The A.V. Club's Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
  1. The Original Kings of Comedy
    As a testament to the vitality of—and sense of community engendered by—black comedy, The Original Kings Of Comedy is a success. As a comedy, however, it's sluggishly paced and not nearly funny enough to justify its two-hour running time.
  2. Vanity Fair
    Either a radical reinterpretation of the source material or a mammoth failure of nerve. Whichever the case, it makes for a tremendously dull film that gives Witherspoon little to do except pose against a pretty backdrop.
  3. Love Me If You Dare
    The film's attempts at meaning do it in. The longer it goes on and the darker it grows, the further it drifts from any kind of human experience, outside of its protagonists' particular flavor of madness.
  4. Mona Lisa Smile
    It almost takes skill to make this cast dull, but the relentlessly tepid film does it anyway, by never getting the characters straight.
  5. Sweet Home Alabama
    The film does coast along smoothly to the inevitable, which is a credit to the always-game Reese Witherspoon, who's courteous enough to pretend she doesn't know what's coming, then make it look like a huge surprise.
  6. Herod's Law
    The angrier the film gets, the less funny it becomes, squelched by heavy-handed polemics, a maddeningly repetitive musical score, and a running time that drags its overriding joke into the ground.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Peacemaker
    Most action movies are so confident of their automatic audience that they're no better than they have to be. The Peacemaker isn't half that good.
  8. House of Sand and Fog
    Folds like a house of cards, collapsing under its own flimsy foundation.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Deep Impact
    If director Mimi Leder is really guilty of anything, it's of wasting three first-rate actors (Morgan Freeman, Vanessa Redgrave, and Robert Duvall) in underdeveloped roles while allowing Leoni's shell-shocked, unconvincing turn to become an embarrassment.
  10. A Slipping-Down Life
    The two leads help create an atmosphere of quiet surety, but they can't elevate the film beyond its self-imposed smallness.
  11. Testosterone
    It might as well be retitled "Waiting For Antonio," since Sabato's appearances bookend miles of convoluted nonsense. For the prurient, that's probably too much to endure.
  12. Suspect Zero
    Given nothing to do, Carrie-Anne Moss looks on from the sidelines as the film halfheartedly toys with the tired old notion that only a thin line separates the dogged investigator and the compulsive killer. She looks bored, and she should.
  13. Facing Windows
    Girotti has no magical powers, but his dementia has a way of coming and going at just the right time to move the story and themes wherever director Ferzan Ozpetek and co-writer Gianni Romoli want them to go.
  14. Rick
    It's hard for Rick to maintain this jangled tone, which aims to be simultaneously heartbreaking and broadly satirical. The latter tack pushes Rick too far, and too soon.
  15. 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.
  16. Walking Tall
    To its credit, the new Walking Tall is a good half-hour shorter than its predecessor, but even at 86 minutes, sitting through it is a chore.
  17. Gigli
    Writer-director Martin Brest lends the film a professional sheen, and his stars (who some rumors suggest may have become romantically involved) have charisma to spare, but the film has all the charge and momentum of a Paxil ad.
  18. The Reckoning
    Maddeningly dull. It works on the cerebrum while the rest of the body drifts off to sleep, and the dullness only intensifies as the film goes on.
  19. Tea with Mussolini
    While Zeffirelli couldn't have assembled a more capable cast, none of them, except Cher, are given characters colorful enough to make the film worthwhile; almost everyone gets lost amidst the Tuscan scenery.
  20. Brother to Brother
    Well-intentioned to a fault, the film packs a strange, ultimately unsuccessful combination of prurience and clumsy identity politics.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Vampires
    Profoundly disappointing--though Carpenter's score is, as usual, good fun.
  22. Power and Terror: Noam Chomsky in Our Times
    Doesn't aspire to do much more than disseminate Chomsky's ideas. On that level, it's a success, but on every other level, it's downright snooze-inducing.
