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Varsity Blues
Metascore
50 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 20 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5 out of 20
  2. Mixed: 13 out of 20
  3. Negative: 2 out of 20
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  1. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    75
    The movie is also brisk and wholehearted and smarter than you expect.
  2. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Stephen Holden
    70
    A paint-by-numbers story that offers no surprises and a hero and villain etched in white and black with few shades of gray.
  3. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Mike Musgrove
    70
    This flick has modest ambitions, but it delivers the goods in a fresh manner.
  4. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: John Petrakis
    63
    If you are willing to overlook the occasional missed block, clumsy tackle or dropped pass, there is more than enough in Varsity Blues to keep you engrossed.
  5. ReelViews
    Reviewed by: James Berardinelli
    63
    Unfortunately, Voight is not in every scene, and, when he's absent, Varsity Blues has a tendency to flounder, descending into the realm of formulaic sports movie melodrama.
  6. Rolling Stone
    Reviewed by: Peter Travers
    60
    Director Brian Robbins ("Good Burger") and screenwriter W. Peter Iliff ("Prayer of the Rollerboys") have wrapped their moral fable in a glossy package of hard football action and towel-slapping, hard-body fun that might seem exciting if you've never seen a movie before.
  7. Film.com
    Reviewed by: Tom Keogh
    60
    It is an ostensibly serious story about being young and struggling to wrest control over one's life from the hands of fools, yet it doesn't behave like a serious drama that wants to lead us anywhere.
    All this critic's reviews
  8. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: John Anderson
    60
    A trashy little movie about drinking, football and drinking, is also one of those films that pretends to moralize about the very behavior it milks for every giggle it can get.
  9. New Times (L.A.)
    Reviewed by: M.V. Moorhead
    60
    Originally, somebody may have wanted the film to be a serious exploration of the dark side of high school sports, but it ended up as just one more sports picture.
  10. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Lisa Alspector
    60
    Its depiction of teenage behavior appears calculated to seem irreverent while satisfying expectations.
  11. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    50
    A movie that doesn't buy into all the tenets of our national sports religion; the subtext is that winning isn't everything.
  12. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Mick LaSalle
    50
    We are aware going in that Varsity Blues' cannot be a landmark of world cinema. Yet working within the tired formula, the picture turns out to be not so bad.
  13. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Sandra Contreras
    50
    This coming-of-age drama scores big points for trying to honestly tell a story rather than just pass the time.
  14. Film Threat
    Reviewed by: Ron Wells
    50
    It is not quite as stupid as it looks. I'm not saying it ISN'T dumb, though, just not as bad as I think even the studio thought.
  15. Film.com
    Reviewed by: Robert Horton
    50
    Eventually fizzles out badly.
    All this critic's reviews
  16. Newsweek
    Reviewed by: Ted Gideonse
    50
    A flat, cliched film in a flat, cliched genre.
  17. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marc Savlov
    40
    Its vague stabs at moralizing and goofball shenanigans are an odd mix. It's not the high school experience I had, nor is it probably like yours.
  18. Variety
    Reviewed by: Joe Leydon
    40
    An unappetizing mix of raucously vulgar comedy and teen-angst melodrama.
  19. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: David Sterritt
    25
    The story is mildly entertaining in its hackneyed way, but there's no excusing the picture's exploitative treatment of almost all the female characters.
  20. San Francisco Examiner
    Reviewed by: Craig Marine
    25
    Half-comedy, half-coming-of-age movie with another half or so of sports film and maybe another quarter of soundtrack that adds up to 175 percent of a bad movie.
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