50
Metascore
Mixed or Average
positive
5(25%)
mixed
13(65%)
negative
2(10%)
Showing 20 Critic Reviews
75
The movie is also brisk and wholehearted and smarter than you expect.
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.
70
This flick has modest ambitions, but it delivers the goods in a fresh manner.
By Mike Musgrove
FULL REVIEW 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
60
Its depiction of teenage behavior appears calculated to seem irreverent while satisfying expectations.
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.