  23. Valentin
    It takes mere seconds for every charming moment to go from "Ahhh..." to "Aarrggh!"
  24. 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.
  25. The Hebrew Hammer
    Ultimately more interested in exploiting clichés than subverting or commenting on them, and Coyote and Dunn's grotesque caricatures are embarrassing.
  26. Grind
    First-time director Casey La Scala and some talented stunt doubles squeeze in a fair amount of impressive skating footage, but the film around it will gleam the cube only of viewers with an unusually high tolerance for porta-toilet and Dutch-oven gags.
  27. Noel
    Palminteri and screenwriter David Hubbard desperately want the crazy misfits in their movie to move the audience, but they're all too cracked to inspire empathy. There's no holiday magic, just famous faces playing people who don't exist.
  28. Payback
    Consider that in “Point Blank,” Lee Marvin walks through the film with the look of a man who's lost his soul. You can see it in his eyes. Look in Gibson's eyes in this one and you'll see soullessness, but it doesn't seem to come from anywhere within his character.
  29. Good Will Hunting
    Van Sant's direction is surprisingly static and conventional, which doesn't help this earnest, underwhelming misfire.
  30. Gypsy 83
    The outsider road picture Gypsy 83 means well, but writer-director Todd Stephens can't keep his aesthetic out of the way.
  31. White Chicks
    Stupidity has worked for the Wayans brothers in the past, but White Chicks will likely test the patience of even their most loyal fans.
  32. Sleepover
    That points to the problem at Sleepover's heart: It buys into the caste system it ostensibly flouts.
  33. Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius
    Duller than a rain delay on the Golf Channel.
  34. Seed of Chucky
    Seed Of Chucky goes even further toward comedy over horror, but the Chucky-as-comic-antihero gag has grown stale.
  35. Gothika
    While stylistic excess keeps Gothika mildly diverting, though suspense-and horror-free, Kassovitz can't do anything to keep the film's ending from degenerating into camp.
  36. A Man Apart
    A film that sometimes suggests "Traffic" remade as a brainless action thriller.
  37. Red Dragon
    Norton is a strong lead in an overwrought, mediocre film that trumps even Hannibal in its mercenary shamelessness.
  38. Lost Highway
    A slow, ponderous, ultimately unsuccessful exercise in cerebral nihilism.
  39. 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.
  40. Honey
    Cotton-candy filmmaking, all spun sugar and hot air.
  41. Raising Helen
    The strange thing about Raising Helen is that nothing out of the ordinary ever really happens.
  42. Bush's Brain
    Constructed out of poorly supported accusations, vague innuendo, and naked emotional appeals, Bush's Brain has a Rove-esque quality of its own.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Fierce Creatures
    Cute lemurs and a couple jabs at corporate a--holery can't save Fierce Creatures from its manic malaise.
  44. I Am David
    While it's not always necessary for filmmakers to relate that closely to their material, Feig's marked distance from the story of a sullen boy who parts the Iron Curtain may account for its generic artlessness.
  45. Connie and Carla
    Seems as much an imposter in the drag-queen world as its heroines; it fronts the sort of safely asexual gay characters found on network TV.
  46. Kiss the Girls
    Freeman and Judd are fine, as could be expected, but their pairing deserves a better movie -- not one with a cheap twist ending that will easily be spotted by anyone who's studied the complex machinations of any episode of Murder, She Wrote.
  47. Birth
    The ick-factor deepens as the story progresses, but the mystery never does.
  48. Old School
    A comedy with a terrific premise and little else.
  49. 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.
  50. Man on Fire
    Scott's latest exercise in assaultive excess nevertheless lingers for two and a half hours, like a drunken houseguest who won't leave.
  51. Wonderland
    Wonderland is to "Boogie Nights" what "Blow" was to "Goodfellas": an accomplished knockoff with all the tricks and none of the soul.
  52. Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen
    Doesn't have a mean bone in its body, but it's so sloppily assembled that even Lohan's charm can't keep it together.
  53. The New Guy
    A comedy just funny enough to make viewers wish it were far funnier.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Absolute Power
    A murky, often confusing story riddled with half-hearted performances, erratic characters, and too many cliched lines and situations.
  55. 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.
  56. Once Upon a Time in Mexico
    An overstuffed would-be epic.
  57. Shall We Dance
    Chelsom has transformed a low-key charmer into an overblown shtick-com whose idea of restraint only extends to forgoing wacky sound effects, a laugh track, and amplified rim-shots every time a character delivers a wisecrack.
  58. The Lizzie McGuire Movie
    As it goes with the TV show, so it goes with the movie, which benefits from being shot largely in Rome and suffers from trying to stretch its sitcom antics to feature length.
  59. You Got Served
    Offers viewers a trade-off: half an hour of phenomenal dancing in exchange for an hour of atrocious drama.
  60. The Chronicles of Riddick
    As bloated and ponderous as its predecessor was lean and focused, Chronicles ups the stakes along with the budget while jettisoning just about everything that made "Pitch Black" stand out from other thrillers about weary humans battling nefarious space beasties.
  61. 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.
  62. Patch Adams
    The film begins to resemble the dramatic equivalent of a porno movie, with emotional orgasms spewing forth at a rapid clip. By the time Patch Adams reaches its narrative climax, it has long since shot its dramatic load.
  63. Surviving Christmas
    Affleck's psychotic enthusiasm aside, no one seems to be having a good time, and the ill will becomes infectious.
  64. The United States of Leland
    Hoge, who scripted and directed The United States Of Leland, caters to his cast too much. He gives almost every character a way-too-involved subplot, which distracts from the heart of his story.
  65. Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence
    At times, Innocence feels like a clip show of Oshii projects past. But the effect proves more dulling than warmly familiar.
  66. Wicker Park
    Instead of building toward a grand romantic climax, it just gets sillier before exploding into a torrent of unintended laughs.
  67. Paparazzi
    Paparazzi follows the vigilante playbook in all its banality, without much in the way of moral reflection.
  68. Fat Albert
    While endearing as cartoons, they don't wear flesh well.
  69. Finding Neverland
    Forster's movie doesn't want to grow up, but it doesn't seem to understand childhood, either. For a film about the life-affirming power of imagination, Finding Neverland displays precious little of its own.
  70. The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement
    Benefits from extremely modest expectations. For it to be anything but painfully arbitrary would count as an accomplishment, so the fact that it's superficially entertaining qualifies as a minor triumph.
  71. Two Brothers
    The tiger footage in Two Brothers would make for a solid nature documentary, but because the animals are shoehorned into a narrative, they've been anthropomorphized to death.
  72. Feeling Minnesota
    Marginally watchable-in part because of the odd presence of Dan Aykroyd and Courtney Love-it's ultimately pointless, repetitive and more concerned with appearing offbeat than actually doing anything inventive.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Jackal
    At best, The Jackal is an uninspired, by-the-numbers action thriller.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Bean
    When Atkinson tries to stretch familiar Beanisms into 80 minutes, the results are mostly unsatisfying.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Event Horizon
    The movie looks great at first, with interesting spaceship designs and genuinely creepy abandoned interiors, and the initial idea had plenty of potential. But by the time the story gets rolling, the filmmakers are trying unsuccessfully to scare the audience with sudden loud noises and gallon upon gallon of fake blood.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Excess Baggage
    Although Excess Baggage is not actually unwatchable, this is mostly due to Del Toro's dazed charisma and an inspired bit of weirdness by Christopher Walken as Silverstone's dangerous uncle.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Nutty Professor
    The film is otherwise plastic; the supporting players stink and a few too many fart jokes exist where wit belonged.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Evita
    Its political insights are half-hearted at best, and as entertainment it fails to excite. The songs sound mostly like glam-rock relics.
