The A.V. Club's Scores

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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
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  1. Cold Comes the Night
    The Breaking Bad star — who looks here not unlike the Heisenberg of last season — can’t buoy material so thin that it would’ve barely supported an episode of "The Killing."
    • 37 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Miracle at St. Anna
    Miracle plays like "School Daze" transplanted to the European front, with the token militant, the token uplift-the-race type, and the token buffoon all marching inexorably toward Checkpoint Irony.
  3. Bad Company
    Company almost seems like the product of a post-Sept. 11 world. Like a cartoon version of a real threat, the villains are terrorists of a non-specific nationality with an ill-defined anti-American agenda and a tendency to spout complaints too clichéd to take seriously.
  4. Love Don't Cost a Thing
    This is teen product at its most generic.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. Spy Kids: All the Time in the World
    The Spy Kids series once seemed charmingly homemade. These days, it feels less charmingly homemade than maddeningly amateurish.
  8. The Other Woman
    The book may have been too unwieldy for Roos to wrangle. There's a lot of story (and backstory) here, which Roos tries to squeeze in every which way.
  9. Are You Here
    As a film, though, it amounts to less than the sum of its parts.
  10. All the King's Men
    The movie's more damnable problem is it irrelevance.
  11. Fist Fight
    The fact is that moviegoers deserve a better class of comedy, or at least movies that aren’t composed of one part recycled three-act filler and one part vamping.
  12. An Eye for Beauty
    Beautiful people living in beautiful houses surrounded by stunningly beautiful Canadian landscapes dominate the aptly titled An Eye For Beauty, which unfortunately also demands a stomach for tedium.
  13. Haven
    The film boasts compelling performances--from Bruckner, and especially from Stephen Dillane as a wildly pragmatic money-man who radiates well-deserved cynicism. But Bloom is the giant void at the center of the film, and his laughable histrionics pull Haven firmly into camp territory.
  14. War, Inc.
    The overall experience is manic, juvenile, and hit-or-miss, as if the auteurs behind "Epic Movie" were trying to remake "Wag The Dog." It's too soon to laugh about Iraq, and it'll never be time to laugh about it with this kind of maladroit humor.
  15. Heist
    Would the movie be as (barely) entertaining as it is without De Niro? He only has about 15 minutes’ worth of scenes in Heist, but whenever he’s on-screen the film almost feels legitimate.
  16. Analyze That
    All the principals -- except, significantly, screenwriter Kenneth Lonergan -- reprised their roles for the sequel, and all seem confused as to why they returned.
  17. A Life Less Ordinary
    At the very least, this film should hush those who insist that Diaz has talent beyond visual appeal, but it's unfair to single out her relatively minor offenses when there's so much else to hate about A Life Less Ordinary, an embarrassment for all concerned.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 33 Critic Score
    Fun Size
    A laborious comedy about a Halloween night in Cleveland that feels too grown up in half of its storylines to suit younger audiences, and too juvenile or nonsensical in the rest of its gags to please anyone else.
  19. When Do We Eat?
    A tonal mess, a kitchen-sink comic melodrama that veers from broad comedy to sticky drama without ever finding a palatable or consistent tone.
  20. Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties
    Two Kitties marks a considerable improvement over its predecessor. It's faster paced and the filmmakers wisely shift the focus away from bland owner Breckin Meyer and onto a menagerie of chattering animals.
  21. Dirty Girl
    In many ways, the film is history repeating itself, as the same Weinstein brothers who famously dropped $10 million on "Happy, Texas" in 1999 have overpaid again for "Happy, Texas 2."
  22. The Kid & I
    Shamelessly manipulating his audience, wallowing in his highly questionable premise, and above all mocking himself, Arnold bulls ahead enthusiastically and without reservation, and in the process, he brings something like dignity to one of the least dignified movies in recent history.
  23. The Samaritan
    It's difficult to describe The Samaritan, in which Samuel L. Jackson plays an ex-con trying to return to the straight and narrow after 25 years inside, without overlapping a dozen other movies in his nigh-endless filmography, nor watch any scene without thinking of how many times he's drawn from the same bag of tricks.
  24. Jessabelle
    There isn’t a single jump scare in this thing. On the other hand, it would be nice if Jessabelle tried a little harder.
  25. Shutter
    The photography hook gives Shutter the potential to be a genuinely creepy ghosts-in-the-machine story like the original "Pulse," or better still, a horror twist on "Blowup." But one effective scene lit solely by a camera flash isn't enough to rescue this from the J-horror slushpile.
  26. Love Ranch
    So with two great, ideally cast actors and such potentially fascinating subject matter, why does Love Ranch feel like a clumsy TV movie?
  27. Honey
    Cotton-candy filmmaking, all spun sugar and hot air.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 0 Critic Score
    The Nut Job
    The most egregious problem with The Nut Job is how shamelessly it fills in the gaps left by expanding Lepeniotis’ short with generic and tedious rogue-to-hero cliché.
  29. Outcome
    The life lessons Reef learns aren’t meaningful, and the movie’s message about making amends is patronizing. In the end, it’s the audience that deserves an apology.
  30. Battle: Los Angeles
    It's loud, relentless, and difficult to endure, capturing the experience of ground-level alien warfare with woeful verisimilitude.
  31. Red Notice
    This is the stuff that reminds us that Hollywood movies are made with charts and committees; we don’t enjoy it, but we put up with it in exchange for a good time. Red Notice only has the time part down. The good, like the bejeweled egg, is frequently missing.
  32. Child's Play 2
    In every way, it hangs together less effectively than its predecessor, but Mancini’s script is smartly self-aware (a recurring theme in these films), and new director John Lafia creates some enjoyably gonzo moments.
  33. Cold Creek Manor
    In one of the most laughable confrontations between humanity and nature since Elisha Cuthbert stared down the cougar on "24," Quaid's family runs amok in the house, as each member simultaneously discovers a carefully placed snake meant to scare them off the property, almost as if the snakes were working off a timer system. The film never recovers.
  34. 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.
  35. 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.
  36. The Bye Bye Man
    On top of the general hoariness, this is also an uncommonly, at times unbelievably inept movie; from its acting to its script to most of its technical aspects, it feels barely fit for the big screen.
  37. The Machine
    Hamill, however, is the MVP, continuing to deliver some of his best work as an older man. When he leaves the action for a spell, the energy leaves the movie.
  38. Relationship Goals
    As a bit of forgettable, low-stakes Valentine’s Day viewing for the religious set, one could do worse. But those who only date their rom-coms “intentionally” could definitely do better.
  39. The Double
    Roughly 99 percent of the time, if a movie that seems like it should be a big deal appears almost out of the blue, it's because it's lousy. The Double doesn't exactly buck that trend.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    This Time
    Not only does the film lack focus in its chosen spectrum of likeable performers, it also feels short of any kind of structure or arc, leaving its subjects to toil along in place for an overlong runtime with no end in sight.
  41. Caught in the Web
    Since making an ill-fated attempt at Hollywood with 2002’s "Killing Me Softly," Chen Kaige has slipped further and further out of relevance. Now even his elegant sense of style — the one thing keeping later efforts like "Forever Enthralled" afloat — seems to be slipping away. Case in point: Chen’s new film, Caught In The Web.
  42. Only God Forgives
    The results are sometimes striking, in pure visual terms, but rarely engaging; even as a brutish saga of underworld retribution, the film fails to get the heart pounding.
  43. Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan: Ghost War
    Jack Ryan: Ghost War [editor’s note: the full title of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Ghost War is way too long to keep repeating] is a straightforward spy movie without excitement or intrigue, like a training exercise to keep Krasinski busy. Even the franchise’s main distinguishing factor, its rah-rah patriotism, is no match for a few moments of product placement from the Saudi tourism board.
  44. The Country Bears
    It has the courage to feature some refreshingly lousy bear costumes, but the film seems likely to send most kids tugging at sleeves for the cinematic equivalent of Space Mountain.
  45. True Memoirs of an International Assassin
    Cleverer than the average Kevin James comedy, though its better gags are unlikely to inspire more than a snicker.
  46. The Island of Dr. Moreau
    As a sci-fi action movie, the latest Moreau is sub-schlock. As a thinly veiled post-colonial allegory, it's dangerously close to racism. Either way, it's one of the most ridiculous movies in a ridiculous summer.
  47. The Cloverfield Paradox
    In the case of The Cloverfield Paradox, it’s just a fancy word for “junk drawer.”
  48. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie
    The Super Mario Galaxy Movie doesn’t really have the patience for character-based conflict, or plotting more complicated (or motivated) than groups of characters showing up to different planets on cue.
  49. Crush
    Never good, Crush takes a turn for the worse when it takes a turn for the serious. Its attempt to drop cartoon comedy for cartoon tragedy essentially thrusts the characters from Cathy into the panels of Mary Worth.
  50. You Got Served
    Offers viewers a trade-off: half an hour of phenomenal dancing in exchange for an hour of atrocious drama.
  51. The Possession of Hannah Grace
    It’s exorcism’s greatest hits, if exorcism were a band playing 300 casinos and state fairs a year.
  52. Speed Racer
    Borderline-experimental in the way it challenges the limits of perception. It's forward-thinking, visionary, and much of the time unwatchable.
  53. W.E.
    For the scandal-prone icon behind the camera - who glibly writes off all that talk about her subjects' Nazi sympathies as slanderous nonsense from a jealous, hateful press and gossipy busybodies - the film might as well be called ME.
  54. Demonic
    While Blomkamp does have one impressive CGI trick up his sleeve, he totally drops the ball on the narrative end of things.
  55. Seven Pounds
    It's a con job that feels like a precisely attenuated work of art, elegantly weaving flashbacks and ellipses into the story in an effort to conceal how shamelessly manipulative it is in the end. And as always, Smith comes out a winner.
  56. The Night Flier
    Not nearly as bad as it should be. For the most part, it's a well-made, enjoyably pulpy little genre film, albeit one that never quite overcomes the flimsiness of its source material.
  57. Mainstream
    The problem with Mainstream is it isn’t plugged deep enough into the culture it’s satirizing to really even know what its target is, let alone how to hit it.
  58. Poolhall Junkies
    Looks like a cheap polyester suit, an entirely synthetic composite of scenes from other movies.
  59. Little Black Book
    Casual moviegoers looking for a bubbly romantic comedy with Brittany Murphy will get more than they bargained for in Little Black Book, which builds to a nasty twist that's more Lars von Trier than Meg Ryan.
  60. He's All That
    There’s nothing inherently wrong with the idea of a teen rom-com centered on social media popularity and influencer culture—even one that doesn’t necessarily see those things as evil. But He’s All That offers nothing beyond buzzwords, empty platitudes, and sponcon.
  61. Rebound
    It'd be tempting to accuse Rebound of neutering Lawrence, but the sad fact is that Martin Lawrence doesn't have a whole lot of comic genius to betray.
  62. After.Life
    Caught in a pretentious no-man’s land between horror and melodrama.
  63. Color of Night
    It’s too much fun to be a failure and too transparently, giddily awful to be an unqualified success, so I’m going to split the difference.
  64. Tooth Fairy
    For a bad, broad comedy, Tooth Fairy boasts a surprising number of positives. Which isn’t to say that it’s good, but it could be much, much worse.
  65. Arthur
    Russell Brand steps into the role of Arthur Bach for the 2011 remake, and while it's one of the more reined-in performances of his short, busy big-screen career, Brand's unvarying onscreen persona just doesn't do soulful.
  66. Against the Ropes
    Right up to the ludicrous finale and an even more improbable denouement, everything rings Hollywood-false. More galling still, the filmmakers' inventions take the zing out of the facts.
  67. 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.
  68. Abandon
    Gaghan shows promise as a director, but Abandon leaves a lot of room for improvement.
  69. Inspector Gadget
    Anyone older than eight is likely to find it a ridiculously extravagant exercise in stupidity.
  70. Returner
    Yamazaki is clearly a science-fiction fan himself, and in Returner, he shows some worthwhile style, if only by stealing the biggest and best possible elements for his serviceably entertaining genre mashup.
  71. Jeepers Creepers II
    Jeepers Creepers aimed for the archetypal primal spookiness of a scary campfire tale, and halfway succeeded. Here, Salva makes it work virtually every step of the way.
  72. A Man Apart
    A film that sometimes suggests "Traffic" remade as a brainless action thriller.
  73. Last Love
    Unfortunately, Nettelbeck also strives to make Last Love a genuinely complex drama rooted in recognizable human behavior, and fails utterly in that effort.
