The A.V. Club's Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
    • 48 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
    Quantumania’s tone is sure to be polarizing, but if you can surrender yourself to its bonkers A Bug’s Life-meets-Return of the Jedi antics, the two hours (already short for a Marvel film) will fly by.
  2. King of Thieves
    Unlike "Gotti," King Of Thieves doesn’t have one iconic actor burning through decades’ worth of goodwill. It has six.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Murder at 1600
    By violating the law of show-don't-tell, the already shaky Murder At 1600 is lost beyond hope of redemption.
  4. The Scary of Sixty-First
    Nekrasova borrows from the best, courting comparisons to more highbrow pictures like Eyes Wide Shut and The Tenant. But she clearly started with an aim to get a rise out of people, and working backwards from there resulted in some slapdash storytelling.
  5. The Call of the Wild
    It is neither disaster nor dream, landing firmly somewhere in the disappointing middle.
  6. The FP
    The FP feels like a junky, disposable lark, created for a midnight audience to swallow, belch, and forget about the next morning.
  7. Don't Worry Darling
    Perhaps the chief deficit of Don’t Worry Darling isn’t even predictability, but a discernible lack of new ideas of its own.
  8. Martian Child
    It's hard to say what, aside from novelty, is gained by having the boy believe he's from Mars, because the core emotion in the film comes from the simple, common premise of an adoptive father and son trying to forge a life together.
  9. Leap!
    Rather than inspiring some kind of connection between disparate eras, Leap! uses pop music as a quick fix for kids who might be bored by ballet or orphans.
  10. I Feel Pretty
    The eerily laugh-free pre-head-trauma opening stretch requires Schumer to play mousy (not her strong suit), while the inevitable climactic speech tests the limits of her acting ability. Somewhere in there are a handful of good jokes about Renee’s delusional self-image...and a few tedious ones.
  11. Spirit Halloween: The Movie
    It’s just so embarrassingly thin. The few chuckles are all the more depressing when you realize that this could have been a winner with a clever screenwriter and a competent director.
  12. Sacrifice
    Void of righteousness, indignation, or even straight-up nihilism, Sacrifice won’t cause even the most malleable of worldviews to waver.
  13. The Sweeney
    From its lone-wolf mythology to the high, pealing guitar wails in its score, The Sweeney plays like a forgotten ’80s action movie recently discovered in a dusty vault. A treat, perhaps, for those who prefer their cop thrillers pre-meta, but tiresomely plodding for everyone else.
  14. The Mountain Between Us
    Remove the nonsensical characterizations and The Mountain Between Us becomes a cornball paean to rock formations and (mostly male) beauty.
  15. Blues Brothers 2000
    Things pick up a bit toward the end, abetted by a string of relatively energetic musical numbers, but they can only partially redeem a film that's as pointless as it is perfunctory.
  16. The Great Raid
    A lumbering, disappointingly bland war movie.
  17. Rememory
    Heading a troupe of excellent actors bringing their A games to this decidedly B-movie material, Dinklage and his fellow performers are a pleasure to watch selling the hell out of this sci-fi-tinged whodunit.
  18. Black Nativity
    Black Nativity is a cut-rate musical melodrama that grafts overreaching references to black culture onto a facile family-values narrative.
  19. Night at the Museum
    Stiller's continued efforts to court the broadest possible audience has taken the edge off his comedy. Whenever he shares screen time with Williams, it looks like the grim future he's mapping out for himself.
  20. En kærlighedshistorie
    Until its pat, implausible conclusion, the film has the edgy nerve of a classic amour fou, charting a complex relationship with the sort of bumpy, unpredictable spirit that would do Cassavetes proud.
  21. Beyond the Ocean
    Doesn't have the content to match the form, never cohering into anything more substantial than a glum navel-gazer about a little girl lost, unable to find a permanent home (literally or figuratively) on either side of the Atlantic.
  22. 17 Again
    Director Burr Steers (Igby Goes Down) doesn't always have a firm handle on what is and isn't appropriate; the film makes a few sharp detours into misogyny, and the level of smuttiness is surprisingly high, which may be a function of Efron wanting to grow away from his core audience too fast.
  23. Rock Dog
    With a product this generic, one at least expects it to do what it says on the tin.
  24. The Thing About My Folks
    Flirts bravely, though gratingly, with messy, complicated emotions before ultimately drowning them in a warm bath of sticky sentimentality.
  25. The Last Mercenary
    The quality of the fight sequences, the main criterion by which we judge a Van Damme picture, tops out at competency; only a showdown incorporating a whipped wet towel recalls the inventive creativity of his strongest work.
  26. In the Shadow of the Moon
    In The Shadow Of The Moon is a disappointing misfire all around, but no matter—like so many other Netflix original films, it’ll be reabsorbed into the streaming void soon enough.
  27. The Proposal
    It's the material that stinks, failing to give even an old pro like White more than a couple of modest laughs.
  28. Jayne Mansfield's Car
    Characters scream, throw glasses, screw, and strip nude for the self-gratifying viewing pleasure of others, but Jayne Mansfield’s Car never musters up even the faintest trace of Tennessee Williams-style hothouse drama.
  29. Lords of Chaos
    Åkerlund’s understanding is more like contempt, in a film that downplays the bigotry of the Norwegian black metal scene and shrugs off the severity of its actions with a “boys will be boys” approach that has no reverence for the scene, but doesn’t provide any insight into it, either.
  30. The Strangers: Prey at Night
    Just as the movie seems to have exhausted its supply of generic guilty pleasures, it ascends to some more operatic and mordant plane of slasher-dom in a wacko sequence that involves the aforementioned “Total Eclipse Of The Heart,” a swimming pool, and a perfectly timed smash zoom.
  31. National Treasure: Book of Secrets
    It's a measure of the film's infectious goofiness that Cage seems altogether more interested in clearing the name of a long-dead ancestor than in finding a city of gold.
  32. Blue Like Jazz
    For all its low-key charms, the coming-of-age story risks being too Christian for secular audiences and too secular and colorful for Christian audiences: Like its spiritual seeker of a protagonist, it's caught between worlds.
  33. Mary Magdalene
    Once Mary makes the difficult decision to leave her family (rejecting the arranged marriage they’d planned for her) and follow Jesus (or “the rabbi,” as everyone mostly calls him, in a nicely accurate touch), she’s unfailingly loyal, understanding, compassionate, and wise. In a word, she’s boring. At least Jesus gets to be plagued by fear and doubt.
  34. Godzilla: King of the Monsters
    You can’t just have two hours of kaiju slapping each other around like a gargantuan WWE highlights reel.
  35. xXx
    Diesel clearly has fun playing a character so bullish that his skin seems to be made of leather, and he's self-conscious enough to pull it off even after the film surrenders to formula.
  36. Shark Tale
    Every single joke, character detail, music montage, and pop-culture reference looks extensively market-tested, whether via screenings, focus groups, or other box-office successes.
  37. A Love Song for Bobby Long
    No movie that opens with the line "Time was never a friend to Bobby Long" could possibly be any good, and sure enough, A Love Song For Bobby Long lives down to its squibbed kickoff.
  38. Morgan
    The director, Luke Scott (son of Ridley), doesn’t exactly elevate this material, but he does see it through. The voice of Brian Cox goads the action into Bourne territory to counter its "Ex Machina" overtones, but the movie works best when it riffs away from its antecedents into even more pitiless territory.
  39. Hannah Montana: The Movie
    The only folks Montana is interested in pleasing are prepubescent girls and Disney stockholders.
  40. The Strangers
    It isn't particularly original--for one, it owes an unacknowledged debt to the French film "Them"--but as an exercise in controlled mayhem, horror movies don't get much scarier.
  41. Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief
    In Columbus’ hands, it once again all breaks down into a series of rushed, breathless special-effects setpieces, in a thrill ride that isn’t headed anywhere new.
  42. The Catechism Cataclysm
    If The Catechism Cataclysm does have something to say, it's that it's possible to enjoy a trip even when it isn't really going anywhere.
  43. Haunted Mansion
    The movie at times feels like an eternal cycle of the nine-minute ride, which loses its luster after 123 of those minutes. It offers you this chilling challenge—find a way out! Better yet, refrain from being the mortal foolish enough to enter in the first place.
  44. Lee Cronin's The Mummy
    If Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is like any of the director’s previous work, it’s most like Evil Dead Rises, since it’s also programmatically upsetting yet narratively threadbare to the point of distraction. And while this movie’s relentless, reflex-testing shock scares suggest that the filmmaker has a sense of humor, the audience is never really encouraged to laugh along with them.
  45. Being Charlie
    Being Charlie is Rob Reiner’s best film in at least two decades — admittedly a low bar to clear, given the competition (which includes such forgotten piffle as Alex & Emma and Rumor Has It…), but even a modest Meathead comeback is more than welcome.
  46. Pink Flamingos
    Almost anyone could dig up and film someone with the ability to lip-synch using his a**hole, but it takes genius to set the scene to Surfin' Bird.
  47. Fun with Dick and Jane
    So how can a project that began with such promise end up such a slick, pandering misfire? The answer, unsurprisingly, has a lot to do with Jim Carrey.
  48. Bella
    The emotions at play in Bella are no doubt heartfelt--and must have resonated with a few hundred people, anyway--but they're so cut-and-dried that the mawkish script virtually writes itself.
    • 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.
  50. Cote d'Azur
    In the end, all these sexual shenanigans just provide an excuse to play some seductive music and drink in some seaside scenery. Ah, Europe.
  51. Accepted
    The ideal viewer of Accepted probably won't have seen any college comedies before. Or any slobs-vs.-snobs movies like "Caddyshack." For those who have, it's kind of a snore.
  52. 3 Generations
    There’s a kind of equality at work here: No one is well-served.
  53. Before the Rains
    The one appealing aspect of Before The Rains is that there are no villains, just three characters who are driven first by shared desires, then by a natural impulse for self-preservation that brings them into conflict.
  54. Borstal Boy
    Shows an unusual degree of generosity toward all its characters, and its tenderness yields some affecting moments, even if they don't ring entirely true.
  55. The Guru
    It's refreshing to see an American movie with an Indian protagonist not played by a white actor in makeup, but it would be a lot more refreshing if that actor (Jimi Mistry) were given a character to play, not just a comic conceit and near-toxic levels of enthusiasm.
  56. La mission
    Bratt’s character is stuck in old ways of thinking, and the movie, for all its well-meaning social intent, is right there with him.
  57. In the Cut
    Though the oppressive artiness makes the early scenes fairly ridiculous, the director's odd methods add rare tension to the climax, as it becomes evident that the finale won't be so predictable in Campion's hands.
  58. Sonic the Hedgehog
    A nattering chore of a “family” comedy that feels written by committee and directed by indifferent machine.
  59. Hotel de Love
    It's glossy, dumb fun that is diverting enough but forgotten 20 minutes after it's over.
  60. Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore
    The most bewildering thing about The Secrets Of Dumbledore is how superfluous each of its ideas feel in relationship to one another. There are countless globe-trotting international characters, worlds-within-worlds, and constantly competing historical, political, and mythological references, but they all fizzle because their ill-considered stakes never seem fully realized.
  61. Regarding Henry
    It’s more a misguided, though occasionally retch-worthy, mediocrity elevated by its cast—Bening, as always, is particularly strong—and Nichols’ fluid camerawork. Those elements at times make it seem like a better movie than it really is, but it doesn’t benefit from scrutiny or thought.
  62. A Good Year
    Though he invests every ounce of his considerable charisma in the lead role, Russell Crowe still comes across as a man unworthy of the paradise offered to him.
  63. The Box
    Whenever The Box threatens to crash, Kelly summons up another haunting image or heartfelt, albeit thin, moral inquiry. It’s an unwieldy, ambitious, one-of-a-kind film waiting for a cult to find it.
  64. RED 2
    Like its predecessor, it’s a one-joke movie; the difference is that this time around, the joke is better.
  65. Secret Headquarters
    Between all the cool gadgets—a vintage VW van serving as The Guard’s G-Mobile being the best of them—a devoted cast and a well-meaning spirit, you desperately want Secret Headquarters to be a fun and swift adventure like the one Joost and Schulman clearly conceived on paper. But that imaginary film is unfortunately trapped somewhere inside this clumsy wreck, waiting for its superpowers to be restored.
  66. Railroad Tigers
    The Chinese film industry’s insistence on proving that it can make blockbusters that are as dull and crummy as anything to come out of Hollywood (but at only half the cost) continues unabated with Railroad Tigers.
  67. Boarding Gate
    Boarding Gate's surfaces are often so staggeringly beautiful that its superficiality becomes forgivable, with the pleasant distractions of Assayas' multi-layered frames, Argento's sinewy allure, and snippets of Brian Eno ambience on the soundtrack. Why can't all movies this inane be this accomplished?
  68. Failure to Launch
    The only bright spot--beyond McConaughey's boyish Southern charm and a pleasant soundtrack--is Zooey Deschanel as Parker's acid-tongued roommate, whose quirks include alcoholism and nihilism. Someone really should tell Deschanel that she's already too big and too good for thankless Eve Arden roles.
  69. What to Do in Case of Fire
    Even if the time were somehow right for a madcap comedy about terrorists, What To Do In Case Of Fire would still look pretty lousy.
  70. WXIII: Patlabor the Movie 3
    Where the too-rarefied style and the too-simple substance meet, a compromise is reached, and something uniquely haunting is formed.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Shooting Fish
    As a cute diversion, it's a pleasant, painless, wonderfully forgettable surprise.
  72. Hotel
    Until he finds a style to better communicate ideas or emotions, Figgis' plans to reinvent cinema will have to go back to the drawing board.
  73. 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.