  79. Home for the Holidays
    The result is a movie that feels both fussed-over and meaninglessly cruel.
  80. Death and the Maiden
    Weaver's overacting and Dorfman's bold-faced dialogue oversell the scenario. Only Kingsley's sly turn gives Death And The Maiden any real feeling of disquiet.
  81. Last Party 2000
    The Last Party's scattershot approach doesn't linger on any single topic long enough to make a convincing case for any side.
  82. A House on a Hill
    The energy of Workman's editing and the innate value of seeing the creative process play out makes House watchable.
  83. Acts of Worship
    Though it isn't explained until the closing minutes, the title Acts Of Worship says a lot about Rodriguez's terminal weakness for the overwrought and faux-poetic.
  84. Hidden in Plain Sight
    Nods at objectivity but announces its activist intentions throughout.
  85. Tamala 2010: A Punk Cat in Space
    Tamala 2010 feels like either a singularly detail-organized dream, or an exceptionally formal drug trip.
  86. A Thousand Peace Clouds Encircle the Sky
    Ultimately, the film is the kind of neither-fish-nor-fowl work unlikely to satisfy anyone: There's not enough hot-and-heavy action for thrill-seekers, and not enough substance for those looking for above-the-waistline kicks.
  87. Clockstoppers
    Botches what could be the most mischievous power since Scott Baio's telekinesis in the 1982 comedy "Zapped!": a wristwatch that speeds up time for the user until the rest of the world seems to be standing still.
  88. A Letter to True
    The definition of a vanity film, Weber's latest opus lacks the focus even to qualify as dilettantish. Offering plenty for the eye and little for the brain, the film suffers from a dearth of ideas as it glides pleasantly but emptily from one gorgeous surface to another.
  89. Evergreen
    Evergreen suffers from creeping indie-itis, epitomized by the low-light digital video and droning electric-guitar soundtrack, but its biggest weakness lies in Zentelis' apparent fear of surprise.
  90. Straight-Jacket
    Loses its sass too quickly.
  91. Freeze Frame
    Compelling as it sounds, the idea behind Freeze Frame doesn't make any sense, especially when realized in practical terms.
  92. SubUrbia
    This adaptation of Eric Bogosian's 1994 play-- which revolves around several post-high-school drifters hanging around a convenience store while awaiting the return of their rock-star classmate -- doesn't hold up to Linklater's previous work, and the problem is Bogosian's script.
  93. Odessa... Odessa!
    Too pretty to dismiss, but too dull to recommend.
  94. little man
    While Conn's story is inherently compelling, it's pretty much ruined in the telling thanks to her unnerving choice to fill it with a twinkling piano-heavy score, florid narration, and trembling slow-motion.
  95. 39 Pounds of Love
    As documentary drama, 39 Pounds Of Love is as ungainly, blunt, and icky as its title.
  96. Babe: Pig in the City
    Maybe it could have worked had the movie found a story worth telling, but it simply drifts from depressing incident to depressing incident, resembling the nightmare of an adorable but deeply emotionally scarred pig. Anyone with fond memories of Babe ought to avoid this mirthless, dispiriting sequel.
  97. Best Men
    As a comedy, it's painfully unfunny, and as a drama, it's both silly and overcrowded with unnecessary characters and subplots. Still, Best Men has its moments.
  98. The Fly II
    The Fly movies could be a metaphor for sequels: Always go for the real article, not the freakishly mutated copy one telepod over.
  99. For the Love of Benji
    An improvement on its predecessor insofar as it takes place in Athens rather than small-town Texas, meaning the scenery is better.
  100. Cannibal Holocaust
    The director’s grim commitment to shocking his audience is fanatical to the point of being enthralling, as he dramatizes one bit of extreme, rancid cruelty after another for little reason other than to turn viewers’ stomachs. It’s far from a noble goal, but there’s no denying its effectiveness.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »