The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,412 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: 5,570 out of 10412
  2. Mixed: 3,735 out of 10412
  3. Negative: 1,107 out of 10412
10412 movie reviews
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  1. Jersey Guy
    Parlavecchio is kind of an asshole, and that–along with the stilted dialogue, clueless portrayals of women, and the fact that much of the plot has been lifted from Tom Perrotta's terrific novel "The Wishbones"–ranks among the film's main problems.
  2. Onmyoji: The Yin Yang Master
    The film de-emphasizes plot and action in favor of lyricism and outbursts of magic-doing, but the results are more dull than enchanting, no matter how many people fly across the room.
  3. Winged Migration
    Settles into pleasant monotony and repetition, without any narrative arc or purpose. Seasoned bird-watchers, however, may find that the sensory overload leaves them close to spiritual nirvana.
  4. Holes
    An ambitious undertaking, but not a successful one: It unfolds with the studied determination of a grade-school book report.
  5. Lilya 4-Ever
    What it became is essentially one long free-fall from destitution to despair.
  6. Malibu's Most Wanted
    Malibu's screenplay inexplicably required the creative efforts of four screenwriters (including Kennedy), which works out to about half a funny gag apiece.
  7. Love and Diane
    Emerges as an improbably hopeful tribute to the human spirit.
  8. A Mighty Wind
    The film's heart and soul belong to O'Hara and to Levy, whose folk-music burnout has the shell-shocked expression of someone who's been to hell and never quite made it back.
  9. Bulletproof Monk
    Sadly, it's yet another intercultural mishmash that hopes for its iconic star's charisma to overcome a dire script, cardboard characters, indifferently directed action scenes, and an atrocious villain buried under layers of unconvincing old-man makeup.
  10. 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.
  11. XX/XY
    Though initially off-putting, Chick's distanced direction pays off as XX/XY goes along.
  12. Better Luck Tomorrow
    Perhaps the worst thing that could be said about Better Luck Tomorrow is that, on a slow night, it's easy to imagine these delinquents wanting to rent a film just like it.
  13. Anger Management
    Doesn't possess the discipline to peel laughs off its potentially riotous premise. Instead, Segal and company grope desperately for every low gag they can find, whether or not it has anything to do with the story.
  14. House of 1000 Corpses
    The setup almost needs footnotes, which makes it all the more puzzling that Zombie's obvious love for horror's past would translate into such a joyless, grisly rehashing.
  15. 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.
  16. DysFunktional Family
    If its star were more consistently funny, it might have worked, but the film opens with a string of dreadful Sept. 11 gags and takes a while to recover.
  17. The Man Without a Past
    Quietly asserts its eccentric romanticism with an assured, matter-of-fact blend of humor and pathos.
  18. 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.
  19. What a Girl Wants
    It's a tame, hypocritical fantasy.
  20. 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.
  21. A Man Apart
    A film that sometimes suggests "Traffic" remade as a brainless action thriller.
  22. Cowboy Bebop the Movie: Knockin' on Heaven's Door
    The ambition is laudable, but the execution is wanting, and the attempt itself may indicate that Watanabe and company have forgotten what made Cowboy Bebop so much fun.
  23. Cet amour-là
    Moreau is magnetic as the wise-but-neurotic scribe, though the same can't be said of Demarigny, whose timid portrayal of a reverent fanboy sucks the energy out of most of his scenes. Dayan's direction is even more problematic.
  24. Fellini: I'm a Born Liar
    Turns a fond look back at the great Federico Fellini into an occasion for the kind of talky tedium Fellini's own movies would never have allowed.
  25. The Good Thief
    Jordan invests attention in even the most throwaway moments and marginal characters, and his care makes the film a sustained, low-key pleasure.
  26. Stevie
    Neither condemning nor forgiving, the film is a model of documentary evenhandedness, even though James makes no claims of objectivity.
  27. Assassination Tango
    A supremely unhurried filmmaker, Duvall lets the story meander sleepily en route to a conclusion as ho-hum as everything preceding it.
  28. The Core
    With the exception of Hilary Swank, whose earnestness spoils the fun, a stellar cast seems in on the joke.
