The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,414 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: 5,571 out of 10414
  2. Mixed: 3,736 out of 10414
  3. Negative: 1,107 out of 10414
10414 movie reviews
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  1. War Machine
    This is the most bizarre lead performance of Pitt’s career, as he plays McMahon as a stroke victim doing the world’s worst impression of George Clooney.
  2. Spoken Word
    Apart from its title, there's very little poetic about Spoken Word.
  3. For No Good Reason
    Early on, Steadman talks about his humor needing to have a “slightly maniacal” edge. For No Good Reason has no such thing; it’s gently informative and amusing the whole way through.
  4. Unknown
    Tacked onto a perfectly respectable thriller, Unknown's mass of unlikely turns and implausible reveals make the whole film seem retroactively less sophisticated.
  5. The Rum Diary
    "Fear And Loathing" star Johnny Depp more or less reprises his role as Thompson's alter ego, once again playing a journalist whose yen for excess obscures the idealism at his core. But the film, despite its obvious intelligence and flashes of wit, doesn't bring that passion across.
  6. Ramona and Beezus
    Ramona And Beezus has the undeniably nice, pleasantly uninspired feel of film designed to kill time with the kids on a rainy weekend.
  7. Frank & Lola
    In a trim 88 minutes, it manages to make Poots and Shannon an intriguing duo, then lets them revert to odd mismatch. It may be worth watching, though, for anyone who’s ever wanted to see Shannon attempt to burn holes in Justin Long with his eyes.
  8. Filth
    Like all of the very worst dark comedies, Jon S. Baird’s insipid and self-satisfied Filth isn’t content to merely tap into viewers’ most odious desires. It also insist that it’s revealing them.
  9. Breaking and Entering
    After being strapped down by a run of elegant, high-class literary adaptations--"The English Patient," "The Talented Mr. Ripley," and "Cold Mountain"--writer-director Anthony Minghella liberates himself in Breaking And Entering, his first wholly original screenplay since his piercing, minor-key debut feature "Truly, Madly, Deeply."
  10. Two Men in Town
    The result is a movie of complicated interpersonal and cross-cultural tensions.
  11. Tommy's Honour
    What this one offers in abundance is facts about golf in its early days. How the movie escaped a Father’s Day release in the U.S. is a mystery.
  12. Stella Days
    Stella Days' strongest asset is Sheen.
  13. Hereafter
    Just because a film takes place entirely in the long shadow of death doesn't mean it has to be this relentlessly dour.
  14. The Croods: A New Age
    With eleven different characters to serve—not counting several animal sidekicks—A New Age has a lot going on in terms of plot and action, with a litany of new alliances, betrayals, and team-ups. But the sequel is not as visually sophisticated as its predecessor.
  15. CQ
    It looks great -- thanks in large part to production designer Dean Tavoularis and Wes Anderson cinematographer Robert Yeoman -- but just as importantly, it looks like it's interesting. Ultimately, it's not, but that almost doesn't matter.
  16. Once Upon a Time in the Midlands
    Sharply drawn and well-acted.
  17. Phone Booth
    Schumacher choose to start the movie in outer space? The opening shot epitomizes everything wrong with Phone Booth: Given the chance to stage human drama on an intimate, suffocating scale, Schumacher begins in the endless expanse of the void, tricked out with gratuitous CGI effects.
  18. The Ladykillers
    Already as dark as London soot, the comedy hardly needed work to bring it in line with the Coen brothers' sensibility, but the remake moves to a beat of its own, one unexpectedly in sync with the gospel music dominating its soundtrack.
  19. After Midnight
    As a story, it never develops beyond the routine. Still, the aesthetic philosophizing works as a framework for daring visual experiments.
  20. Troy
    Troy does look good--so good, in fact, that it takes a while to reveal itself as a thundering dud with much action but little personality, human drama, or brains.
  21. Phoebe in Wonderland
    There's too much "problem, solution" to Phoebe, although the movie's anxieties are believable enough to earns the moments of uplift. The film may be too concerned with being a crowd-pleaser, but it least it makes the crowd suffer a little along the way.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Fast X
    The focus inside the avalanche of stunts, asymmetrical plot elements, and mismatched genre tropes is still what Vin, and his alter ego Dom, would call “values.” Faith. Family. Honor. Loyalty. Because Dom is the last of a dying breed.
  23. Maleficent
    More well-intentioned than accomplished.
  24. Touch
    Touch never quite catches the satiric fire its subject seems to warrant. It's pleasant, disarming, and likable, but never quite miraculous.
  25. Bottle Shock
    Trouble is, it's too rambling and digressive to feel focused, yet too calculating to feel as observational and natural as a good Altman flick.
  26. Boss Level
    While Carnahan’s sense of humor has always been juvenile, in Stretch it at least benefitted from a gonzo factor and the crucial quality of having funny parts. Boss Level, however, is clumsy from the jump, with lame gags and a ceaseless, obtrusive voice-over that is always telling us why the next part is funny or what’s happening on screen (in case the viewer is distracted by their phone).
  27. December Boys
    For much of its duration, December is poignantly bittersweet, but the closing sugar rush washes its pleasing ambiguities away.
  28. Then She Found Me
    With Midler missing in action much of the time, the film drowns in a sea of thudding earnestness.
  29. The Pale Blue Eye
    This is a case of one movie with two endings, and neither of them totally satisfy.
  30. Sangre De Mi Sangre
    The film seems even more one-note when compared to the recent indie feature "Chop Shop," which also follows young immigrant hustlers in NYC, yet takes the time to provide a fuller picture of the city and its opportunities. Zalla prefers to wallow in the dead-end, an approach that's initially powerful, then numbing.
  31. Manglehorn
    Pacino has finally started acting again, which is cause for celebration. It’ll be real cause for celebration if/when he also starts picking projects worthier than The Humbling, Danny Collins, and now Manglehorn, all of which see him struggling to find moments of truth within a contrived, borderline ludicrous scenario.
  32. The Man Who Knew Infinity
    This is the very definition of the kind of movie people complain that “they” don’t make anymore: a modestly budgeted, character-driven drama for adults that doesn’t insult the viewer’s intelligence or lean on shock value.
  33. Alex of Venice
    So doggedly ordinary that it constantly teeters on the edge of tedium.
  34. The Running Man
    [Wright] continues to prove more adept at tightly weaving his thematic concerns into genre-friendly comedy. Making a muscular, fun-enough adaptation of The Running Man is at once beneath him and beyond him.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    My Girl
    It’s an introduction to adolescent viewers of some of life’s most painful events, even if those events aren’t always depicted in the most realistic ways. And therein lies My Girl’s effectiveness.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Dinner for Schmucks
    Thanks to Rudd and Carell's dependable likeability and a tacked-on warm-and-fuzzy ending, Dinner For Schmucks is leagues ahead of its forebear in terms of mass appeal, but its laughs are more silly than scathing.
  37. The Recruit
    Donaldson and his battery of screenwriters aim for nothing more than a coolly efficient thrill machine, but the mechanics break down in the end, foiled by a "whodunit" twist that's telegraphed early in the first reel. Careening forward without any real purpose, the film simply flies off the rails.
  38. Swapped
    Even if it wasn’t hot on the tail of Pixar’s Hoppers, Swapped would still be an overly familiar adventure towards empathy, one light on comedy and insight despite plenty of visual imagination in its world of flora-fauna hybrids.
  39. The Cable Guy
    The Cable Guy works best as a movie about how damn hard it is tell someone that you’re really not interested in getting to know them better.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    2 Days in the Valley
    A stupid movie that expects us to suspend our disbelief until it seems smart. Skip it and see some other movie that features two hired killers having a conversation in a car.
  41. The Yellow Birds
    Directed by Alexandre Moors, who made the D.C. sniper movie Blue Caprice, The Yellow Birds might have used its nonlinear structure to confront us with how war reshapes these young men, putting who they were and who they become into conversation. But the performances don’t capture that psychological change.
  42. Joy
    Rough even by Russell’s standards, this grab bag of dropped plot points, visual metaphors, and theatrical cues looks like the underdrawing of a comic drama, only half covered in bright impasto strokes.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    The Three Stooges
    The Three Stooges isn't very funny, but it is, like last year's far superior "The Muppets," a sincere act of fandom on an epic scale.
  44. Summerland
    The above-average cast of adult and child actors has its charming moments, but once the plot enters the tearjerker cliché phase, it becomes clear that what we are being offered is a nostalgia that’s no different from the kind that extolls more conservative values. It’s less a new coat of paint than a varnish.
  45. Wassup Rockers
    It may be truer to the lives of his amateur cast to watch them engage in mumbly, inarticulate conversations between rounds of failed skate tricks, but it isn't especially cinematic.
  46. 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.
  47. Lucha Mexico
    Suffice to say, masks are a big deal in the world of Mexican professional wrestling, known colloquially as lucha libre. Why are they such a big deal? Even after watching the movie, it’s hard to explain.
  48. Psychomagic, A Healing Art
    Historically, of course, making no earthly sense hasn’t been a major impediment in Jodorowsky’s work. In this instance, he commits a sin graver than charlatanism by just being boring.
  49. The Extra Man
    The Extra Man is kooky to a fault, and Dano is a major drag, with his soft voice and blank expression. But Kline gives a wild, wonderful performance, reminiscent of his work on "A Fish Called Wanda."
  50. Monsters vs Aliens
    On some level, the latest DreamWorks CGI project isn't a movie so much as a gag-delivery system wrapped in special effects. The story is crammed with incident, yet completely trifling; there are a ton of personalities, but no real characters.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Mr. Bean's Vacation
    A very cute movie. Unfortunately, cute is rarely funny.
  52. W.
    Stone paddles down the giant river of Bush's life without exploring any of the tributaries; he passes by two or three dozen better movies along the way.
  53. Deadly Blessing
    Craven’s best work resolves the contradictions of his bloodlust and intellect—in that, Deadly Blessing isn’t one of his best.
  54. Kamikaze Girls
    Nakashima does his best to keep the flimsy enterprise afloat, mostly through whooshing camera movements and headlong dives into the grotesque extremes of Japanese kitsch. By the end, the effect is like eating a bellyache's worth of cotton candy.
  55. Zack and Miri Make a Porno
    The film is clumsily unfunny at times--particularly when Smith makes tone-deaf efforts at gay-and black-themed comedy--and it's occasionally gross just for the sake of being gross.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Twilight
    While the movie attempts to find an compelling middle ground between gothic supernaturalism and teenage romance, it usually winds up stumbling into the inane territory implied by both descriptions.
  57. Max
    Quirky, unsatisfying portrait.
  58. Tamala 2010: A Punk Cat in Space
    Tamala 2010 feels like either a singularly detail-organized dream, or an exceptionally formal drug trip.
  59. Concussion
    Smith’s Omalu makes a compelling character, supported by his mentor Cyril Wecht (Albert Brooks) and former team doctor Julian Bailes (Alec Baldwin). But Concussion doesn’t crackle like the best whistleblower dramas.
  60. Edge of Darkness
    Quickly devolves into another showcase for Gibson’s snorting-bull act, a routine he could happily have shelved during his time off.
  61. Remarkably Bright Creatures
    While Remarkably Bright Creatures may repel those with little patience for stories of fate, those who enjoyed the book—or those who enjoy character pieces as catharsis—will find this a worthwhile adaptation.
  62. The Merry Gentleman
    If ever a film needed a double shot of espresso and a swift kick in the caboose, it's this one. At best, the film is hypnotic; at worst, it challenges--no, dares--audiences not to fall asleep.
  63. Finding Eleazar
    But compared to great documentaries about the process behind performance-"Last Dance" and "Original Cast Album: Company" spring to mind-Finding Eléazar is too choppy and fussy.
  64. The Beach Bum
    The Beach Bum, by turn, seems to exist in the hazy headspace of its protagonist, a kindred spirit in less-than-lofty, party-till-you-puke ambition. But there’s a bummer relevance lurking in his fantasy of a rich idiot who does whatever he wants and faces no consequences for his actions.
  65. Caddo Lake
    Held and George’s film twists and turns, but charting their narrative swamp is a simple and unrewarding exercise.
  66. Touchy Feely
    Without an improvisational buffer, in which actors feel their way naturally and uncertainly from moment to moment, Shelton’s scenario feels as painfully contrived as it is.
  67. Dom Hemingway
    Dom Hemingway is often ghoulishly funny, with Law, who put on weight for the role and plays up his receding hairline, turning in a larger-than-life performance unlike any he’s given before.
  68. Mommie Dearest
    There's something unnerving about the cult infamy of Mommie Dearest, a harrowing fact-based account of horrific child abuse that has developed a reputation as a camp giggle-fest of the so-bad-it's-good variety.
  69. A Jihad for Love
    Even though the message that people should have the right to love whomever they want is hardy groundbreaking, Parvez captures some interesting conversations about what it means to be gay and Muslim.
  70. Love Affair
    Rather than put a new twist on an old tale, Love Affair adds a chapter to a real-life romance.
  71. Spaceman
    While others may find in this visually arresting outer space drama a probing meditation on grief and marriage (not to mention human alienation writ-large), I never did warm up to this Colby Day-penned character study, finding it much too caught up in its own ambitions to make its emotional beats pay off.
  72. The Getaway
    Brutal but hugely entertaining.
  73. The Foreigner
    The Foreigner is a good, lean cut of meat—in other words, a typical Martin Campbell movie, expeditious and cold-blooded in its cross-cut, cloak-and-dagger plotting and violence.
