Variety's Scores

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For 17,779 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: 9,134 out of 17779
  2. Mixed: 7,009 out of 17779
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17779
17779 movie reviews
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  1. Kangaroo Jack
    For auds unwilling or unable to grapple with the subtle nuances of "Scooby Doo," Warners now gives us Kangaroo Jack, a shrill and silly farce.
  2. Formula 51
    There's an appalling amount of talent at waste up on the screen, starting with Jackson and Carlyle whose tall/short, silent/motormouth double act never clicks.
  3. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
    Johnny Depp's impersonation of the Thompson figure is effective up to a point, but it's hard to imagine any segment of the public embracing this off-putting, unrewarding slog through the depths of the drug culture.
    • 17 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Hudson Hawk
    A relentlessly annoying clay duck that crash-lands in a sea of wretched excess and silliness.
  5. Mr. Deeds
    A perfectly dreadful film.
  6. Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000
    Yet the overall look, though derivative ("The Matrix," "Blade Runner," "Waterworld," etc.), rates as Battlefield's one non-guilty pleasure.
  7. Out Cold
    A few minutes of good snowboarding footage -- all in the first reel, alas -- after which it's strictly downhill, bunny-slope style.
  8. John Q
    A shamelessly manipulative commercial on behalf of national health insurance.
  9. Friday After Next
    Surely one of the most frantic, virulent and foul-natured Christmas season pic ever delivered by a Hollywood studio.
  10. How the Grinch Stole Christmas
    Shrill, strenuous and entirely without charm, Ron Howard's attempt at a Christmas classic is an elaborately wrapped empty box that will fool many people into buying it but will not greatly please its recipients.
  11. MVP: Most Valuable Primate
    A lark gone utterly awry.
  12. The Chronicles of Riddick
    May not quite gain entry to the hallowed pantheon of interstellar cheese of a "Battlefield Earth," but it's not far behind.
  13. Say It Isn't So
    Even dumb farce has to be built on logic, but that crumbles in the face of a set of tired routines playing off of stock types.
  14. Surviving Christmas
    An almost mirth-free, poorly conceived comedy destined to offer Ben Affleck bashers satchels full of new ammunition.
  15. Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2
    Falls short on nearly every level, from production values to an inexplicable cameo by Whoopi Goldberg.
  16. Spawn
    Spawn is a moodily malevolent, anything-goes revenge fantasy that relies more upon special visual and digitally animated effects for its intended appeal than any comics-derived sci-fier to date.
  17. Schizopolis
    Some of the filmmaker's keen intelligence remains on display, but only in fractured and often obscure form, and pic overall gives the impression of a giant expurgation of negative feelings about things in general rather than a carefully articulated brief on recognizable subjects.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    White Nights
    Pic shies away from the world of classical dance, personified by leading man Mikhail Baryshnikov, in favor of Gregory Hines' 'improvography' and assorted modern stuff in blatant music video contexts.
    • 24 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Staying Alive
    The bottom line is that Staying Alive is nowhere as good as its 1977 predecessor, "Saturday Night Fever."
  20. Southie
    Bottom-drawer plot of a South Boston bad boy returning to tie up loose ends reads like every other "Mean Streets" knockoff in the past decade, with no scene, development or performance standing out from undifferentiated din.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Look Who's Talking
    Like a standup comic pouring 'flopsweat', this ill-conceived comedy about an infant whose thoughts are given voice by actor Bruce Willis palpitates with desperation.
  22. Swing Kids
    Apart from its appealing young cast and period score, it has precious little to entice audiences into movie theaters.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Spaceballs
    Mel Brooks will do anything for a laugh. Unfortunately, what he does in Spaceballs, a misguided parody of the Star Wars adventures, isn't very funny.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Wall Street
    Watching Oliver Stone's Wall Street is about as wordy and dreary as reading the financial papers accounts of the rise and fall of an Ivan Boesky-type arbitrageur.
  25. All Access: Front Row. Backstage. Live!
    Will greatly peeve many hardcore fans.
  26. Astoria
    A muted coming-of-age piece that more often reflects rusty movie conventions than it freshly observes real-life struggles.
  27. Tattoo Bar
    Simple tale is made unnecessarily complex by script's desire to give everything a metaphysical flavor, characters are across-the-board disagreeable and portentous art-school atmospherics are barely redeemed by occasionally good dialogue and a strong visual sense.
  28. Mail Order Bride
    Dismally unfunny cross-cultural farce posits stupidity as the universal language.
  29. Trouble Every Day
    Over-long, under-written and needlessly obscure instead of genuinely atmospheric.
  30. Games People Play: New York
    This artless, unpolished venture adds a heavy sex-and-skin factor to a poorly defined game show, lurching awkwardly between exploitative voyeurism, maudlin confessions and self-consciously risque titillation.
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