The A.V. Club's Scores

For 10,456 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 51% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 46% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 2.5 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 62
Highest review score: 100 Badlands
Lowest review score: 0 A Life Less Ordinary
Score distribution:
10456 movie reviews
  1. The result is an ill-defined set of scene premises that don’t cohere into something more than the sum of its parts and in fact, as it wears on, becomes less than those moments.
  2. Even the third-act pivot, which pushes Unidentified further into campy, confused daytime TV territory, can’t rouse an audience nodding off after a stakeless, thrill-free whodunnit. But it does help undermine whatever social message al-Mansour might’ve offered about the way women live and die in modern Saudi Arabia, without even tapping into the joyous tastelessness of some of its peers.
  3. Find Your Friends never figures out what it wants to be. It’s not engrossing enough to be a thriller, nor is it a riff on Spring Breakers sex-murder-rave culture, and its confusion is tinged with a distasteful flavor. Despite growing from one of Pakzad’s most vivid waking nightmares, the film is simply an aimlessly meandering road trip.
  4. Watching seasoned older comedians target the young for caring too much is bad enough, but seeing them miss even their softest targets makes Scary Movie the most embarrassing movie spoof since Scary Movie.
  5. While the romance here feels tenuous at best, the comedy is in even worse shape, often mistaking uncomfortable oversharing for punchlines. If this was meant to be a return to form for Lopez, it’s not a satisfying comeback.
  6. Navigating a turbulent undercurrent of mommy issues, Propeller One-Way Night Coach ends up more of a bumpy ride than an all-ages tribute to soaring the skies.
  7. The ensuing shenanigans parade a cast of slumming heavy-hitters (Fiona Shaw, Charles Dance) going through the motions of ancient “battle of the sexes” jokes.
  8. Jack Ryan: Ghost War [editor’s note: the full title of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Ghost War is way too long to keep repeating] is a straightforward spy movie without excitement or intrigue, like a training exercise to keep Krasinski busy. Even the franchise’s main distinguishing factor, its rah-rah patriotism, is no match for a few moments of product placement from the Saudi tourism board.
  9. It’s because Mortal Kombat II is neither campy enough to revel in its violent bad taste, nor earnest enough to pull off its sprawling ambitions that it most resembles a late-stage Marvel entry.
  10. The movie’s basic appeal––that of rebels rising up against evil empires––still works to some extent, but Desert Warrior does little to make it memorable beyond its historic production.
  11. Farrelly’s film wanders aimlessly without being driven by anything absurd or outrageous enough to conjure a Hangover-like reaction, nor anything with enough humanity to justify the occasional heart-to-heart conversations between Brad and Elijah.
  12. The life lessons Reef learns aren’t meaningful, and the movie’s message about making amends is patronizing. In the end, it’s the audience that deserves an apology.
  13. The resulting film is empty fan service, content with simply evoking appreciation for the characters that Williamson created 30 years ago instead of doing anything exciting with them.
  14. This silly, simplistic sci-fi journey means to be thought-provoking, but the irony of its banality is more recoiling than provocative.
  15. The Wrecking Crew casts about between genres like driftwood caught by the tide; for two hours, the script cycles between family trauma drama, goofy Hawaiian noir, meathead romp, and wham-bang slugfest. The indecision at least showcases some consistency, though, in that each approach is equally dissatisfying.
  16. Somewhere between a reboot and a remake, Return To Silent Hill is the worst film of the franchise so far, and a reminder that you can’t go home again—even if your home is the haunted hamlet of Silent Hill.
  17. The film is even less than the sum of its genre trappings.
  18. Its entire third act is just expectation for a third movie that hopefully never comes. It is a bare minimum branding experiment, a dumb thing designed to be recognized with the hope that enjoyment will simply follow.
  19. Beyond its desperate gestures towards better movies and its countless regifted plot points, Oh. What. Fun. does end up looking a lot like a familiar Christmas fixture: a garbage bag full of torn wrapping paper.
  20. Fraser walks through this aggressively sappy drama with the aura of simple goodness that has served him well. But such concentrated radiance starts to feel like a denial of the painful reality Rental Family ignores. The movie wants to give you a hug, but you may be tempted to slap it across the face.
  21. When people complain about the death of mainstream comedies, it’s bottomfeeding films like Playdate that are the genre’s executioner. No energy, no wit, just a tasteless and tacky sequence of events that barely manages to clear the bar for what’s still considered a movie.
  22. The Twits is exactly what one might imagine a Netflix Dahl adaptation to be: Diluted, simplistic animation, as cloying and feckless and smoothed over as anything from the last decade of Illumination films.
  23. The Conjuring: Last Rites solidifies The Conjuring franchise as the Fast & Furious of horror movies: A conservative, Christian, family-oriented, spin-off and sequel-laden series of adventures that lose the plot and reinvest in the audience’s affection for its familiar beats and cornball leads.
  24. Even when compared to the recent underwhelming crop of erotic thrillers, topped by the enjoyably escalating silliness of Deep Water, Pretty Thing is especially chaste, abstaining from both sexual titillation and the campy fallout that results from making a series of decisions driven solely by libido.
  25. Bride Hard aims for the goofy joy of a drunken bachelorette party, but is more like the morning-after hangover.
  26. Everything’s Going To Be Great tries to tackle ideas related to perceptions of success, acceptance, family, religion, love, homosexuality, and probably some other things thrown in there too. But there is no commitment to any of them.
  27. Fear Street: Prom Queen doesn’t merely fall flat dramatically, but dashes any opportunity for visual intrigue in terms of cinematography, costume design, and, most vitally, its on-screen carnage.
  28. If repetition is the only goal, Lilo & Stitch paints by the numbers. But the Disney Channel Original aesthetic and a handful of wrongheaded decisions make this film just the latest in a string of soulless, cut-rate copies.
  29. The movie is 105 minutes long and would feel stretched thin even if cut down to the cutscene bookends of a music video. It is a thing you can see, technically.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    Hartnett is the one element that makes the whole thing bearable. Yet he still isn’t enough to make it enjoyable, at least in any sustained way.

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