  74. Proteus
    Greyson does a terrifically empathetic job of putting viewers firmly in the moment, by making it irrelevant exactly when and where that moment takes place.
  75. Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb
    Secret Of The Tomb plays it as a source of corny jokes, pop-culture references, and father-son bonding moments. In other words, it’s exactly the kind of film that shouldn’t be expected to engage with its assorted bizarre subtexts — but what a movie it could be if it did.
  76. He's Just Not That Into You
    The big names don't do needy as well as "Big Love's" Ginnifer Goodwin.
  77. The Matrix Revolutions
    Once the dust clears, it's hard to think of a film saga that's wound down with such a profound anticlimax. It's a whimper in bang's clothing.
  78. In the Land of Women
    "Women" confirms that the only thing less enjoyable than enduring long, drawn-out conversations about feelings and relationships in real life is watching movies about people having long, drawn-out conversations about feelings and relationships.
  79. In the Heart of the Sea
    Even though In The Heart Of The Sea’s framing device often feels like it was written by someone who’d never read a word of Melville, its visual style makes for a bold approximation of his allusive prose.
  80. Jennifer's Body
    Cody’s script fails in the fundamentals.
  81. The Network
    The result is an uncritical, drama-free documentary that comes uncomfortably close to resembling a business-magazine puff piece.
  82. Real Men
    A film becomes a comfort-food favorite because it moves along briskly, has a few solid gags, and maintains a distinct yet uniformly agreeable tone throughout. And the more memorably high-concept its plot, the better. Real Men falls squarely within this category.
  83. Bad Teacher
    Teacher underutilizes a smartly cast-against-type Timberlake and the perpetually winning Segel, but Diaz ultimately earns a rooting interest in the unlikely redemption of her scheming opportunist.
  84. Frankie & Alice
    Berry’s performance effectively turns a routine drama to a minor oddity, and Frankie & Alice’s complicated release history further adds to the curio factor.
  85. Fat Girls
    In the words of his own character, this young filmmaker hasn't found his "inner fat girl."
  86. Lions for Lambs
    All talk and zero characterization, it doesn't even feel like a real movie.
  87. Dog Days
    If Dog Days were a little weirder, it would just be a smug anti-comedy takedown of a late-period Garry Marshall picture, like "They Came Together" with its biggest laughs edited out.
  88. The Architect
    The Architect wears its heavy social consciousness like an albatross, and Tauber's plodding, earnest direction does little to wean the material away from its stage roots.
  89. By Hook or by Crook
    The lurching plot goes off the rails about two-thirds of the way through, when Dodge's instability and her mother-quest supersede the mild criminal hijinks, but the film's acting is consistently exciting and unselfconscious.
  90. Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde
    If her adoring public doesn't mind paying for the same movie twice, Legally Blonde 2 stands to leave her star power unquestioned.
  91. 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.
  92. Ladder 49
    In a shrill attempt to overcompensate for the film's shortcomings, William Ross' hyperbolic score does the audience's work for it, cheering heroism, guffawing during lighthearted moments, and getting all misty-eyed during the tender and tragic scenes.
  93. Burlesque
    Burlesque is a terrible film that will delight nearly everyone who sees it, whether they're 12-year-old Christina Aguilera fans or bad-movie buffs angling for a guilty pleasure.
  94. A Cure for Wellness
    Equal parts baroque fairy-tale, atmospheric mystery, and hideous body-horror nightmare, the film puts what could have been a cost-effective genre exercise on steroids, giving life to a two-and-half-hour, R-rated Frankenstein monster.
  95. Restless
    Somehow, Van Sant has made a film about life and death in which the stakes never seem higher than whether one insolent kid will stop being such a horrible mope.
  96. Jack Reacher: Never Go Back
    Even as a star text, it’s shoddy.
  97. Flyboys
    There's something almost perversely old-fashioned about Flyboys.
  98. The Dressmaker
    At its best, The Dressmaker looks like 1950s Vogue does the outback. Director Jocelyn Moorhouse poses Kate Winslet and the rest of her female cast in gorgeous finery against a dingy landscape, their expertly tailored garments contrasting splendidly against the dust. It’s a beautiful, bizarre, and funny juxtaposition. It works. The rest of the movie doesn’t.
  99. Monster Hunter
    There’s a couple badass heroes with humongous swords, a few big scaly monstrosities, and frequently not much else. The minimalism is consistent with Anderson’s career-long devotion to delivering caloric content with an unlikely combo of classical unities and pounding, insta-dated electronic beats. The movie’s called Monster Hunter—what more could it reasonably need?
    • 47 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Young Ones
    Would that there were more beneath the surface of this strange brew, but it’s certainly compelling while it lasts.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »