlife, where the visitors’ smooth adaptation to Coast culture is intended by director Julian Temple and his screenwriters to affectionately skewer Tinseltown lifestyles.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Return of Swamp Thing
    The Return of Swamp Thing is scientific hokum without the fun. Second attempt to film the DC Comics character will disappoint all but the youngest critters.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    How to Get Ahead in Advertising
    The picture would be genuinely hilarious were the subject matter not so overworked.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    K-9
    There are a few amazing moments (the dog’s rescue of Belushi in a bar). In between lingers lots of standard action-pic fare, plenty of toothless jokes and some down-right mangy dialog.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Miss Firecracker
    Putting the show over with a bang is Hunter, the epitome of energy in a tailormade feisty role. She very accurately judges the line between high and low camp in her climactic tapdance for the talent contest, entertaining but just klutzy enough to be authentic.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Field of Dreams
    In spite of a script hobbled with cloying aphorisms and shameless sentimentality, Field of Dreams sustains a dreamy mood in which the idea of baseball is distilled to its purest essence.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Pet Sematary
    Pet Sematary marks the first time Stephen King has adapted his own book for the screen, and the result is undead schlock dulled by a slasher-film mentality – squandering its chilling and fertile source material.
    • 20 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    She's Out of Control
    Somewhere lurking behind the scenes of She's Out of Control is the germ of a good idea. Despite some funny scenes, the sitcomish treatment of a father's anxiety over his teenage daughter's budding sexuality is mostly shallow and uneven.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Major League
    Major League lacks the subtlety of Bull Durham or the drama of Eight Men Out, but for sheer crowd-pleasing fun it belts one high into the left-field bleachers...Though the plot turns are mostly predictable, they are executed with wit and style.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Dead Calm
    Though not always entirely credible, Dead Calm is a nail-biting suspense pic handsomely produced and inventively directed.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Dream Team
    The Dream Team is a hokey comedy that basically reduces mental illness to a grab bag of quirky schtick. Yet with a quartet of gifted comic actors having a field day playing loonies on the loose in Manhattan, much of that schtick is awfully funny.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »