The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,419 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:
  1. Positive: 5,574 out of 10419
  2. Mixed: 3,737 out of 10419
  3. Negative: 1,108 out of 10419
10419 movie reviews
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  1. Casa de los babys
    It's a bit more than the film can handle without leaving loose ends dangling, and though it's never preachy, Sayles' political message-sending sometimes comes across too clearly for its own good. He makes valid points, though, particularly when he lets his storytelling do the work for him.
  2. The Fast and the Furious
    Better equipped to deal with the workings of nitro-injection systems than human emotions, director Rob Cohen's film grows less assured the more time it spends with its characters, particularly through its dull middle section. It does earn points for trying, however, and while Walker is a cipher, Diesel has enough personality for both of them.
  3. How Stella Got Her Groove Back
    A glossy, attractive, ultimately empty soap opera that -- despite being based on a true story -- never seems remotely plausible.
  4. The General's Daughter
    The General's Daughter isn't a poorly made or acted film, but it's so shallow, hypocritical, and sleazy that it's difficult not to find it repulsive.
  5. Tying the Knot
    Tying The Knot's central point remains insistently stated. It would be hard for anyone to watch it and still think of the demand for same-sex marriage as a mere passing fancy.
  6. Tuck Everlasting
    Unfortunately, Russell paces the film as if trying to demonstrate what eternity feels like. When the plot begs to move forward, the film keeps lingering over friendly fawns and long walks through the forest.
  7. Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!
    The great character actor Gary Cole, in particular, stands out as Bosworth's father, who tries to impress Duhamel by reading the trades, thumbing through Julia Phillips' autobiography, and donning a Project Greenlight T-shirt.
  8. The Butterfly
    Cutesy and slight, but it's also polished and well-lit, and Muyl makes a weeklong hike roll by pleasantly, reducing it to about 80 minutes of screen time.
  9. Entrapment
    Entrapment is ostensibly some sort of action film, but perhaps out of deference to its sleepwalking star, it moves slowly and contains very little actual action.
  10. Hidalgo
    Mortensen nicely underplays his role, offhandedly tossing off one-liners and making the script's sometimes purple dialogue sound a little less cheesy, but the rest of the film often lurches into hammy overdrive.
  11. Moog
    Short and shapeless but nonetheless welcome documentary.
  12. The Big Bounce
    When the general pleasantness of the atmosphere and the cleverness of the screenplay don't carry the movie, Wilson does -- at least until a hurried, confounding finale that reveals its casualness as sloppiness.
  13. Orgazmo
    The film too closely resembles what it's attempting to spoof--minus the obvious payoffs, of course.
  14. The Time Machine
    Machine makes its look-to-the-future-not-the-past message as clear as a Grammy acceptance speech, but as an exploration of regret and the elusive quality of time, it falls well short of "Memento," another film starring a sad-eyed Pearce.
  15. P.S.
    While not dwelling on plot eventually gets P.S. in trouble during the slack finale, it gives Linney and Grace plenty of room to maneuver.
  16. Gloomy Sunday
    Gloomy Sunday's success in transcending its own clichés and conventionality -- at least until the morose finale -- is due in part to the story's primal romantic pull, aided by attractive actors who either stare longingly into each other's eyes or cavort in states of undress.
  17. Blind Shaft
    A little slow for a crime story, and a little obvious with its anti-capitalism message.
  18. Next Stop Wonderland
    What's good about Next Stop Wonderland -- and nearly good enough to warrant recommendation -- has nothing to do with Anderson's sloppy, disjointed filmmaking, and everything to do with Hope Davis' far more disciplined and appealing lead performance.
  19. I Spy
    I Spy confirms Wilson's ability to turn mediocre, mercenary endeavors into fun crowd-pleasers. Of course, Wilson starring in I Spy is like Phil Jackson coaching a junior-high basketball team, but as long as the results are this entertaining, it's doubtful audiences will care.
  20. Dr. Dolittle
    Isn't as sharp or consistent as Murphy's "The Nutty Professor," but it's an amusing, lightweight diversion.
  21. The Final Cut
    Naim directs The Final Cut as if it were the pilot to a TV series: He teases the audience with all sorts of story threads, focuses on a minor self-contained mystery, and leaves the rest for future episodes that will never come.
  22. A Dirty Shame
    Embracing ugliness, lousy production values, and borderline hysteria as virtues, A Dirty Shame is one for the cultists, a proud retreat back into the sandbox of sexual juvenilia, a potty-mouthed manifesto from an elder statesman of shock.
