Every review on this site ends in a number out of 100. That number is not an average of sub-scores and it is not a measurement. It is one reading, written down, so that two reviews can be compared without re-reading both.
The scale
A score answers one question: how much of what this work was trying to do did it actually pull off? A film with small ambitions that lands all of them can outscore a film with enormous ambitions that lands most of them. The scale runs across the whole range, so a middling number means middling, not bad.
| Band | Colour | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| 85–100 | Green | Does something I will still be thinking about later. |
| 70–84 | Amber | Works. Worth your time, with reservations I will name. |
| 0–69 | Red | Falls short of what it set out to do. |
The colours are the same three you see on the badge next to every score, so a number and a colour always agree.
What the number is not
It is not a recommendation for everyone. A 72 you love is worth more of your evening than a 91 you bounce off, and the review text is where that lives. It is not comparable across media either: a 90 album and a 90 film are two separate scales that happen to share a range.
It also does not move. A score is a record of what a work was to me at the time I wrote it, so it stays put even when I change my mind. If that happens, the review says so rather than the number quietly changing.
Spoilers
Films get up to two reviews. The spoiler-free one is the default and never gives away anything the trailer did not. The spoiler review is a separate note, marked as such, and the two link to each other. Where only a spoiler review exists, the page says so before the first paragraph.