The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,422 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 2.6 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: 5,575 out of 10422
  2. Mixed: 3,739 out of 10422
  3. Negative: 1,108 out of 10422
10422 movie reviews
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  1. Hideaway (Le refuge)
    Hideaway bottles up stormy feelings of grief, guilt, and desire so tightly that register only in a few sharp, impetuous bursts. The rest of the time, it's dull and inscrutable-a film of almost vaporous subtlety.
  2. Kings of Pastry
    In a pressure-cooker environment, Pennebaker and Hegedus' moderately engaging but ultimately unsatisfying documentary feels disappointingly lukewarm.
  3. Made in Dagenham
    Make no mistake. In spite of its worthy subject matter and good intentions, Made In Dagenham remains mediocre to the core.
  4. The Next Three Days
    Haggis doesn't trust the action to carry his themes across without emphasis, and his movie suffers for it.
  5. Douchebag
    At 70 minutes, Douchebag feels both rushed and way too slack, but the bigger problem is that the kind of characters and humor this movie traffics in can be found in a more compact, amusing package on the average FX show.
  6. All Good Things
    Here's a story about a man who befriended and eventually killed a Texan while going incognito as an exceptionally frumpy woman, then was eventually nabbed shoplifting a chicken-salad sandwich while carrying more than $500 in his pocket. Why underplay that?
  7. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
    It's rarely tedious, but it's also rarely insightful or propulsive, and since there's nothing new to discover about the characters or their world, much of the film feels like a protracted, contrived pause, as everyone waits for Rapace to finally get back into the game.
  8. Gnomeo and Juliet
    Far too much of the film is devoted to eye-rolling pop-culture gags and long montages set to recycled Elton John songs.
  9. Nénette
    As with all of Philibert's work, Nénette is impeccably composed and admirably disciplined, but his patient observation can't unlock the mysteries of an animal that's grown more introspective and likely less expressive over time.
  10. Jumping the Broom
    While Broom largely isn't a broad comedy, it still rarely goes for restraint in anything but tone.
  11. Hanna
    Superficially exciting and handled with great aplomb. But the film is running to go nowhere.
  12. Soul Surfer
    Unique as an inspirational personal-achievement film in the way it focuses on the protagonist not merely as a bastion of strength, but as part of a supportive community and family.
  13. The Other Woman
    The book may have been too unwieldy for Roos to wrangle. There's a lot of story (and backstory) here, which Roos tries to squeeze in every which way.
  14. Vanishing on 7th Street
    Vanishing On 7th Street does work well as a kind of mood-piece, observing all the ways we surround ourselves with the illusion of warmth and security, before the shadows creep in.
  15. One for the Money
    During a dinner with Stephanie's colorfully ethnic family, including a squandered Debbie Reynolds, the reaction shots arrive with bludgeoning regularity, and the soundtrack's burbling organ serves as an incessant reminder not to take anything seriously. Fortunately, there's no danger of that.
  16. Of Gods and Men
    Not withstanding rich performances from Wilson and Lonsdale, the film never comes close to embodying that level of complexity.
  17. Colombiana
    It uses a story about family as a vehicle for glorifying gangsterism. In other words, it's empty, amoral, and - in the style of other Besson productions - surprisingly easy to digest.
  18. Puss in Boots
    As a sheer visual experience, Puss In Boots makes a great theme-park ride, a thrill-a-minute feast for the eyes and the semicircular canals.
  19. Brighton Rock
    Rowan Joffe (son of Roland Joffe) provides busy, if never particularly distinctive direction, but it's the leads that continually threaten to sink the film.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    London Boulevard
    The directorial debut of William Monahan, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of "The Departed," London Boulevard collapses under the weight of its own ideas and the amount of talent it has to burn.
  21. The Raven
    Poe was a flawed figure, but his greatest strength was in avoiding convention, or reinterpreting it to create something new. The Raven aspires to both, but abandons those ambitions to lie limply on the floor - only this, and nothing more.