  23. The Thirteenth Floor
    A solid, interesting B-movie, in another season it would seem a good deal fresher.
  24. The Girl Next Door
    It sputters whenever it has to move the story along, and it too often forgets to pay attention to Cuthbert; it makes a point about the mistake of treating women as sex objects, but it's perfectly content to use her as a plot device for the second and third acts.
  25. Mostly Martha
    Becomes precisely the sort of film its elements demand. As tearful goodbyes and joyful montage sequences set to lite-jazz saxophoning take over, "neatly winsome" trumps "messy drama" yet again.
  26. Chaos
    In the end, Chaos is as compelling as it is confounding, and it's compelling in large part because of the confusion it stirs.
  27. We Were Soldiers
    Leaves all the real risks to the young warriors at Ia Drang and collects easy dividends on their bravery. In the end, it honors them by paying tribute to itself.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Mulan
    Though Disney's animation department does deserve credit for shaking up its formula and delving into relatively mature drama, the movie is flawed in numerous aggravating ways.
  29. The Corporation
    Without a unifying authorial voice to tie it together, the film often feels shapeless and rambling, brought together by little more than free-ranging contempt for capitalism's excesses.
  30. I'm Not Scared
    Cinematographer Italo Petriccione gives the film a dramatic look, but that never compensates for the lack of actual drama; when so much of the conflict concerns Cristiano's reluctance to betray his father, it might have helped to spend more time on exploring that relationship than on capturing what light looks like when it pours in from a cellar door.
  31. Levity
    Solomon handles their crises of conscience with a studied compassion that hangs over scenes like a lead weight, though the actors (particularly Dunst) do their best to bring more range to his gray palette.
  32. The Bourne Identity
    May be a bloodless piece of thriller craftsmanship, but at a time when craft has become negligible, its efficiency and whipcrack timing are increasingly uncommon virtues.
  33. White Oleander
    White Oleander goes through the paces with a little more dignity than usual, which is a mark of either director Peter Kosminsky's refusal to overplay the melodrama, or his inability to wring it for all it's worth.
  34. The Last Shot
    Given an irresistible premise, Nathanson doesn't trust his material enough to follow through without excessive mugging, but his sense of the absurd leads to amusing digressions along the way.
  35. Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War
    Uncovered could easily come off as dull or strident, but the administration's arrogance and disregard for the safeguards and transparency necessary for democracy give the documentary an outraged charge that overshadows its staid execution.
  36. Little Lili
    La Petite Lili isn't conventional or crowd-pleasing enough to appeal to audiences who like their foreign films safely sentimental, but it's also not daring enough for those who expect art to hurt a little.
  37. Scream 2
    When the suspense setpieces do come, many of them are staged with considerably less imagination—with cheap jolts underscored by an intrusive score—than would be expected from director Wes Craven.
  38. I'll Sleep When I'm Dead
    At times, this makes the film easier to appreciate than it is to watch: The story is perfectly clear, but the film's style takes its cues from the characters' oblique emotions in a way designed to freeze viewers out.
  39. Elizabeth
    But much of it, like its subject, is so cryptic, distractingly stylish, and impenetrably posed that it's rough going most of the way.
  40. Hearts and Minds (re-release)
    During his clumsiest moments, Davis' fondness for provocation rises to the surface, which is unfortunate, since it weakens the impact of his many salient points about how American men are socialized to be warriors.
  41. Bubba Ho-tep
    Playing against rubber-faced type, cult icon Bruce Campbell grounds his Elvis in a wry, understated swagger that holds the film's wacky excesses in orbit and does more honor to the legend himself than a thousand Vegas lounge-show wannabes.
  42. The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys
    Young costars carry the film, creating real characters from a generally flat script and Peter Care's largely undistinguished direction, both of which conspire to keep Altar Boys' danger at a distance.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    American History X
    There may be much to like about his movie, but it's all been done before to more challenging degrees of moral ambiguity. That's a pretty fatal flaw.
  44. In Praise of Love
    Its gloomy speculations on the ephemeral nature of art are paradoxically not easily forgotten, and Godard's daring again pays off, or at least comes close enough to get credit for trying.
  45. After Midnight
    As a story, it never develops beyond the routine. Still, the aesthetic philosophizing works as a framework for daring visual experiments.
  46. Anything But Love
    Predictable and corny, but to their credit, Cary and Rose strive to make the situation real.
  47. Treasure Planet
    With much more success than last summer's formula-bound "Atlantis," Treasure Planet finds the common ground between classic Disney animation and newfangled action-adventure films.
