The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,413 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: 5,571 out of 10413
  2. Mixed: 3,735 out of 10413
  3. Negative: 1,107 out of 10413
10413 movie reviews
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  1. The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising
    Final score: Book 1, Movie 0.
  2. Lake of Fire
    If nothing else, the film puts the lie to the notion that an abortion could ever be frivolous or lightly considered. On that point, everyone in Lake Of Fire agrees, whether they acknowledge the other side or not.
  3. Kurt Cobain About a Son
    About A Son may not let in anybody who doesn't already have one foot in Nirvana's doorway, but those people are invited in fully, to experience the contradictions and preoccupations of a man whose music defined his era.
  4. The Darjeeling Limited
    The men are fuzzily defined and the film feels incomplete. The devil may be in the details, but for the first time, Anderson's obsession with them has caused him to lose sight of the bigger picture.
  5. Trade
    Trade is a pulpy Hollywood-style melodrama disguised as a harrowing message movie about Important Social Issues. It labors under the delusion that it's this year's revelatory, eye-opening Maria Full Of Grace, when it's little more than a B-movie with an overwrought conscience.
  6. Feast of Love
    Maybe Benton's serenely dull time-waster should take a cue from one of its main settings, and become the first Hollywood film released directly to coffee shops. Otherwise, it seems destined to find an indulgent second home as an unusually classy slot-plugger over at Lifetime.
  7. The Game Plan
    It's a squeaky clean pre-John Hughes, pre-Farrelly brothers throwback to an era where the words "Disney film" meant something: a movie free of crotch slams, gross-out gags, and tittery innuendo.
  8. The Kingdom
    The heroes of Peter Berg's gung-ho retribution tale are fighting the terrorists over there so we don't have to fight them here, but his film is indulging in a queasy brand of escapism. Winning imaginary wars isn't the same as winning real ones, but The Kingdom nonetheless smells like victory.
  9. Lust, Caution
    Conceptually, Lust, Caution has been thoroughly thought-through, down to every lipstick stain Wei leaves on her teacups.
  10. Into the Wild
    There's a bittersweet quality to McCandless' story that Penn captures intuitively.
  11. The Last Winter
    The Last Winter's heart is in the right place, but it isn't pumping any blood.
  12. Good Luck Chuck
    There's an audience out there for this kind of thing--Cook is obviously a populist, and Norbit made bushels of money--but if this is what passes for funny, what in the world of comedy DOESN'T qualify?
    • 41 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Resident Evil: Extinction
    How about Resident Evil: Game Over?
  14. Sydney White
    What's the excuse for dumbing down Snow White to moron level? Are there really people out there who thought the original version just didn't have enough toilet jokes?
  15. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
    A peculiar and destabilizing tone that's far from the standard Hollywood oater, but entirely fitting for two larger-than-life characters fulfilling their roles in history.
  16. The Jane Austen Book Club
    There's no subtext to The Jane Austen Book Club, just a skim across the books' surface that winds up re-shelving a great author into the self-help section.
  17. Across the Universe
    It's all very clever and thought-through, but all the allusions don't much bolster the bland central romance or the paper-thin treatment of '60s social issues.
  18. December Boys
    For much of its duration, December is poignantly bittersweet, but the closing sugar rush washes its pleasing ambiguities away.
  19. Dragon Wars: D-War
    All the thought seems to have gone into the marketing, and none into the unfathomably terrible script.
  20. Eastern Promises
    An engaging thriller done in the Cronenberg style is still worth anyone's time. And this one boasts memorable turns from Naomi Watts, Armin Mueller-Stahl, and Vincent Cassel.
  21. In the Valley of Elah
    Where "Crash" relentlessly pushed every conflict to a fever pitch, Elah takes its cues from Tommy Lee Jones' low-simmering lead performance.
  22. Ira & Abby
    It's still a mixed bag with a lot of cutesy awfulness to wade through, but the acerbic ending is enough of a punchline to suggest that Westfeldt understands what a joke this kind of film can be.
  23. King of California
    With Douglas, the film's shambling charms slowly catch hold, thanks mainly to his personal magnetism.
  24. Mr. Woodcock
    Thornton is one of America's finest actors, but after this, "Bad News Bears," and "School For Scoundrels," his run of loveably irascible authority-figure roles should probably come to a close. He's kicked around one child too many.
  25. Silk
    Sensual but profoundly silly, Silk is ultimately little more than softcore porn with arthouse trappings, a moony, dopily romantic "Red Shoe Diaries" variation for the NPR set.
  26. The Brave One
    The moody tone and carefully balanced drama turn a grubby premise into something unexpectedly elegant.
  27. Great World of Sound
    Great World Of Sound is painfully specific about the music-scouting grind.
  28. 3:10 to Yuma
    Mangold delivers a taut modern take on a lesser classic, preserving the "High Noon" themes about doing the right thing against all odds, and injecting a more modern pacing and urgency without going overboard. His film isn't Leonard's classic, but it's a solid, genre-respecting Western in its own right.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Fierce People
    Fierce People's first hour is dominated by brittle social satire, but in its third act, the film takes a jarring turn toward tremblingly sincere melodrama it can't pull off.
  30. In the Shadow of the Moon
    There's none of the poetry of "For All Mankind," just visual support for a meat-and-potatoes recap of events that have already been chewed over plenty.
  31. Romance & Cigarettes
    Sometimes the actors lip-sync, but more often, they're singing along with the original vocal tracks, trying to out-belt Elvis Presley and Bruce Springsteen, like a cadre of enthusiastic shower singers joining in with the radio. The resulting cacophony is generally harsh and sloppy, and the film follows suit.
  32. Shoot 'Em Up
    It's all meant as gory good fun, but once the novelty wears off half an hour in, the rest of the film is only meant for people who absolutely agree with Giamatti's character about that violence thing.
  33. The Brothers Solomon
    A better film would have matched Arnett's seemingly effortless intensity throughout. This okay film does merely okay by it.
  34. The Bubble
    Real love is often as complicated and painful as Middle Eastern politics, and Fox might have been better off acknowledging that, rather than making his characters such vague, sweet, safe ciphers.
  35. The Hunting Party
    It's a hilariously half-baked scheme, one that quickly turns them from hunters to hunted, but the strength of The Hunting Party is its shaggy-dog quality.
  36. I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With
    Unassuming and sweet-natured, and Garlin earns a lot of goodwill with his off-the-cuff wisecracks.
  37. Death Sentence
    The film has one thing going for it--it's certainly never boring.
  38. Ladrón que roba a ladrón
    Entertaining, casually satirical crowd-pleaser.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Halloween (2007)
    This latest unsuccessful stab at Carpenter's masterwork just proves that the original Halloween is as unbeatable as its masked leading man.
  40. Exiled
    Nothing about Exiled is as resonant as To's best work, but it's a clever homage to Sam Peckinpah, right down to the clouds of bloody mist that fill the barroom as To's anti-heroes make their last stand.
  41. Self Medicated
    It's a personal story that feels like it's been constructed from other movies.
  42. Balls of Fury
    Add Balls Of Fury to the list of movies that not even Walken's moon-man delivery and oddball comic energy can save.
  43. The Monastery: Mr. Vig and the Nun
    Between their bickering, Grønkjær's offscreen prompting, and the sappy, ubiquitous soundtrack, The Monastery is like the opposite of "Into Great Silence."
  44. Dedication
    Crudup delivers a bracing, uncompromising performance, but it's unmistakably a solo turn in a romantic comedy that's supposed to be about the blurring of egos and the fusing of two idiosyncratic voices into a single harmonious duet.
  45. Deep Water
    A compelling, well-researched, beautifully assembled document.
  46. Illegal Tender
    For a film about growing up, Illegal Tender loses itself in a lot of silly juvenilia.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Mr. Bean's Vacation
    A very cute movie. Unfortunately, cute is rarely funny.
  48. The Nanny Diaries
    The film belongs to Linney, whose caustic putdowns and status-seeking veneer barely hides her genuine hurt over her husband's philandering and her distant relationship to her own child. No doubt her diaries would be more compelling than the nanny's.
  49. Resurrecting the Champ
    The cast is generally excellent, but Hartnett in particular comes across as convincingly complicated, alternately reprehensible and sympathetic.
    • 25 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    September Dawn
    With its complete lack of empathy for early Mormons and simplistic rendering of historical figures, September Dawn is that rare movie that actually deserves whatever condemnation might come from religious groups.
  51. War
    In spite of a late-game adrenaline surge, the hoped-for fireworks between Li and Statham never quite materialize.
  52. The Hottest State
    Judging by the far more interesting adults in the film--Braga, a terrific Laura Linney as Webber's mother, and Hawke as his father--the solution for Webber and Moreno is to grow up and not be so full of themselves. In their current state, they make for unpleasant company, and so does the film.
  53. Hannah Takes the Stairs
    Doesn't rise to the level of Bujalski's breakthrough feature "Mutual Appreciation," mainly because Swanberg doesn't have Bujalski's eye.
  54. Superbad
    A funny, boozy, ramshackle party.
  55. Death at a Funeral
    Though it grows silly and sentimental, Funeral scores enough big laughs to make its shortcomings eminently forgivable.
  56. Manda Bala (Send a Bullet)
    Manda Bala is exciting and stylish, and Kohn knows exactly what he wants the movie to say. But he makes most of his points in the first 10 minutes, with disgusting slow-motion frog footage and sound bites from social scientists pointing out how "corruption is what links all other crimes." The rest is just so much show.
  57. The 11th Hour
    The 11th Hour is slick and passionate, but neither persuasive nor helpful; it's a headache of a film directed like an Errol Morris project, but with half the substance. It's clearly preaching to the choir, but even they may find it off-key.
  58. The Invasion
    Opting for car chases instead of the thought-provoking ideas of its predecessors, the film looks like the work of, if not pod people, folks who gave up any kind of passion for the material long before the cameras started to roll.
  59. The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
    Gordon's feature directorial debut mostly stops being about video-game obsession and turns into a film about what it takes to make it in America.
  60. The Last Legion
    Though it's never wise to underestimate the power or universal appeal of Rai's cleavage and lustrous hair, that's about all that sets the doggedly mediocre The Last Legion apart from every other sword-and-sandal epic about the origins of Camelot.
  61. Delirious
    Though it scores a reasonable share of laughs, Delirious might have been better off if it weren't a comedy at all.
  62. Love for Sale
    A tough-minded story about how to define self-worth.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Skinwalkers
    While it isn't particularly scary or suspenseful, it's fun and surprisingly breezy compared with its big-budget brethren.
  64. 2 Days in Paris
    For all the verbal jokery, it's more tragedy than farce.
  65. Descent
    Though a clearly gifted new filmmaker, Lugacy doesn't get a handle on the combustible material, and she gets scalded in the process.
  66. Rocket Science
    Rocket Science doesn't go too far into Todd Solondz-style mockery, either; though painful to witness at times, Thompson's determination to face his fears--not just of speaking, but of girls, too--is heartbreakingly noble and courageous.
  67. Rush Hour 3
    For a series devoted to giving audiences exactly what they want, it'd be pretty damn appropriate.
  68. Stardust
    The film's merry, enthusiastic tone--set largely by Robert De Niro, playing a giddy transvestite sky-pirate to the hilt--is hard to beat.
  69. Crossing the Line
    It's an enormous scoop for a Western filmmaker, but a potentially compromising one, too. How much can a filmmaker challenge the dubious elements of Dresnok's story? At what point can the film be considered an unwitting propaganda tool for an oppressive, totalitarian system?
  70. Daddy Day Camp
    A generic time-waster powered by a lazy, cynical combination of scatological kiddie humor and maudlin sentiment.
  71. In Paris
    Besides the restless style, Dans Paris is remarkable for being more about familial bonds than French cinema tends to be.
  72. The Bourne Ultimatum
    Damon's minimalist style is key to why the Bourne movies have become an oasis from other blockbuster action fare.
  73. The Ten
    The early, explosively funny skits and a loose, engagingly adventurous spirit are enough to ensure this uneven but often delightful project the cult fame that accompanies pretty much everything associated with Stella mainstay Wain.