  29. Head of State
    Offers a smattering of big laughs and an overall tone of ramshackle likability, but considering Rock's talent and the film's potential for smart satire, Head Of State registers as a somewhat wasted opportunity.
  30. Raising Victor Vargas
    What makes Raising Victor Vargas so special, beyond its irresistible charisma, is how Sollett and his cast capture the thrill of first love.
  31. Basic
    For twists to work, viewers have to feel like they're being led along, not jerked around, and James Vanderbilt's script eventually devolves into little more than a series of jerks, stopping short only of introducing evil twins and alien interlopers.
  32. Blue Collar Comedy Tour: The Movie
    Their best material, and the film's most authentically Southern humor, comes from their comfortable interactions, their funny tall tales, and their alternating shows of respect and good-natured teasing.
  33. Unknown Pleasures
    Much like his overrated 2000 opus "Platform," Unknown Pleasures spends more energy fussing over the backdrop than on the poor souls languishing in the fore, who have little to do but wander aimlessly and symbolically as life passes them by.
  34. Piglet's Big Movie
    Though it's tough to find much fault with a film so sweet, Piglet's Big Movie never lives up to its title.
  35. Chuen jik sat sau
    In keeping with Hong Kong's style-as-substance tradition, Fulltime Killers is beyond reproach.
  36. Boat Trip
    Has an agreeable air of anything-goes vulgarity, which is so transcendentally idiotic that it's impossible to tell whether the film is a brilliant, deadpan parody of raunchy lowbrow farces from the '70s and '80s, or one of the stupidest, most regressive films ever made. Or, more likely, it's a little of both.
  37. View from the Top
    Over in a breeze, padded out by a generous collection of outtakes, and filled with characters who disappear virtually unnoticed, View is an inoffensive comedy that feels like the victim of too much fiddling.
  38. One Swallow Brought Spring
    Carion and his gifted leads never take the easy way out. Instead, they let the characters get acquainted against the slow change of the seasons, taking their relationship along unexpected turns.
  39. Dreamcatcher
    Perhaps due to the talent of everyone involved, Dreamcatcher moves with an oddly exhilarating awfulness that sets it apart from more run-of-the-mill horror films, which lack the imagination and budget to be so thoroughly misconceived.
  40. Japan
    A dense, challenging work by any measure, Japón snakes toward a justly celebrated final shot that's technically astonishing and immensely powerful, cementing the arrival of a promising new talent.
  41. Willard
    It only takes rat trainers and CGI artists to create swarms of vermin, but it takes a twisted kind of genius to treat them as equals.
  42. Journeys with George
    Pelosi should be roughed up some, though, for what little she does with her access to the then-president-to-be and the political circus surrounding him.
  43. Under the City's Skin
    At times, Bani Etemad succeeds only too well at capturing the confusing rush of Adineh's family life--the film presents more subplots than it can follow thoroughly, until its final act snaps all that's come before into sharp focus.
  44. The Hunted
    Aided by cinematographer Caleb Deschanel, Friedkin works economically, lending the film the mark of a master craftsman, albeit of the coldly efficient variety. The terseness and surplus of technical skill make The Hunted surprisingly engaging.
  45. Agent Cody Banks
    The generic intrigue and chase scenes take over, leaving poor Muniz at the mercy of stunt doubles and chintzy special effects.
  46. Spun
    A dark comedy about speed freaks that feels like it was directed and edited by someone in the midst of a methamphetamine jag.
  47. Bend It Like Beckham
    Like the rest of the film, Beckham's climax is surprisingly satisfying, however, in large part because director Gurinder Chadha films the competing big game and big fat Indian wedding of Nagra's sister with equivalently bursting levels of color, panache, and verve.
  48. Laurel Canyon
    Occasionally, the film invites a more dynamic touch than the careful slowness Cholodenko carries over from "High Art." But that same care gives the movie a seductive quality that would have been lost in a more hurried approach.
  49. Nowhere in Africa
    With sumptuous widescreen photography and a pounding world-music score, the film makes for an absorbing travelogue at best, as pretty as a picture book and just as flat on the surface.
  50. Bringing Down the House
    Yet another comedy that suggests someone should take Martin aside and remind him that he can do better.
  51. Irreversible
    There are strong ideas at play in Noé's undeniably audacious and technically stunning second feature, which goes as far as any film can in revealing the breakdown of order and the deterioration of the rational mind.
  52. Tears of the Sun
    Impossible to swallow as truth, this Rambo treatment is equally hard to enjoy as escapism.
  53. 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.
  54. Ten
    Nobody handles unvarnished interactions quite the way Kiarostami does, and for much of Ten, it's a kind of austere thrill to watch him focus so intently on one aspect of his craft.
  55. Cradle 2 the Grave
    Its creepy use of DMX's daughter is reprehensible, but the film is otherwise so unrelentingly sleazy that its use of the child-in-danger gambit actually qualifies as one of its subtler moves.
  56. Horns and Halos
    Isn't a particularly well-assembled documentary, but the queasy, hypnotic power of its story and subjects makes its technical shortcomings forgivable.
  57. Poolhall Junkies
    Looks like a cheap polyester suit, an entirely synthetic composite of scenes from other movies.
  58. Foreign Sister
    The particulars of her situation are well-imagined, but Wolman's characters remain little more than mouthpieces.
  59. Bolivia
    Caetano's blunt, deterministic ending underlines the point too neatly, but in dignifying an outcast whose life is treated as anonymous and disposable, he puts a human face on a national tragedy.
  60. Open Hearts
    Though the plot's soap-opera turns become tidy and predictable, the film shows remarkable attunement and sympathy toward a group of characters whose lives intersect and unravel on a cruel twist of fate.
  61. Tales of Erotica
    Their attempts at wit seem forced, and the overall point of each installment is too minor to spend nearly 30 minutes exploring.
  62. Till Human Voices Wake Us
    Voices is visually impressive, and it sustains a mood of downbeat romanticism throughout, but because it lacks an essential core of humanity, it's never as haunting or resonant as it should be.
  63. Dark Blue
    Flaws and all, Dark Blue has a combustible energy that's usually anathema to Hollywood, reopening an old wound that has festered too quietly for more than a decade.
  64. Lawless Heart
    Its protagonists' hearts aren't lawless so much as stuck in various states of quiet desperation, and the modest charms of this observant, affecting film fortunately bear little relation to the sensationalistic label.
  65. Gods and Generals
    Playing in theaters when it belongs on television, where snacks and bathroom breaks can counteract its punishing dryness, and the option of watching something else doesn't involve driving home.
  66. Old School
    A comedy with a terrific premise and little else.
  67. The Life of David Gale
    Brazenly ridiculous.
  68. Amandla! A Revolution in Four Part Harmony
    In Amandla!, history doesn't just come alive--it sings, dances, and issues a passionate plea for justice and equality. The film joyously celebrates music as both a means to an end and an end unto itself.
  69. Ordinary Sinner
    In spite of a little bit of sex and a lot of strong profanity, Ordinary Sinner is pretty reminiscent of an old Afterschool Special.
  70. Painted Fire
    In the scope of things, Ohwon's story is a route into the larger story of an uncertain and tumultuous period in Korea, and it's here that Chi-hwa-seon loses its grip.
  71. The Jungle Book 2
    Even the animation is imitative rather than inventive.
  72. Gerry
    Conceptually bold and rapturously beautiful Gerry, a minimalist landscape film that's unlike anything on the American independent scene.
  73. He Loves Me... He Loves Me Not
    It's clever enough, but it's mostly a contrivance to hide the fact that there's nothing interesting about the story itself.
  74. All the Real Girls
    Deschanel and Schneider--who both give rich, funny performances--and everyone around them have inner lives that don't always translate into words. When they speak, it's usually in dialogue halfway between poetry and inarticulate fumbling.
  75. Daredevil
    Casting Affleck would have paid off had the conflicted, acerbic star of “Boiler Room,” “Changing Lanes,” or even “Bounce” shown up. Instead we're left with the cardboard hero of “Armageddon” and “The Sum Of All Fears,” a caretaker leading man wholly dependent on the quality of the movie around him. Sadly, there's not much of that.
