The A.V. Club's Scores

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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
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  1. The Replacement Killers
    Chow has a future in a America if given better material with which to work; here, he's wasted in a movie that's forgotten 20 minutes after the credits roll.
  2. Tears of the Sun
    Impossible to swallow as truth, this Rambo treatment is equally hard to enjoy as escapism.
  3. Ghost Ship
    Likely to appeal only to undiscriminating nudity-- and gore -- starved adolescents.
  4. National Lampoon's Gold Diggers
    Originally titled Lady Killers, this rancid, underlit B-movie aspires to little more than cheap laughs eked out of the discomfort and queasiness Owen and Friedle feel over sexually servicing assertive, kinky old women.
  5. 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.
  6. Halloween: Resurrection
    It seems content to plod listlessly through the motions.
  7. The Other Side of the Bed
    The Spanish import The Other Side Of The Bed takes a winning idea and drives it directly into the ground.
  8. The Whole Ten Yards
    The least necessary sequel since "Agent Cody Banks" embarked on a London mission a few weeks ago.
  9. The Punisher
    Sadly, The Punisher is about little more than bullets hitting bone, and how good it might feel to be on the right end of a gun.
  10. Callas Forever
    A hysterically over-the-top backstage melodrama whose temperature seldom falls below overheated.
  11. Chelsea Walls
    Works equally poorly as a tourist brochure and as a drama.
  12. The Haunted Mansion
    It's also hard to figure out who this movie is supposed to delight: It's too scary for little kids and not nearly scary enough for anyone allowed to rent "The Ring" without getting carded.
  13. Spun
    A dark comedy about speed freaks that feels like it was directed and edited by someone in the midst of a methamphetamine jag.
  14. The Out-of-Towners
    Director Sam Weisman's pushy, subtlety-free direction certainly doesn't help. Martin is still capable of making a decent film, but The Out-Of-Towners isn't it.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    George of the Jungle
    This appalling desecration of Jay Ward's 1960s cartoon series suffers from countless movie-ruining flaws.
  16. 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.
  17. Sphere
    If you've ever wanted to see Queen Latifah fatally attacked by jellyfish at the bottom of the ocean, Sphere is the movie for you. If you're looking for more, you're not going to find it here.
  18. Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London
    Opens with its snazziest effects sequences and gets cheaper from there, as if studio executives were constantly scaling back the budget as the filmmakers went along.
  19. The Sweetest Thing
    Diaz does what she can under adverse circumstances, but she doesn't come close to salvaging this ramshackle vehicle.
  20. Exorcist: The Beginning
    There's no pea soup, but sketchy effects, cheap jolts, swirling cameras, and buckets of blood surround Exorcist: The Beginning with the potent aroma of cheese.
  21. The Prince and Me
    Few actresses exude restless intelligence as effortlessly as Stiles, which is fortunate, since Martha Coolidge's film relies on that forceful charisma to make it past awful dialogue, contrived situations, and hokey use of Disney-style butterflies.
  22. Conspiracy of Silence
    A well-intentioned but ultimately incompetent Irish dud.
  23. Formula 51
    Too often, Formula 51 fails to differentiate between gleeful excess and white noise.
  24. The Fighting Temptations
    The energetic musical sequences help make it feel warmer and more ingratiating than it otherwise would, which is fortunate, since this rickety vehicle needs all the help it can get.
  25. Resident Evil
    Too grim and humorless to even qualify as trashy fun.
  26. Taxi
    Feels stitched together from bits and pieces of lame '80s buddy-cop movies.
  27. Saw
    Though dumber than a box of rocks, Saw forges ahead with the kind of conviction and energy that will keep bad-cinema junkies sitting bolt upright.
  28. Thunderbirds
    Dreary, joyless.
  29. Party Monster
    The film's only real bright spot is Seth Green, who, as Culkin's sidekick, brings Party Monster a droll wit it otherwise lacks. It's such a dreary mess that when Culkin insists that life in prison isn't too different from being a club kid, it's all too easy to believe him.
  30. Underworld
    Not since "Battlefield Earth" pitted overacting, nine-foot-tall Psychlos against puny man-animals has there been an interspecies match-up this perversely uninteresting.
  31. John Q
    Plays less like an exposé than a piece of exploitation, its clear divide between good and evil allowing no breathing room for real drama.
  32. The Machinist
    Unrelentingly dreary, and seemingly destined to be remembered, if at all, as that movie Christian Bale lost a full third of his body weight for. It doesn't deserve any better.
  33. 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.
  34. The Aryan Couple
    An oafish bore.
  35. What the #$*! Do We (K)now!?
    Darts around maniacally before congealing around a touchy-feely message of personal empowerment whose secular humanism and moral relativism is bound to strike fundamentalists of all stripes as downright Satanic.
  36. Christmas with the Kranks
    Hard not to pelt the screen with rotten fruit when confronted with a film like Christmas With The Kranks.
  37. A Walk to Remember
    Basically a prim, desexualized "Carrie," told from the prom date's perspective and featuring Peter Coyote in the Piper Laurie role.
  38. The Forgotten
    Though it soon devolves into a laughable mess, The Forgotten at least spends its first 10 minutes or so raising provocative questions.
  39. A Cinderella Story
    A Cinderella Story banks far too heavily on its audience's affection for Duff, who's dreadful in a terrible role.
  40. Alexander
    Stone has made an excruciating disaster for the ages.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Anastasia
    You can set your watch to the musical cues, and the songs themselves are forgettable at best, insipid at worst.
  42. Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason
    When a sequel has to hit the reset button and take all its characters back to where they started, it probably didn't need to be made.
  43. Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star
    Spade can still be funny when he lets himself be mean, and Dickie Roberts shows glimmers of that dynamic, but they're muscled out by lazy slapstick and maudlin stuff.
  44. The Day After Tomorrow
    Emmerich now directs entirely in watered-down Spielbergisms, and his storytelling skills, never strong, have gone slack. His talent for stretching a concept that can be described in 10 seconds into a feature-length movie, on the other hand, remains impressive.
  45. New York Minute
    An unabashedly pop confection, but it's flat where it should fizz, lumbering when it should skip.
  46. National Treasure
    It lacks the conviction to embrace its own garish awfulness, resulting in little more than tedious historical and patriotic hokum, a preposterous potboiler done in by slack pacing and pedestrian execution.
  47. The Stepford Wives
    Rudnick is a wit, and his script allows everyone a decent one-liner or two. But the problem with one-liners is that they only last one line, leaving a whole movie around them that needs filling in.
  48. Welcome to Mooseport
    Hackman makes a plausible ex-president, but his graceful, lived-in performance is just about the only element of Welcome To Mooseport that rings true.
  49. Anatomy of Hell
    Even without the difficult imagery, Breillat's grim observations on men, women, and sexual orientation, are tough to take.
  50. Without a Paddle
    Buddy comedies rely heavily on their leads' chemistry, and in this regard, Without A Paddle fails.
  51. The Boondock Saints
    As written and directed by newcomer Troy Duffy, The Boondock Saints is all style and no substance, a film so gleeful in its endorsement of vigilante justice that it almost veers (or ascends) into self-parody.
  52. Garfield
    The popularity of Davis' strip represents the ultimate triumph of mediocrity, but even the cartoonist's competent hackwork deserves better than this.
  53. Troy
    Troy does look good--so good, in fact, that it takes a while to reveal itself as a thundering dud with much action but little personality, human drama, or brains.
  54. The Phantom of the Opera
    Adding an additional layer of cheese to a project that already reeks hopelessly of Velveeta, Schumacher pumps up the empty spectacle, stranding his fetching-but-lifeless mannequins amid giant sets and overblown production numbers.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Dante's Peak
    As boring as the special effects are, they far outshine the stultifying plot.
  56. Mad City
    Hoffman and Travolta are both good, but this toothless satire does little to justify their performances.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries
    With the development of most characters truncated in order to concentrate on Sobieski (who looks eerily like a young Helen Hunt), the film proves pretty dissatisfying.
  58. Besotted
    Hardman never gives her material a chance to develop, because she subjects it to so much forced drama and self-conscious nudging, and when she hits a wall, she gets silly.
  59. Massoud, the Afghan
    A series of non-answers isn't enough to build a documentary on, especially when they're strung together by insufferably self-congratulatory voiceover narration (de Ponfilly plays up his agony over whether documentary filmmaking helps or hurts its subjects) and corny stylistic effects.
  60. Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear & the Selling of American Empire
    Crude, grating.
  61. Stalin's Wife
    Though serviceable as a primer on Soviet history under Stalin, the film's sloppy assemblage of dull interviews and stock footage never comes close to illuminating a life that the Russian people have long cherished as a precious enigma.
  62. The War on the War on Drugs
    Writer-director-producer-actor-composer-singer Soling claims to have spent a year researching the war on drugs before deciding to make a satire instead of a documentary, but he apparently threw most of his facts out the window in favor of absurdism, exaggeration, slander, and self-congratulatory humor.
  63. Piggie
    Reilly's appearance in Piggie amounts to little more than a cameo, but he's lively and real in ways that the rest of Bagnall's cast is not. It's the material's fault.
  64. The Grace Lee Project
    She acts amazed by her own work, in hopes that we'll be too. To help the matter along, Lee underscores the action with a Mickey Mouse score, cutesy animation, and a relentlessly chipper tone. Her technique is pretty much everything that's wrong with documentary filmmaking today.
  65. Legend
    Fascinating in the way only a wrongheaded film by a great filmmaker can be, Legend lends beauty to such imagery, but the story keeps dragging it back to the mystical land of kitsch.
  66. The Amityville Horror
    In happier times, director Stuart Rosenberg confidently helmed Cool Hand Luke. Here, he resorts to one spookhouse cliché after another, and even the original touches are more puzzling than startling.
  67. Out to Sea
    A manipulative attempt to swindle money out of the generation that came of age during the Harding Administration, Out To Sea has the wit and sophistication of your average Fox TV pilot.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
    Black powder and Christian Slater are cool and all, but real dramatic successes come when a film has both heart and a slate of talented actors who aren’t just leaning on their oversized patchwork capes to tell the story.
  69. Supergirl
    Slater not only makes for a dull Supergirl, but she's stuck in a clumsy, silly film that tries for the light touch of Richard Lester's Superman II and fails decisively.
  70. Valentine's Day
    Explores love in all its myriad forms, from the sickeningly sappy to the cornball to the groaningly precious and obnoxiously cute.
  71. The Blind Side
    Sports movies have a long, troubled history of well-meaning white paternalism, with poor black athletes finding success through white charity. But The Blind Side, based on Michael Lewis’ non-fiction book, finds a new low.
  72. Did You Hear About the Morgans?
    When the material gets really bad, as it does in the dismal Did You Hear About The Morgans?, Grant's pinched facial expressions become an inadvertent commentary on the movie he's making, as if he plainly realizes that his one-liners are tanking.
  73. 2012
    2012 is ultimately only about finding new ways to topple monoliths. Only they don’t feel that new.
  74. Old Dogs
    Adults should steer clear. Kids should be sent to it only if they’ve been extraordinarily naughty.
  75. Law Abiding Citizen
    A flagrantly ridiculous thriller that tries to retrofit "Saw" to function as a mainstream, semi-respectable vigilante picture
  76. Amelia
    Considering its focus on a pioneering, rule-breaking icon, the film’s utter lack of personality isn’t just a failure. It’s close to an insult.
  77. Miss March
    Robinson is hilarious, at least in the early going. Sadly, Robinson is all that stands between Miss March and complete worthlessness.
  78. Big Momma's House 2
    There's something depressing about seeing the low-energy, family-friendly Lawrence sleepwalk through the film's sappy plot points.
  79. When a Stranger Calls
    The original should have been a short film; the new version shouldn't exist at all.
  80. Final Destination 3
    Fans of the genre might appreciate the decidedly R-rated violence and nudity, but that's really all the film has to offer.
  81. Ultraviolet
    Underdeveloped antagonist Nick Chinlund sums up the entire film during one of his rants about Jovovich's latest casual, offhand slaughter: "One woman against 14 men! It's ridiculous!" Well, yeah.
  82. She's the Man
    Bynes appears in practically every scene, and the film seems to have been designed as a showcase for her comedic skills, which she apparently left behind in the trailer.
  83. Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector
    Laughing at this turkey might not necessarily make you a redneck, but it sure does make you easily amused.
  84. Basic Instinct 2
    Fortunately, as a showcase for Sharon Stone's physique, Basic Instinct 2 is a rousing success. In every other respect, it's a colossal failure.
  85. RV
    Apart from a funny turn by "Arrested Development's" Will Arnett as Williams' evil boss, nobody appears to be having a good time. And the feeling is infectious.
  86. An American Haunting
    Never remotely frightening.
  87. Just My Luck
    Just My Luck, a lazy spitballing session of karmic humor, hinged on the sort of generic rom-com contrivances that keep movies like these from ending at a reasonable time.
  88. Cavite
    The only rational explanation for how an abysmal no-budget film like Cavite could get released theatrically is that its makers, co-writer/directors Ian Gamazon and Neill Dela Llana, have come up with a from-the-headlines hook too big to deny.
  89. Waist Deep
    Like the forgotten blaxploitation schlock it often resembles, the film aspires to nothing but cheap thrills, but while it's plenty cheap, it's far from thrilling.
  90. The Oh in Ohio
    It's never a promising sign when an attractive young woman's insatiable sexual desire for Danny DeVito represents the most convincing and compelling aspect of a movie, but that's the best this one can do.
  91. Barnyard
    It shouldn't be surprising that writer-director Steve Oedekerk, the man responsible for "Kung Pow! Enter The Fist" and the second "Ace Ventura" movie, considers single-celled organisms as he shoots for the lowest common denominator.
  92. America: Freedom to Fascism
    Gives the Michael Moore muckraking-underdog treatment to the kind of delirious conspiracy theories generally associated with mentally ill homeless people screaming at passersby to stop stealing their brainwaves.
  93. Snakes on a Plane
    Not since Pet Rocks riveted the nation have so many gotten so excited over so little.
    • 17 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    Material Girls
    The most shocking moment comes during the closing credits, when it's revealed that not one, not two, but three screenwriters were responsible for a plot that someone seems to have hastily slapped together after taking a walk around a Sephora outlet while listening to "Beat Of My Heart" on loop.
  95. Crossover
    Crossover doesn't have the competence to make it exciting or the desire to explore what's really at stake for these players.
  96. Broken Bridges
    Country Music Television's answer to "Elizabethtown."
  97. Everyone's Hero
    It's a shallow, treacly movie for children too little to question its many pointless puerilities. But do kids that young really belong in a theater? Keep 'em at home and wait for this to hit cable.
  98. Employee of the Month
    A symptom of cinematic de-evolution run amok.
  99. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning
    It's really gory and really dull. Mostly just dull.
    • 27 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    Let's Go to Prison
    Prison makes its 84-minute running time feel like a five-year sentence with no chance for parole.
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