  74. High Anxiety
    Anxiety is nearly as obsessive in recreating Alfred Hitchcock's visual style as Gus Van Sant's Psycho was, but to much greater effect.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Prefontaine
    But at best, the movie has an air of immediacy, freeing it from the ossified myth-making that plagues many true-life biopics.
  76. Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!
    What keeps Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! from being irredeemably offensive are Almodóvar’s efforts, however vague and tentative, to undermine his own thesis.
  77. I'm So Excited
    After establishing a jaunty tone with its candy-colored, Saul Bass–style opening credits, the film racks up a high strain-to-laugh ratio; there’s a sense Almodóvar can’t quite keep track of all his gags.
  78. A Tale of Love and Darkness
    Portman’s emotional connection to the material couldn’t be more obvious, yet the film itself is still largely inert.
  79. Walt & El Grupo
    Hardcore Disney fans will appreciate how serious-minded and intimate this movie is, but for others, Walt & El Grupo might feel like an expensive vacation slide show, assembled by strangers.
  80. Mad Love
    At heart it's a randy, oversexed soap opera in period garb.
  81. America's Heart and Soul
    Represents apple-pie mythmaking at its most insidiously thoughtless.
  82. The Terminal
    In the latest of a long string of memorable performances, Hanks balances wide-eyed confusion with innate shrewdness, finding a character who's both unfailingly sweet and nobody's fool.
  83. Antiviral
    For all its preoccupation with disease, Antiviral isn’t especially visceral. The movie can be repulsive at times, but Cronenberg is more interested in ideas than in blood and guts.
  84. Olympic Dreams
    This is a more professional-looking production, with a much stronger cast, but it has the same half-assed feel.
  85. Odessa... Odessa!
    Too pretty to dismiss, but too dull to recommend.
  86. Friends with Kids
    Westfeldt has a tendency to go over the top, and Friends With Kids in particular has a shrill, smug edge that kills the comedy and the drama alike.
  87. Extraterrestrial
    There's a solid framework in place here for a fun, original twist on a conventional science-fiction premise, but aside from the occasional quirky touch - Vigalondo fails to fill that frame with a picture worthy of it.
  88. Detour
    Dickerson passes on the occasion for existential drama and goes for the race-against-the-clock urgency of an ordinary guy trying to crawl out of his predicament. It’s effective enough, but there isn’t much to it.
  89. Quid Pro Quo
    Stahl quietly plays the straight man, giving the usually skillful Farmiga plenty of room to overact with abandon; she plays her character as one part Rosanna Arquette in David Cronenberg's "Crash" to two parts Natalie Portman's magical life-saving pixie in "Garden State."
  90. Man of Steel
    Like Snyder’s Sucker Punch, it’s a confused but fascinating mishmash of religious, military, and sexual imagery.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    General Orders No. 9
    General Orders No. 9 is bound to test the patience, but there are rewards to be found in its deliberate rhythms - foremost amongst them, the glorious, haunting visuals.
  92. Escaflowne: The Movie
    The film's life-affirming fable offers a richer metaphorical subtext than Vision's intricate coming-of-age soap opera. Unfortunately, clumsy dialogue, characterization, and exposition interfere with that subtext.
  93. Payback
    Payback attempts something impressively difficult, but it succeeds primarily in its individual moments.
  94. The Fog
    Removed from its context as the highly anticipated follow-up to a horror classic, The Fog lingers as a crafty and loving assemblage of pulp gimmicks, played out in a location that rivals Hitchcock locales for pure eye-vacation appeal.
  95. For a Good Time, Call...
    The notion of a love story that's really about two women becoming friends is gimmicky, I'll grant, but Graynor and Miller are so charming together, and the movie is so focused and funny.
  96. A Christmas Carol
    The holiday spirit feels real, but the film does not.
  97. Exporting Raymond
    At its most compelling when Rosenthal explores why the crassest entertainment is internationally successful, even in the home of theatrical naturalism.
  98. Hunt
    Lee stars in, directs, co-writes, and co-produces this taut, extravagant, and technically proficient effort, which comes off more as an auspicious filmmaking debut than a vanity project, one that stacks up favorably with most American spy thrillers.
  99. Yes
    Like Potter's "Orlando" and "The Tango Lesson," Yes showcases a craft and a hushed, vibrant intensity that prove compelling even when the story loses its focus.
  100. Inheritance
    Burger—a Hollywood journeyman who’s done some hackwork but began his career with the 2002 conspiracy mock-doc Interview With The Assassin—keeps things moving with a vérité point-of-view that sometimes makes it feel like the camera is the one doing the spying.
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