Variety's Scores

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For 17,794 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: 9,142 out of 17794
  2. Mixed: 7,015 out of 17794
  3. Negative: 1,637 out of 17794
17794 movie reviews
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  1. The Order of Myths
    Order of Myths looks good, and its characters are memorable. It's important to know that the "traditions" extolled by both sides of Mobile involve keeping people apart. But it's not clear at all that Brown is bringing them together.
  2. American Teen
    Undeniably entertaining for its zippy presentation.
  3. Canary
    Shiota piles tons of symbolic baggage on his pint-size protagonists, who luckily rise to the challenge.
  4. CSNY/Déjà Vu
    Making music, making fun of themselves and making as much political hay as possible, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young set out to alleviate the public allergy to Iraq War films with CSNY Deja Vu, a doc that seems quite likely to effect a cure.
  5. Boy A
    Picture inspires respect for its first-rate performances, artful construction and meticulous understatement.
  6. Two Tickets to Paradise
    Utterly drab and desperate for laughs.
  7. The Dark Knight
    Enthralling...An ambitious, full-bodied crime epic of gratifying scope and moral complexity, this is seriously brainy pop entertainment that satisfies every expectation raised by its hit predecessor and then some.
  8. Mamma Mia!
    Scribe-creator Catherine Johnson (also in her first screen outing) and theater-opera vet Lloyd can't seem to find the right tone or style for their globally celebrated material.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Space Chimps
    Enjoyably slim family entertainment.
  10. A Very British Gangster
    Noonan talks too much, preens too much and simply loves the camera. And the bald, bullish, real-life mobster will likely place MacIntyre's movie among the more commercial nonfiction films of the year.
  11. Felon
    Stephen Dorff's powerhouse perf as an ordinary Joe trapped behind bars with warring ethnic psychopaths propels Felon well ahead of its expose/exploitation brethren while still avoiding the pious learning curves of Frank Darabont's prestige prison dramas.
  12. Berlin
    Less groundbreaking video experimentation than extraordinary concert experience, Lou Reed's Berlin expertly fulfills its function.
  13. Transsiberian
    An engagingly up-to-date melodrama steeped in local color and steered by a treacherous sense of morality.
  14. Before I Forget
    If you've pondered how to order a round of fellatio as one orders a pizza or wondered what gay gentlemen of a certain age talk about, this touching glimpse of faded beauty and looming decrepitude fits the bill.
  15. Mad Detective
    A neat idea that doesn't quite hit the bull's-eye.
  16. Hellboy II: The Golden Army
    Not to disparage the f/x guys, but what's onscreen in Hellboy II is all about the seismic eruptions in del Toro's head. Comparing his work to most fantasy cinema is like comparing cave drawings to the Cathedral of Cologne.
  17. Journey to the Center of the Earth
    A more unavoidable obstacle here is that there's not much in the way of plot -- the story is in the tour through the labyrinthian intimacies of inner Earth. As such, it's an f/x wizard's dream, and Brevig makes the most of it.
  18. Meet Dave
    Aimed squarely at the same family audiences that flocked to Murphy's "Doctor Dolittle" comedies, this is a lightly amusing and surprisingly sweet Fox release.
  19. Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired
    A mesmerizing portrait of the director as acclaimed artist and tortured human being.
  20. August
    This middling drama has no glaring faults, but simply lacks the intended urgency.
  21. Das wilde Leben
    One long tease -- not in a voyeuristic sense, since its heroine, as nakedly incarnated by pouty Polish sexpot Natalia Avelon, hides none of her obvious talents under a bushel.
  22. Garden Party
    Isn't racy enough to warrant the word of mouth necessary to make pic a sensation with its generation, the way the unrelated disaffected-twentysomething hit "Garden State" was.
  23. Death Defying Acts
    A handsome contraption that's never very engaging, let alone convincing.
  24. The Stone Angel
    Prolific helmer Kari Skogland draws a fiery performance from vet Burstyn and a beguiling one from Christine Horne as the young Hagar. Yet the book's sheer "Giant"-like scope necessitates generational cross-cutting that's both rushed and cluttered; pic would have have been better served as a more leisurely miniseries.
  25. Harold
    A terminally lame puberty comedy.
  26. Full Battle Rattle
    A so-so pic on an incendiary subject, Full Battle Rattle follows the training regimen of one battalion during engagement and occupation in one of 13 fake "villages" comprising a massive Iraq simulation somewhere in the Mojave Desert.
  27. Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
    Subject's career being inextricably tied to two extremely entertaining U.S. decades, Gonzo has a wealth of delightful archival footage to draw on, both directly involving Thompson and evoking the cultural landscape around him.
  28. Holding Trevor
    Sometimes succeeds, but mostly comes off as a vanity project for writer-star Brent Gorski.
  29. Kabluey
    Kabluey is short on the cutes and ca-ca jokes. But it's also short on substance, despite a watchable supporting cast and an amiable overall tenor.
  30. Diminished Capacity
    A God's little acre's worth of premeditated eccentricity runs through Diminished Capacity, a triumphant losers-in-Cornville comedy starring Matthew Broderick in a role he might have phoned in, and Alan Alda as a combination Jed Clampett and Raymond Babbitt.
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