  76. Stone Reader
    There's a terrific short film somewhere inside Mark Moskowitz's feature-length documentary Stone Reader. Unfortunately, it's buried within a flabby 128-minute slog that feels like a rough draft nobody had the heart to edit down.
  77. Zus & zo
    Fast-paced, and entertaining in a soapy way, but plot demands require almost all of the dialogue to be flatly descriptive.
  78. Deliver Us from Eva
    Hardwick switches gears from wacky comedy to romantic drama about halfway through Deliver Us, but it's too late, and what follows is far too dull to make any difference.
  79. Kedma
    Kedma makes for a clumsy, lugubrious history lesson.
  80. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
    As her character resorts to increasingly cruel and devious pranks, Hudson only seems funnier and more endearing.
  81. Shanghai Knights
    Coasts heavily on Chan and Wilson's charm, which would be a big problem if those prodigiously gifted stars weren't taking on roles that fit like two pairs of comfortable slippers.
  82. May
    May represents something rare and unfashionable-–a smart, twisted little slasher comedy that doesn't skimp on the gore.
  83. Biker Boyz
    Could and should have been a giddy, tongue-in-cheek action-comedy romp. Instead, it's a meandering action-drama, in which nearly all of the abundant laughs are unintentional.
  84. Lost in La Mancha
    At once bitterly funny and devastating, Lost In La Mancha sides with Gilliam in form and spirit, piecing together the train wreck with snaky humor and interludes that cleverly mimic his Monty Python collage animations.
  85. 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.
  86. Final Destination 2
    While “Final Destination” was gimmicky enough, its sequel begins with the same flawed premise, then piles on layers of contrivances until it reaches a level of implausibility rarely seen outside of films pitting giant radioactive monsters against each other.
  87. 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.
  88. Darkness Falls
    Powered by dim bulbs on both sides of the camera, Darkness Falls barrels ahead with unrelenting stupidity, forsaking many of its own rules in search of the next cheap shock.
  89. Blind Spot. Hitler's Secretary
    Riveting testimonial.
  90. Amen.
    Amen should be a powderkeg of a movie, yet the urgency and force that defined Costa-Gavras' earlier work has been drained away, along with his invigorating newsreel craft.
  91. In the Mirror of Maya Deren
    Kudlácek rounds up a who's-who of experimental filmmakers, Haitian artists, dance choreographers, archivists, and programmers, all of whom reflect intelligently (though dryly) on Deren's importance in underground cinema.
  92. 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.
  93. Divine Intervention
    What Suleiman is trying to say becomes less important than the increasing boldness with which he says it. In the end, Divine Intervention has too many visionary setpieces, and not enough insight.
  94. P.S. Your Cat Is Dead!
    Guttenberg adapts James Kirkwood Jr.'s humanist black comedy -- and drains all the recognizable humanity out of it, turning it into a morose, unlikable reflection of its sad-sack lead character.
  95. A Guy Thing
    Perhaps Lee took a look at the script -- saw all the jokes about diarrhea, pubic lice, drunk old ladies, and drugged gravy, and thought, "Why bother?" Looking at the final results, it's hard to feel any other way.
  96. National Security
    Lawrence clamors for the spotlight. If he ever found a way to make desperation look like charisma, he'd be the funniest man in America.
  97. Kangaroo Jack
    Straight from the fiery, churning bowels of high-concept hell comes Kangaroo Jack, Bruckheimer's idea of kid-friendly fare, and some of the longest 90 minutes ever committed to film.
  98. City of God
    The film finds a surprising amount of tenderness and humor beneath the brutality. The laughs may catch in the throat, but that's only a byproduct of City Of God's power to leave viewers breathless.
  99. Crimson Gold
    Provides one of the rare glimpses of the upper class to come out of recent Iranian cinema--the last one in memory was 1996's exquisite, Ibsen-esque melodrama "Leila"--and director Jafar Panahi (The Circle) captures it vividly through his hero's wounded obsession.
  100. 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.
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