  48. Blue Crush
    Contains enough exciting surf scenes that it could almost get by on visceral thrills alone.
  49. Liar Liar
    For those who like Carrey and are waiting for a film they can honestly say they enjoyed through and through, this ain't it.
  50. The Game
    It's a stylish, cleverly plotted, perpetually unpredictable film with another electric (albeit brief) performance from Penn. So why is it so unaffecting?
  51. The Take
    The Take tells a compelling story of courageous, industrious people, but it begs for a second act.
  52. King Arthur
    Conceptually compelling, but the interest ends there, in part because the humans get squeezed to the margins in favor of pseudo-history and clashing battleaxes.
  53. Luther
    The unimposing Fiennes may not suggest the burly Luther's plain-talking peasant background, but he at least captures the charisma.
  54. Noi the Albino
    Only in the final minutes, when Kári overreaches for ironic effect, does the film plumb too far into the darkness.
  55. Ararat
    Though typically engaging, Ararat occasionally suffers from what's previously been a virtue in Egoyan's filmmaking. His distancing techniques, rather than sharpening his ability to deal with a subject that lends itself to high emotion -- sometimes just seem distancing.
  56. Alfie
    Caine played Alfie as an incorrigible S.O.B. who at least made for good company. Law makes him a delicate boy with self-control problems who can't stop talking, and his charm runs out long before the film ends.
  57. Kundun
    A slow, meditative movie-an appropriate choice given the subject matter-that ultimately fails, in spite of clearly heartfelt good intentions, because of its almost inhuman detachment.
  58. Imaginary Heroes
    It looks good. It seems to work. It occasionally coheres into a priceless moment. But in the end, the pieces don't all fit together as they should.
  59. Shrek 2
    The lovable characters remain, but they never do much of interest in a sequel that's safely above average but superfluous.
  60. Chasing Papi
    The fun wears thin once it becomes clear that the only trick the film has to offer is footage of the women fighting and bonding over their shared love of the handsome but uncharismatic Verástegui.
  61. Ju-on: The Grudge
    Both too obvious and needlessly complicated, Ju-On juggles several non-chronological chapters based on different characters, ensuring that none of the corpses-to-be make much of an impression.
  62. À cause d'un garçon
    Though its milieu is often ugly and its story fairly soft, You'll Get Over It gets by thanks to its cast. The French film industry has a knack for finding attractive, expressive young actors, and this movie is no exception.
  63. 28 Days Later...
    Like his makeshift societies, Garland's tantalizing set-ups tend to unravel in unsatisfying ways.
  64. 40 Days and 40 Nights
    Runs more smoothly and stylishly than the average teen comedy.
  65. Elf
    The cast wrings laughs out of David Berenbaum's script as if it were a damp washcloth.
    • The A.V. Club
  66. Flight of the Phoenix
    With his bleached-blond hair, implacable European accent, and nerdy devotion to cool rationality, Ribisi acts like a cross between a young Reich officer and the Comic Book Guy from "The Simpsons," and his unashamed hamminess steals the movie.
  67. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
    A well-chosen cast helps make the wild notions convincing, and director Chris Columbus presents it all in an attractive, thoroughly watchable package. But try imagining a universe in which the Harry Potter series existed only in film form.
  68. In the Realms of the Unreal
    In the end, it all gets to be too stifling. The film looks amazing, and there may be no better way to adapt Darger's work to the screen. But Yu's decision to limit the comments on Darger's enduring appeal keeps the audience locked in his cramped room too long, without a window of context.
  69. A Very Long Engagement
    For all of Audrey Tautou's considerable charm in the title role, Jeunet's need for a well-ordered universe proved as suffocating and exhausting as being trapped on an amusement-park ride.
  70. Benji: Off the Leash!
    It's clumsy, but also strangely refreshing. To children raised on "Spy Kids" and "SpongeBob SquarePants," it may look as primitive as a daguerreotype, but never underestimate the persuasive powers of a cute animal.
  71. Garden State
    Garden State coasts on this considerable charm until it hits a brick wall in its final segments.
  72. Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself
    Intended to be shamelessly heart-tugging and even uplifting in an odd way, but it's recommended mainly as an acting showcase.
  73. Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle
    It boldly subverts stereotypes and challenges conventional wisdom by presenting affable Korean and Indian antiheroes who are just as sex-crazed, irresponsible, mischief-prone, and chemically altered as their white counterparts.
  74. This Girl's Life
    Marquis herself rarely comes off as less than fascinating, in spite of her cheaply titillating material.
  75. I, Robot
    A cluttered, awkward blockbuster that's just smart enough to get itself into trouble.
  76. The Woodsman
    While The Woodsman gets the psychological profile right, it fails to make Bacon a man.
  77. The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie
    It's all innocuous, forgettable fun, but it's firmly aimed at those who find underwear endlessly funny.
  78. A Tale of Two Sisters
    Kim weaves these clichés into effectively nerve-wracking setpieces, though between the jumps, A Tale Of Two Sisters becomes mired in ponderous melodrama.
  79. Napoleon Dynamite
    Sure, it quickly turns into a one-note exercise in laughing at the yokels, but at least it has a vision.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Star Trek: First Contact
    Of course, these movies are supposed to be big, but First Contact is the kind of porky, clumsy thing that would be ignored if it didn't come complete with an enormous guaranteed audience—and if it weren't actually kind of fun in spite of itself.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    That Thing You Do!
    Hanks nicely lampoons the smug, stagnant, assembly-line attitude of the American pop-music establishment of the time, but it's clear that Hanks intends his Boomer-pleasing nostalgia to be strictly of the declawed variety.
  82. Marion Bridge
    If von Carolsfeld had worked more surprises into her style and presentation, Marion Bridge wouldn't live down to its genre stereotype so readily.
  83. Pellet
    When El Bola isn't drawing cheap sentiment from the sight of a bruised and scarred little boy, Mañas raises vexing questions about how and why parents leave lasting impressions on their children, and whether good intentions really matter.
  84. Berlin Babylon
    The film's deep, precise colors, which look like they belong in a Peter Greenaway movie, are Berlin Babylon's first major surprise. The second is how watchable it is, given its obsessive focus on buildings.
  85. Cuba: Island of Music
    As one man's vacation video, it's outstanding, but as a documentary, it lacks verve, stylistically or journalistically.
  86. Red Trousers: The Life of the Hong Kong Stuntmen
    Shou focuses on a meaty subject, and he has an insider's access to the world he's exploring. But his behind-the-scenes film doesn't spend nearly enough time behind the scenes.
  87. Firedancer
    For the most part, Fire Dancer presents an energetic mosaic of a displaced culture.
  88. Better Housekeeping
    The exaggerated white-trash environment and the naturalistic style mix poorly over time, giving off a stale odor that's funny in more ways than one.
  89. Persons of Interest
    The absence of style can be numbing, but it serves a purpose, positioning the documentary as a public record, not a work of art. As such, the film is eye-opening.
  90. Yugoslavia: The Avoidable War
    As persuasive and exhaustive as the film's evidence is, the stock footage of charred corpses and bombed-out communities demands more than the smug talking heads that Bogdanich presents, safe in their offices and comfortable with their rightness.
  91. Valley of Tears
    Not everything Perry's voices say seems relevant to his central thesis, but they speak fervently and colorfully, and their intensity is compelling even when their message is lacking.
  92. The Letter: An American Town and the 'Somali Invasion'
    Makes effective drama, but ultimately it's just an outrage machine, designed to get the viewer fired up by the sight of warring ideologues preaching to their own.
  93. Cinévardaphoto
    Someone as attuned as Varda to the quality of an image should know that a flat, disposable medium like video makes images harder to internalize.
  94. In Satmar Custody
    Given the complexity of this case and of the Satmar/Zionist feud, the documentary would've benefited from some dryly expert talking heads and a more conventional structure.
  95. A Decent Factory
    Director Thomas Balmès mostly just tags along for the ride, but the incidental details he picks up taint the sense of guarded hopefulness.
  96. A Sidewalk Astronomer
    Jacobs focuses almost exclusively on Dobson's theories and mission, which he illustrates by contrasting jaw-dropping images of the sun's surface with people ignoring Dobson's entreaties to "Come look at the sun."
  97. God's Sandbox
    The sensual sex scenes and raw violence of God's Sandbox make it pretty much an exploitation film, and as an exploitation film, it isn't bad.
  98. Young Rebels
    The documentary is short, vividly shot, and packed with interviews in which desperate young men and women let loose their personal philosophies. In fact, there's so much philosophizing that there's not much time left for rap.
  99. Hotel de Love
    It's glossy, dumb fun that is diverting enough but forgotten 20 minutes after it's over.
  100. Hard Goodbyes: My Father
    Panayotopoulou's background in photography shows in the way she lets her chiaroscuro lighting mirror her characters' emotions. It also shows in the still-life quality that Hard Goodbyes never quite gets beyond.
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