The Associated Press' Scores

  • Movies
For 1,506 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 54% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 44% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 1.1 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 66
Highest review score: 100 Tootsie
Lowest review score: 0 The King's Daughter
Score distribution:
1506 movie reviews
  1. Book Club has a script that’s often so heavy on the corn — make that corn syrup — that it strains credulity and leaves you groaning. But then, darn it, suddenly it makes you tearful, with an unexpectedly genuine moment, or laugh out loud. It’s a credit to the cast, and the cast only.
  2. “Solo” is a straightforward piece of pulpy entertainment with some very agreeable performances from Ehrenreich and Glover, who seems to be having the most fun of all the actors in playing up Lando’s suave demeanor, and fun classic Western flourishes, despite the excessively big action sequences.
  3. Reynolds is once again at his arch and nihilist best here, while acting and jumping in so much facial prosthetics that it makes him look like he’s inside melted cheese — or, as the first movie put it, an avocado that had relations with an older avocado.
  4. Wandering aimlessly in the well-worn corridors of 1980s puerile frat flicks, Life of the Party wobbles to a predictable end and then sort of finishes without a bang.
  5. It’s not a bad idea and Union proves more than capable of nailing her Liam Neeson/Bruce Willis moment of save-your-family action stardom, but the movie has trouble sustaining interest even over its brisk 88 minutes.
  6. Productions of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull almost always tip too far into farce or wade too deeply into tragedy, unable to sustain the play’s elusive balancing act. Michael Mayer’s lush and lively big-screen adaption is unfortunately no exception.
  7. Not only do its two stars have zero chemistry with each other, but the story goes out of its way to over-explain and over-justify the preposterous premise, adding needless complications (like a whole side-plot about his family’s business) and motivations to make everyone more likable and empathetic.
  8. It lives in the unglamorous and sleepless postpartum haze of breast pumps and swaddles. But like “Poppins,” Tully is a fantasy of parenthood — a homely fairy tale about a haggard mother who’s feeling her younger, former self slip away.
  9. The Rachel Divide is a fascinating, comprehensive and well-crafted documentary.
  10. McAdams and Weisz are on fire in Disobedience showing sides to their talents that we’ve never seen before in this truly unique film. Disobedience might not look like it’s for everyone on the surface, but its specificity is what makes it worthy and, almost, great.
  11. It’s really the simple pleasure of seeing so many good actors together that makes “Infinity War” — an “Ocean’s Eleven” in hyper drive — work.
  12. The real problem with I Feel Pretty, written and directed by Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein, is not in its message or conception, but in its ragtag execution.
  13. Sudeikis, in particular, shines in this unusually dramatic role and exhibits a depth he touched on in films like “Sleeping with Other People” and “Colossal” but that he really gets to live in here.
  14. While Super Troopers 2...may be just enough to satiate any remaining die-hards, it’s not likely to convert many new moviegoers to their syrup-swilling, “meow”-ing ways.
  15. A hopelessly bland and bizarrely self-serious monster movie.
  16. It’s less Haigh’s mournful view of American society — one that, for sure, rarely finds American movie screens — that makes the heartfelt Lean on Pete stay with you. It’s Plummer’s wounded, achingly alone Charley, humbly striving across a darkening land, holding on desperately.
  17. Its examination of the cowboy masculinity that leads Brady and his peers to seek a life of thrills and danger only scratches the surface, but you’ll be surprised at how intoxicating and enveloping it is, right down to the on-the-nose metaphors.
  18. This fabulous, moody film isn’t your typical jock flick where bitter rivals compete to a crowning, sweaty end. There isn’t a real victor in Borg Vs. McEnroe and the points don’t prove anything. It’s less a tennis movie than a meditation on the personal costs of chasing excellence.
  19. The antic chemistry between Mann, Cena and Barinholtz is stellar. Together, they capture the panic, embarrassment and sentimentality of young-adult parenthood as they scramble after their kids, none of whom need saving.
  20. Ambiguous and damning at once, John Curran’s Chappaquiddick plunges us back into the summer of 1969: the season of Woodstock, the moon landing, the Manson murders and the lowest ebb of the Kennedy mythology.
  21. A Quiet Place may not have the weighty social meaning or piercing comedy of another recent high-profile horror thriller, “Get Out.” But like that movie it is smart, it moves fast, it has a hugely satisfying ending — and it deserves to attract a much broader audience than the usual horror film devotees.
  22. A fascinating and poignant look at the less-examined final years of the man’s life, timed for the 50th anniversary of his death.
  23. Glum and meandering, the Los Angeles-set mystery about a Hollywood starlet and her assistant starts off promising enough but trudges along aimlessly to a deeply silly and maddening end.
  24. Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One, a rollicking virtual-world geekfest flooded by ’80s ephemera, doesn’t just want to wade back into the past. It wants to race into it at full throttle. For those who get their fix through pop nostalgia, “Ready Player One” is — for better or worse — an indulgent, dizzying overdose.
  25. Unsane, a pulpy psychological thriller, is an exercise in both genre and technology. It’s a B-movie iMovie. And it’s 98 minutes of proof that the laborious apparatus of filmmaking can be not only light on its feet, but fit snuggly inside your pocket.
  26. That Anderson can still excitingly tell a new story within the structure of his unique visual language that we’ve gotten to know so well is just a testament to his incandescent genius. We don’t deserve Wes Anderson, but we should be eternally grateful he doesn’t seem to mind.
  27. It may not be nuanced, but it taps into something mythical — ferocious monsters rising from nowhere to be battled by 21st century swordfighters. And it’s exhilarating.
  28. The dog is, as ever, irresistibly winning.
  29. Love, Simon is a universal story, even if you’re not a gay teenager. The challenge of figuring out who we are and standing comfortably in that identity might begin in high school, but often lasts a lifetime.
  30. Tomb Raider is an often fun and visually compelling action pic, that is also sometimes unintentionally silly, with a great actress leading the whole thing.

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