  22. Trespass
    Trespass begins loopy and mounts in craziness until it's frothing-at-the-mouth insane. It's hard to sustain that level of inspired lunacy over the course of 90 minutes, but Trespass is up to the challenge. As always, it's foolish to underestimate the appeal of Cage at his most agreeably unhinged.
  23. Tower Heist
    In the end, Tower Heist isn't a black Ocean's Eleven or a bold leap forward for feature-film distribution, just a passable piece of commercial entertainment that falls closer to product than art.
  24. Wanderlust
    The effortlessly charming Rudd - who is never funnier here than when trying to psych himself up for a tryst with commune-dweller Malin Akerman with a series of increasingly preposterous voices - and an attractive, game supporting cast nearly sell the warmed-over material.
  25. What's Your Number?
    There's a smart, funny, observant comedy-drama to be made about the role our romantic pasts play in determining our futures, but director Mark Mylod and screenwriters Jennifer Crittenden and Gabrielle Allan are less interested in making that movie than in cycling Faris through a series of non-starting encounters with one-note-joke ex-flings.
  26. Jane Eyre
    Wasikowska doesn't seem much changed from her "Alice" role, and she trips through Jane's adulthood as though it were a fantasia instead of a moody suspense story.
  27. Iron Man 3
    Here, it’s hard not to wish Downey were sparring with his costumed comrades again, instead of trading barbs with the far-less-colorful cast members — old and new — of this busy, sporadically diverting sequel.
  28. Johnny English Reborn
    Johnny English Reborn's sharpest gags riff on its protagonist's unshakeable Britishness.
  29. Dolphin Tale
    Dolphin Tale is as casual as a pleasant afternoon nap and about as substantive.
  30. Joyful Noise
    Like so many underdog movies, Joyful Noise will go over best with those who show up hugely eager for it to be exactly what it looks like, and to tell them exactly what they want to hear.
  31. Safe House
    Safe House does altogether too good a job establishing Washington as a seemingly unbeatable adversary: He brings so much gravity to his role that Reynolds seems hopelessly overmatched.
  32. Zero Bridge
    Zero Bridge is a rigorous piece of filmmaking, but it's played at too minor a key, honoring the neo-realist tradition so slavishly that it lacks an identity of its own.
  33. Cat Run
    Words like "smug," "derivative," and "shallow" could all be fairly applied to the film, but as a piece of late-night exploitation, it delivers the violence and nudity with the regularity of an IV drip, and some familiar faces in the cast help class it up.
  34. Dr. Seuss' The Lorax
    The handful of songs are catchy, and the whole film feels pleasantly airy. But this is a dark story with a heavy message, and it's been transformed into a harmless, pretty confection. In defanging it for comic effect, the filmmakers have done Seuss as much of a disrespectful disservice as if they'd laid on the fart gags.
  35. The Dark Tower
    It would be a waste of everyone’s time to go on about how this 95-minute movie deviates from the source. Let’s just say it turns The Dark Tower into something generic, and leave it at that.
  36. Queen to Play
    Queen To Play has a winning heroine, who fantasizes about being special and then works hard to make it happen. Too bad the rest of the movie is so common.
  37. Sympathy for Delicious
    The character's miraculous gift never plays as more than a melodramatic contrivance-it's a gimmick, not an outgrowth of faith. The movie reaches for the heart, but only comes back with a balloon filled with fake blood and chicken livers.
  38. Ice Age: Continental Drift
    Continental Drift feels less like an extension of a theatrical franchise than an episode of a middling TV cartoon, lolling around on territory that's already been settled. Jokes are recycled so frequently, it's as if comedy writing was eating a hole in the ozone layer.
  39. Our Idiot Brother
    Rudd ably carries the film while retaining a light touch, though even with Rudd in the lead, it's still a featherweight trifle, an afternoon nap of a feel-good comedy.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Dumbstruck
    The film's tendency to pull away once its character start their performances adds to the sense that director Mark Goffman knows his money shots will showcase the vents' oddities rather than their acts.
  41. The Devil's Double
    Dominic Cooper is electrifying yet stiff in The Devil's Double; he's simultaneously the film's biggest asset and its greatest flaw.
  42. Higher Ground
    At times, Higher Ground feels like a lower-stakes "Welcome To The Dollhouse" for adults: It's a systematically built portrait of disappointment and despair, centering on a perpetual underdog looking for affection and surety in any possible form. But while Higher Ground is less painful than Dollhouse, it's also less passionate.
  43. A Little Help
    It's difficult to figure out exactly where the film might be heading at any given point, since it follows the loping, meandering rhythms and casualness of a character study rather than conforming to the conventions of any particular genre.
  44. The Robber
    It might've mattered to the audience too, if we had any inkling from the first hour of The Robber who this guy is, or why we should care what happens to him.
  45. Hey, Boo: Harper Lee and 'To Kill a Mockingbird'
    The filmmaking is prosaic, the pacing sleepy. It's a solid but unremarkable experience, perfect for insomniacs watching the History Channel late at night, but not nearly as satisfying as simply re-reading Lee's book.
  46. A Good Old Fashioned Orgy
    A Good Old Fashioned Orgy takes its cues from Sudeikis' character and performance: It's randy, good-natured, moderately amusing, and charming in a glib, facile way.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Magic Trip
    In spite of this honey-toned self-documentation and some trippy visuals from the Imaginary Forces studio, Magic Trip is about as fun as being the only sober person at a party.
  48. Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life
    What's surprising, and ultimately disappointing, about Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life is the degree to which Sfar allows biopic obligations to smother his more whimsical instincts.
  49. House at the End of the Street
    Working from a solid template is only half the battle; the other half is filling in the details, and it's here that The House At The End Of The Street goes flat and generic, substituting jump-scares and visual twitchiness for the psychological complexity that might have sold the horror.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Lebanon, Pa.
    The turns the film takes toward the end do offer a few surprises, particularly in the form of redemption for the waffling hero-not in running after the ones he loves, but in standing by them when they need him.
  51. Safe
    The character-building is proffered in bad faith, like every scene in Safe that doesn't involve bloodshed. Statham can sell a punch, but not his own vulnerability.
  52. Poltergeist
    The most retro thing about the remake is its specific, outdated utility: If anyone still patronizes video stores with hard copies, and if those stores don’t happen to have the original Poltergeist (or Insidious) in stock on a Friday night, this version might do the trick.
  53. Dark Shadows
    Any proper adaptation of Dark Shadows, even one that acknowledges and celebrates its camp silliness as much as Burton's does, has to immerse itself in soap opera, too, and it's here that the director's lack of conviction becomes apparent.
  54. Rejoice and Shout
    The smartest move that McGlynn makes in Rejoice And Shout is to let those old performances run on at length.
  55. Hotel Transylvania
    Hotel Transylvania is occasionally the kind of fast-moving, gag-a-second film that relies on quantity of humor rather than quality.
  56. Elysium
    With Elysium, the director proves that he still has one hand on the X-Box controller; maybe he should give the allegories a rest already and just get back in the game.
  57. Oz the Great and Powerful
    Much of Oz The Great And Powerful’s fate is tied to James Franco’s performance as Oz, and the center barely holds, with Franco often looking as overwhelmed by the task as he was by his hosting job on Oscar night.
  58. Love Crime
    A corporate crime thriller that explores the relationships of women in power, but while Corneau delivers a slick, well-acted piece with a surprising mid-movie twist, Love Crime is too thin and too on-point to deliver the jolt he and co-screenwriter Nathalie Carter most likely intended.
  59. Man of Steel
    Like Snyder’s Sucker Punch, it’s a confused but fascinating mishmash of religious, military, and sexual imagery.
  60. Passione
    As an actor, Turturro brings wit and a healthy sense of absurdity to many of his roles, but his directorial efforts are notably lacking in self-awareness or restraint.
  61. J. Edgar
    Eastwood's prim, respectful biography presents Hoover in turn as a muddy political metaphor, a lesson in self-mythologizing, and a case history in repression, but never particularly as a man.
  62. Ironclad
    The movie's gathering of third-rank action heroes provides sufficient brawn but precious little onscreen charisma, although Brian Cox's reliable bluster lights up his handful of scenes as a bellicose baron.
  63. The Host
    The Host is a step up from the endless metaphorical lectures and gaping plot holes of Niccol’s last film, In Time, but its muffled emotions, delivered with Twilight-esque blank-eyed calm, put it in the same category of a creative idea hamstrung in execution.
  64. Texas Chainsaw 3D
    The mere presence of a second layer to the story gives Texas Chainsaw 3D an intriguing kick, and it adds a couple moments of visual wit that show a willingness to fiddle around with the genre. Not being irredeemable garbage counts as a modest achievement, but it's a small step in the right direction.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Cook County
    Cook County is an evocative portrait of the drug blight that's infected swaths of our country, but not only does it not get beyond that, its almost-gleeful horrorshow quality comes with the tinge of exploitation. Misery begets more misery, but to what end?
    • 59 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Mr. Peabody & Sherman
    Unlike the whimsical, slapstick-driven shorts on which it’s based, this feature-length adaptation adds an obligatory emotional arc that feels at odds with the zany spirit of historical time-travel tales.
  67. Tucker & Dale vs Evil
    Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil is too slick and too cute; Tudyk and Labine are terrific comic actors, but the movie might've been better served by less-recognizable faces.
  68. The Amazing Spider-Man 2
    Even at a hefty 142 minutes, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 hasn’t the time for its surfeit of plot, nor for the sprawling ensemble of supporting characters caught in the sticky web Webb weaves.
  69. Parker
    Though Parker starts off fairly strong, the action gets more predictable as it meanders toward its conclusion.
  70. The Odd Life of Timothy Green
    The Odd Life Of Timothy Green attempts to stage a modern fairy tale in Middle America. But in spite of an abundance of earnestness, the pixie dust needed to create magic remains out of the film's reach.
  71. World War Z
    World War Z bucks the current trend in summer blockbusters by feeling weirdly understuffed. It’s an episodic adventure without enough episodes.
  72. The Grey
    Neeson brings gravitas to the table, acting as a legitimizing counterweight to the overwrought dialogue and flesh-tearing lupine hysteria. But in a scenario this persistently ludicrous, he can only do so much.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Griff the Invisible
    The little glimpses of everyday magic on offer here are lovely, from a "universe suit" to a porous apartment door, but they're not enough to hang a film or a life on.
  74. A Horrible Way to Die
    The credibility Bowen and Amy Seimetz, as his fearful ex-girlfriend, bring to their roles nearly legitimizes the movie's underlying silliness.
  75. Puncture
    Puncture excels in the smaller touches, from Shaw's quiet performance to the woozy, unrushed motel idylls where the hard-driving Weiss finally slows down for a few breaths.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Caller
    For a while, the two ominous elements play off each other promisingly, and then it all becomes ridiculous, despite an appearance from the excellent Lorna Raver, the malevolent gypsy woman from "Drag Me To Hell."
    • 34 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Fireflies in the Garden
    An ending that suggests reconciliation and forgiveness isn't just unearned, it's bewildering, given the wretched behavior we've seen; it implies that the entire story was filtered through some unidentified unreliable narrator who wanted to take the higher ground while still harboring a serious grudge.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Woman on the 6th Floor
    This comedy from writer-director Philippe Le Guay is really a testament to how much more charming things sound in French, given how much its setup parallels that of James L. Brooks' clunkier 2004 "Spanglish," complete with a blonde harpy of a spouse.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    After Earth
    Shyamalan’s sensibility may not be enough to turn After Earth into a great (or even very good) film, but it does yield interesting — and at times strikingly realized — results.
  80. Norman
    Chances are, Norman would have seemed like a retread whenever it came out, but it does the movie no favors to release it in the shadow of "Terri" and "Submarine," both far more compelling portraits of high-school loners, and both released to DVD in the last few weeks.
  81. Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters
    Here and there, some of this starts to feel a little less like homework and more like fun. Though part one used up many of the good monsters—like Medusa and the hydra—part two is a fleeter entertainment, free of origin-story requirements.
  82. The Great Gatsby
    Like Romeo + Juliet (1996), Luhrmann’s version of The Great Gatsby emerges as a half-reverent, half-travestying adaptation that’s campy but not a betrayal, offering a lively take on a familiar work while sacrificing such niceties as structure, character, and nuance.
  83. Young Goethe in Love
    Whatever its basis in fact, there's nothing to Young Goethe In Love's story that dozens of other films haven't done before, and better. But Fehling keeps his Goethe just on the right side of obnoxious, and Stein invests a lot of character and gawky charm into what easily could have been just "the girl."
  84. Broken City
    In spite of some punchy scenes, crackling dialogue, and fine performances, Broken City is hopelessly overmatched. It has Academy Award dreams, but a detective-show heart.
  85. The Incredible Burt Wonderstone
    The Incredible Burt Wonderstone has its cornball charm, thanks largely to the confident work of old pros Carell, Arkin, and Buscemi, but it’s ultimately a big, gaudy, predictable show, strictly for the rubes and tourists.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Assault
    Brisk and technically efficient, The Assault is a dull film based on a real event that certainly wasn't.
  87. Norwegian Wood
    Tran's visual precision is betrayed by his jumbled script, which fails to impose a cinematic structure on the source material.
  88. The Flowers of War
    Many of Flowers' individual performances and scenes are striking and masterful, but taken as a whole, it's less a film than a rallying cry of "Our people feel more deeply than yours."
  89. Hyde Park on Hudson
    Hyde Park On Hudson once again finds "Meatballs" star Bill Murray leading a populist, crowd-pleasing slobs-vs.-snobs comedy, but this time, his role as Roosevelt reflects his status as a silver-haired heavyweight thespian.
  90. Black Butterflies
    At least Black Butterflies gets the tortured-soul part right.
  91. Detention
    Detention is ballsy, audacious, and uncompromising, but the overall effect of Kahn's Hellzapoppin-meets-Twitter aesthetic is exhausting rather than energizing. It's an ice-cream headache of a movie-movie that's so relentlessly "fun," it's borderline obnoxious.
  92. Brake
    Ridiculousness aside, though, Brake is reasonably impressive both as a performance piece and as an exercise in staging.
  93. Bombay Beach
    This aestheticizing of troubled lives proves problematic over the long haul.
  94. Windfall
    Windfall is undeniably persuasive - and is likely advocating on the right side of the wind-farm issue - but the movie's case relies more on emotional appeals and frightening images of giant machines than on real, objective number-crunching.
  95. Your Sister's Sister
    This time out, Shelton seems to be playing the part of someone who doesn't know how to finish what she started.
  96. Good for Nothing
    Good For Nothing is billed as the first Western shot in New Zealand, but that tourist-brochure distinction pales besides its more pungent claim to fame as the first Western whose hero spends the entire film attempting to overcome a bout of erectile dysfunction.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Trouble with Bliss
    Even in an old T-shirt and scruff of beard, Hall seems too canny and calculated a presence to entirely inhabit this man-child role, which lends a compelling edge to an otherwise scattershot story of urban misadventure and coming of age.
  98. The FP
    The FP feels like a junky, disposable lark, created for a midnight audience to swallow, belch, and forget about the next morning.
  99. Identity Thief
    Identity Thief establishes its priorities: Expansive character business is front and center; actual character-building is in the margins, almost off the map.
  100. Touchback
    Entering the minor canon of movies named after sports regulations - move over, "Offside!" - Don Handfield's Touchback takes a handoff from "Peggy Sue Got Married" and "It's A Wonderful Life" and runs it up the middle for a modest gain.
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