A.A. Dowd

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IGN, The A.V. Club
For 852 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 49% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 48% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 0.8 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

A.A. Dowd 's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 66
Highest review score: 100 The Long Day Closes
Lowest review score: 16 Replicas
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 528 out of 852
  2. Mixed: 278 out of 852
  3. Negative: 46 out of 852
852 movie reviews
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    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 A.A. Dowd
    Spider-Man: No Way Home
    Suffice to say, No Way Home hits its hoot-and-holler beats about as skillfully as Endgame did. There are moments here that will probably inspire comparable choruses of applause; by opening a wormhole into the multiverse of past Spider-Man movies, Marvel and Sony have made something like an all-purpose Spider-Man sequel, shrewdly designed to hit a whole range of nostalgia centers.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 75 A.A. Dowd
    The Birth of a Nation
    Nate Parker’s film on Nat Turner, imperfect though it is, deserves to be seen.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 75 A.A. Dowd
    You're Next
    Written by Simon Barrett, another purveyor of micro-budget carnage, You’re Next boasts a sometimes-uneasy blend of comedy and horror.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 75 A.A. Dowd
    The Spectacular Now
    If Ponsoldt can step beyond the 12 steps, he might make something truly spectacular.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 75 A.A. Dowd
    Soul
    It’s overflowing, like a bright portal into a new reality, with gorgeous details. So what if they don’t quite add up to a deeper whole?
    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 A.A. Dowd
    The Club
    This is no sympathetic drama of absolution, no portrait of forgiveness sought by sinners. Larraín is after something trickier and harder to pin down; he asks us to share real estate with these men, while offering few windows into their heads or hearts, or even a clarification of their crimes.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 75 A.A. Dowd
    BPM (Beats Per Minute)
    It’s a gripping portrait of boots-on-the-ground activism, at least so long as it keeps the focus squarely trained on the actual activism.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 75 A.A. Dowd
    Deerskin
    Deerskin is more of a twisted lark than anything else, but it hits on something meaningful—a first for a director who’s shown almost no prior interest in reality, even within a film called Reality.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 75 A.A. Dowd
    Entertainment
    It’s a portrait of the comedy tour as odyssey of madness, a plummet into the abyss.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 75 A.A. Dowd
    The Tribe
    One reason that The Tribe “works” is that it presents a story so simple and familiar, so cliché even, that one doesn’t need to understand what the actors are saying to follow along.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 75 A.A. Dowd
    Under the Shadow
    There’s still something exciting about seeing familiar tropes placed in an unfamiliar context — in this case, a nation ravaged by violent conflict and stifled by fundamentalist law.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 75 A.A. Dowd
    Pacific Rim
    Yet for all its expensive grandeur, almost too epic even for the vast canvases of IMAX, Pacific Rim is unmistakably a Del Toro creation.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 75 A.A. Dowd
    Madeline's Madeline
    Madeline’s Madeline, the third feature from writer-director Josephine Decker, is a self-devouring thing: a movie about artistic process that doubles as a document of—and even a commentary on—its own artistic process.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 A.A. Dowd
    Double Lover
    The film is as campy and nearly as regressive as the E.L. James adaptations it consistently out-kinks, except that it’s been made with a slumming Hitchcockian verve that enhances, rather than apologizes for, the proud disreputability of the material.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 A.A. Dowd
    Together Together
    It’s an ode to the way that even impermanent relationships can be profoundly meaningful.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 75 A.A. Dowd
    Knight of Cups
    Malick’s tricks may be aging, but every world still looks new through his eyes.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 75 A.A. Dowd
    The Neon Demon
    Style doesn’t triumph over substance in The Neon Demon. It devours it.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 75 A.A. Dowd
    Army of the Dead
    In a way, this B-movie on an A budget gets closer to the values of George Romero, the godfather of zombie cinema, than Snyder’s actual, hyper-adrenalized remake of Romero’s masterpiece.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 75 A.A. Dowd
    Happy as Lazzaro
    Though gently outraged in its portrait of class divisions, Happy As Lazzaro mostly takes its tonal cues from the eponymous character’s comically gentle, trusting nature.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 75 A.A. Dowd
    Swiss Army Man
    The easy elevator pitch on Swiss Army Man is that it’s "Cast Away" meets "Weekend At Bernie’s." Weird as that movie may sound, it’s not nearly as weird as the one actually cooked up by “Daniels,” a.k.a. Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, the branded directing duo making its feature-length debut.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 75 A.A. Dowd
    The Eyes of My Mother
    The Eyes Of My Mother is a grotesque, depraved genre movie with the skin of an art film pulled tightly over its bones. If Ingmar Bergman had helmed "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre," it might look something like this exquisite nightmare.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 75 A.A. Dowd
    Before We Vanish
    It’s minor pleasures from a major talent: B-movie fun in the key of Kurosawa.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 A.A. Dowd
    Spider-Man: Homecoming
    Much of the film’s infectiously youthful spirit comes courtesy of its star. At 21, Tom Holland is only a hair younger than Toby Maguire was when he first donned the tights.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 75 A.A. Dowd
    Custody
    Custody doesn’t do much more than plunge the audience into this hellish situation, but it shrewdly understands the bad dad’s pathetic pathology, and the film may resonate for anyone who’s grown up under the unhealthy supervision of a mean bastard. Take that as a sobering recommendation.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 A.A. Dowd
    Brad's Status
    Intentionally exasperating.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 75 A.A. Dowd
    The Discovery
    At the very least, its central mystery keeps you guessing, right up until a final turn that’s nearly as clever as it is convoluted.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 75 A.A. Dowd
    The Good Dinosaur
    Perhaps more than ever before, the animators do the heavy lifting: Every detail, from the gentle bob of a beast's breathing to the fluid shifts of Spot's facial expressions, has been lovingly rendered.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 75 A.A. Dowd
    Thor: Ragnarok
    Thor: Ragnarok, with its jabs of reportedly improvised banter, isn’t really an action movie. It’s a round-robin buddy comedy, mismatching Hemsworth’s amiable lug to characters old and new.
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