Variety's Scores

For 17,765 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:
17765 movie reviews
  1. Builds and sustains considerable interest through its unexpected characterizations, unusual milieu and atmospheric style.
  2. Brings nothing new to the table, and spends far too long making the audience think it will.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Lacks the suspense, characterization and deft direction of the predecessor "Rififi."
  3. Largely listless and witless, this extensive reworking of the 1968 sci-fi favorite simply isn't very exciting or imaginative; most surprisingly, given the material, it's also Burton's most conventional and literal-minded film, the one most lacking in his trademark poetic weirdness and bracing flights of fancy.
  4. The three principal actors fit their roles like gloves, and the handsome camerawork (by Liao Peng-jung) is a major asset. There's no music, just natural sounds on the track. Except for a shot in which the microphone boom is clearly visible, the film is highly professional in every aspect.
  5. Nearly half over before it finds a consistent groove, let alone a decent hit-to-miss joke ratio.
  6. A candidate for quiet cult status.
  7. A funny, touching, off-the-wall relationer that's one of the freshest helming debuts in world cinema this year.
  8. Begins as a smartly promising, gently farcical comedy of manners and ends as sourly and haphazardly as the lives it is poking fun at.
  9. The mix feels flat and the story remains a fairly banal account of underworld exploits whose emotional gears never fully engage.
  10. Despite some imaginative packaging too often proves a drag in more than the sartorial sense. Taking Mitchell's sketchy book far too seriously, the movie grows leaden between its terrific songs.
  11. By sharp turns poignant, disturbing and hysterically funny.
  12. Game ride that makes the two previous installments look like models of classic filmmaking.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Extraordinary real-life snapshot of hip, arty, clubland Manhattan in the post-punk era.
  13. Fitfully amusing and two leads generate engaging chemistry.
  14. The mildly engaging silliness of its premise is never transformed into something more substantial, and the attempt at a fine-tuned "Clueless"-like tone is only sputteringly achieved.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    A gem-like, almost hypnotic, tale of an older man's obsession with a young woman.
  15. By turns turgid, embarrassing and plain off-putting.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Meticulously detailed thriller.
  16. Dramatically naive at times, but still represents a refreshingly ambitious, imaginative film in a period of creative underachievement for African cinema.
  17. As computer game-derived features go, it sure beats "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider."
  18. Building blocks of tale are not new, but there's an appealingly rough-hewn and convincing tone to the proceedings.
  19. Slick, straight-ahead action-thriller that marks a small step back and two bounding leaps forward for toplined Jet Li.
  20. All the dramatic stops are pulled out as the script goes into serious literary overload.
  21. Hopkins delivers a genuinely charming example through the generosity and affection with which he treats his characters, a racially and culturally mixed bunch that could have seemed schematic and forced.
  22. This comically intended battle of the species is family entertainment for families that will buy anything.
  23. Technically and comedically strained by the demands of its special effects-filled haunted house setting. Worse, the need to top the first pic's outlandish stunts is ghoulishly unfulfilled and terribly ironic.
  24. A clever premise that's good for many laughs.
  25. Never quite dull, neither does it ever find a viable rhythm, narrative arc or crux of emotional engagement.
  26. Adequately entertaining but not particularly memorable.

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