  74. Shanghai
    Pulp without style: Shanghai has many of the staples of noir—back alleys, shadowy figures, hard-boiled narration, and more femmes fatales than a viewer could keep track of—but none of the atmosphere or cool.
  75. War
    In spite of a late-game adrenaline surge, the hoped-for fireworks between Li and Statham never quite materialize.
  76. Trigger Warning
    The filmmakers frustratingly fail to dig into the familiar territory they’re traversing. What should serve as a warm welcome for Mouly Surya (helming her first English-language picture) and a kick-ass welcome back to lead roles for star Jessica Alba turns into a congealed mess of squandered potential.
  77. My Spy: The Eternal City
    My Spy The Eternal City is so unconcerned with its obligations as an action-comedy that it fails to either thrill or amuse, making it a chore to actively pay attention to.
  78. The Eye
    The major problem is the death of a horror film: It's startling, but not particularly scary.
  79. Under the Cherry Moon
    There are elementary school playgrounds with substantially higher levels of verbal wit and intellectual discourse than Under The Cherry Room.
  80. Employee of the Month
    A symptom of cinematic de-evolution run amok.
  81. Sherlock Gnomes
    Most of the movie’s star power has been harnessed without much obvious reason, right down to the movie’s seeming origins as a delivery system for the Elton John catalog.
  82. Phat Girlz
    While it's a pleasure to watch the likeable Johnson open up and come out of her shell, Phat Girlz belongs to Mo'Nique, a grating, belligerent woman who alternates self-deprecating fat jokes with drama-queen meltdowns and simpering pleas for acceptance. Save it for the talk-show circuit, please.
  83. The Unholy
    This is the flimsiest of hokum, possessing all the gravity of a bible salesman hocking his wares outside the subway.
  84. The Canyons
    In The Canyons, there’s no pleasure — only power struggles disguised as sex.
  85. Space Jam: A New Legacy
    Maybe the rabbit and his studio both took a wrong turn at Albuquerque. Space Jam: A New Legacy takes almost nothing but wrong turns, all leading to a glittering CGI trash heap of cameos, pat life lessons, and stale internet catchphrases. Its first misstep: keeping Bugs, Daffy, and the rest of the gang on the bench for about as long as it would take the audience to watch three and a half Merrie Melodies.
  86. Circuit
    As slick and attractive as its cast. But the movie gets away from Shafer.
  87. Big Fat Liar
    Big Fat Liar's screenplay, co-written by Robbins and fellow Head Of The Class alumnus Dan Schneider, is a model of comic inefficiency. Like a Rube Goldberg contraption, it goes to excruciating, wildly implausible lengths for the flimsiest of payoffs.
  88. Kedma
    Kedma makes for a clumsy, lugubrious history lesson.
  89. Thunderbirds
    Dreary, joyless.
  90. Victor Frankenstein
    The first words spoken in Victor Frankenstein are “You know the story,” and anyone who simply mutters “Yep,” gets up, and heads back to the box office for a refund will be well ahead of the game.
  91. Resident Evil: Apocalypse
    Takes too long to get going to qualify unequivocally as a good movie, but when Jovovich finally starts kicking zombified ass, it becomes good enough.
  92. Criminal
    A high-concept thriller that teeters like a seesaw between deranged and dull.
  93. The Wicker Man
    Turns a cultishly creepy classic into a dull and windy farce.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Jackal
    At best, The Jackal is an uninspired, by-the-numbers action thriller.
  95. Diary of a Mad Black Woman
    The whole three-ring circus winds up in a church for a redemptive finale, but by then, Diary has committed too many sins for even the most generous soul to offer salvation.
  96. Are We Done Yet?
    It isn't gangsta, but it's winning all the same.
  97. Space Chimps
    Story remains Vanguard's weak point.
  98. The Son of No One
    A few individual performances survive - Liotta finds a little of his old edge, and Pacino briefly revisits Serpico territory - but they're smothered in the slow-burning absurdity.
  99. Graffiti Bridge
    It's a struggle with quasi-profound ramifications that crystallizes Prince's long-standing obsession with sin and salvation, sex and Godliness, the hungers of the body and the demands of the spirit. Or, at least, it should be. Instead it plays like a cartoon parody of Prince's soft-headed spiritual concerns.
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