Variety's Scores

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For 17,760 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: 9,121 out of 17760
  2. Mixed: 7,003 out of 17760
  3. Negative: 1,636 out of 17760
17760 movie reviews
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    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence
    The weakest point is its construction, sturdy and compact up to the point when it has to use flashbacks in order to explain the British side of the allegory.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Fire and Ice
    Ralph Bakshi's newest animation feature is interesting for two special reasons: (1) the production represents a clear design on Bakshi's part to capture a wider and younger audience and (2) the animation marks the film debut of America's leading exponent of heroic fantasy art, Frank Frazetta, who coproduced.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Mr. Mom
    Garr, as always, is a delight to watch though it would be nice to see her in a role where she wasn't someone's wife or mother. Still, her inspired double takes continue to say more than pages of dialogue while her keen timing helps somewhat in the more beleaguered scenes.
    • Variety
    • 57 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Cujo
    Although well-made, this screen adaptation of Stephen King's Cujo emerges as a dull, uneventful entry in the horror genre. Novel about a mad dog on the rampage occupies a low place in the King canon, which is understandable if the film's stupefying predictability is an accurate reflection of the book.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Curse of the Pink Panther
    Curse of the Pink Panther resembles a set of gems mounted in a tarnished setting. Abetted by screen newcomer Ted Wass’ flair for physical comedy, filmmaker Blake Edwards has created genuinely funny sight gags but the film’s rickety, old-hat story values waste them.
    • 4 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Smokey and the Bandit Part 3
    Filmmakers, including first-time theatrical director Dick Lowry, have wisely returned to the non-stop car-chasing destruction derby of the first movie. But the sense of fun in that original is missing and the countless smashups and near-misses are orchestrated randomly.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Risky Business
    Risky Business is like a promising first novel, with all the pros and cons that come with that territory.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Star Chamber
    Getting to this point in the film, there’s a pleasure in rediscovering intelligent dialog, ably provided by Hyams and Roderick Taylor. But the talk is haunted by concern that this intellectual morass cannot be solved within the confines of cinema.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    National Lampoon's Vacation
    National Lampoon’s Vacation is an enjoyable trip through familiar comedy landscapes.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Krull
    Professionalism of director Peter Yates, the large array of production and technical talents and, particularly, the mainly British actors keep things from becoming genuinely dull or laughable.
    • 27 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Jaws 3-D
    The Jaws cycle has reached its nadir with this surprisingly tepid [Arrivision] 3-D version.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Class
    McCarthy and Rob Lowe (as his roommate) carry most of the picture, and both acquit themselves reasonably well under the circumstances.
    • 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."
    • 38 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Porky's II: The Next Day
    Everyone who saw it remembers ‘that scene’ from the original. Here, some of the boys get back at Balbricker by sending a snake up into her toilet.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Superman III
    Superman III emerges as a surprisingly soft-cored disappointment. Putting its emphasis on broad comedy at the expense of ingenious plotting and technical wizardry, it has virtually none of the mythic or cosmic sensibility that marked its predecessors.
    • Variety
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Octopussy
    Film’s high points are the spectaccular aerial stuntwork marking both the pre-credits teaser and extremely dangerous-looking climax.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Trading Places
    Trading Places is a light romp geared up by the schtick shifted by Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Man with Two Brains
    The Man with Two Brains is a fitfully amusing return by Steve Martin to the broad brand of lunacy that made his first feature, "The Jerk" [1979], so successful.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    WarGames
    Although the script has more than its share of short circuits, director John Badham solders the pieces into a terrifically exciting story charged by an irresistible idea: an extra-smart kid can get the world into a whole lot of trouble that it also takes the same extra-smart kid to rescue it from.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Psycho II
    Psycho II is an impressive, 23-years-after followup to Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 suspense classic. Director Richard Franklin deftly keeps the suspense and tension on high while dolling out dozens of shock-of-recognitions shots drawn from the audience’s familiarity with Psycho.
    • 30 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Chained Heat
    A silly, almost campy follow-up to producer Billy Fine's women's prison hit, The Concrete Jungle, that manages to pack in enough sex tease and violent action to satisfy undiscriminating action fans.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi
    Hamill is not enough of a dramatic actor to carry the plot load here, especially when his partner in so many scenes is really little more than an oversized gas pump, even if splendidly voiced by James Earl Jones.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Blue Thunder
    Blue Thunder is a ripsnorting live-action cartoon, utterly implausible but no less enjoyable for that.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Breathless
    A suitably jazzy, sexy, entertainment.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Valley Girl
    Valley is very good simply because director Martha Coolidge obviously cares about her two lead characters and is privileged to have a couple of fine young performers, Nicolas Cage and Deborah Foreman, to make the audience care.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Hunger
    The Hunger [from the novel by Whitley Strieber] is all visual and aural flash, although this modern vampire story looks so great, as do its three principal performers, and is so bizarre that it possesses a certain perverse appeal.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Something Wicked This Way Comes
    Film version of Ray Bradbury's popular novel Something Wicked This Way Comes must be chalked up as something of a disappointment. Possibilities for a dark, child's view fantasy set in rural America of yore are visible throughout the $20 million production but various elements have not entirely congealed into a unified achievement.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Koyaanisqatsi
    Koyaanisqatsi is at first awe-inspiring with its sweeping aerial wilderness photography. It becomes depressing when the phone lines, factories, and nuke plants spring up. The pic then runs the risk of boring audiences with shot after glossy shot of man’s commercial hack job on the land and his resulting misery.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Evil Dead
    While injecting considerable black humor, neophyte Detroit-based writer-director Sam Raimi maintains suspense and a nightmarish mood in between the showy outbursts of special effects gore and graphic violence which are staples of modern horror pictures.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Flashdance
    Watching Flashdance is pretty much like looking at MTV for 96 minutes. Virtually plotless, exceedingly thin on characterization and sociologically laughable, pic at least lives up to its title by offering an anthology of extraordinarily flashy dance numbers.
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