  74. Becoming Jane
    The film tries to squeeze Austen into one of her novels, and the peg doesn't fit.
  75. La faute à Fidel!
    But while Kervel will probably have to have her own children before she fully understands the changes parents go through, she's bound to adjust to her folks' whims. Having no power of her own, what choice does she have?
  76. Bratz
    Bratz's strong anti-clique sermonizing would be slightly more convincing if it weren't tethered to a movie romanticizing the most awesome clique ever.
  77. Hot Rod
    Hot Rod keeps a sweet tone that's filled with affection for its characters, and enough laughs to become this summer's most mildly recommendable comedy.
  78. Underdog
    The result is unfit for humankind.
  79. El cantante
    Anthony delivers a respectable performance, but his character never comes into sharp focus. Consequently, Lavoe emerges as a supporting character in his own story.
  80. No End in Sight
    It's a cogent, often infuriating explication of how the execution of the war went awry.
  81. The Camden 28
    Though the filmmaking is pedestrian, The Camden 28's timeless truths come through with resounding power.
  82. I Know Who Killed Me
    Having broken free of the Disney machine that molded her, Lohan now seems intent on destroying her career and credibility on her own terms.
  83. Molière
    A Molière this good deserves a more substantive portrait, but this one will do for now.
  84. No Reservations
    No Reservations is pretty much the dramatic equivalent of a burger and fries, however pretty the presentation.
  85. The Simpsons Movie
    Though it never regains the inspiration or comic density of its brilliant first 20 minutes, The Simpsons Movie keeps the laughs coming from start to finish, a feat as rare and wonderful in film as it has been through 18 years of television.
  86. This Is England
    Taut, tense, and self-consciously stylish.
    • 18 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Who's Your Caddy?
    The tired racial stereotypes that Caddy inserts into the old Caddyshack-style "slobs vs. snobs" formula should probably make it much more offensive than it is.
  88. Arctic Tale
    For all the inevitable comparisons to March Of The Penguins, Arctic Tale isn't quite a nature documentary.
  89. The Devil Came on Horseback
    These images and reports have stirred consciences without quite stirring decisive action, and an earnest indie doc like this one seems like another cry in the wilderness.
  90. Cashback
    In short form, Cashback simply dealt with how a quirky group of supermarket employees whiled away the endless hours of a night shift, but the feature version spoils that economy by tacking on a romantic subplot and indulging its hero's precious ruminations on love and art.
  91. Goya's Ghosts
    If Forman is trying to communicate that art isn't an effective way to change American society, he's proved his point neatly with this muddled, wandering dud.
  92. Hairspray
    Though the film is too slick and heavy-handed in its pro-integration sloganeering, and it's burdened by Travolta's ill-conceived star turn, its infectious high spirits and catchy tunes still pack one hell of a sugar rush.
  93. I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry
    If it doesn't look ridiculous now, try watching it again in a decade or three. Then it'll be funny for all the wrong reasons.
  94. Sunshine
    As a pure cinematic experience, it's exhilaratingly, brutally beautiful.
  95. Live-In Maid
    Live-In Maid's premise would be ideal for a play, or a bravura performance piece like Rainer Werner Fassbinder's "The Bitter Tears Of Petra Von Kant."
  96. Interview
    The Interview is mannered, implausible, and stagy, but queasily compelling all the same.
  97. Talk to Me
    Unfortunately, that story isn't particularly well told, and after a while, the strength of the two leads' work and the popping soundtrack can't hide the fact that Lemmons doesn't really have much to say about the material.
  98. Time
    Time could almost be written off as misogynistic, except that it's so specific about its rage. It's almost as though Kim was so fed up with having the same argument with his girlfriend, all he could do was make a movie.
  99. Captivity
    In a genre where killers love to play head games, it's a clever idea (Cohen's?) to have this one remain mute, but that leaves Cuthbert to carry much of the psychological load, and there's no substance to her character, apart from the suggestion that she's being punished for her vanity.
  100. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
    Save for the thrilling opening sequence, there's not much to remember about the film beyond Staunton (Vera Drake), who masks her bottomless malevolence behind a pasted-on patrician smile.
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