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. 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.
  2. Kill Me Three Times
    Director Kriv Stenders seems to think he’s spun a twisty, delightfully amoral genre riff. Instead, he’s made a brightly colored smirk noir.
  3. Affluenza
    The film is an empty shell, reducing a complex lament to a shallow portrait of wealthy hedonists behaving badly.
  4. USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage
    The sets are either claustrophobically limited or anonymously empty; the period detail is nonexistent; and the special effects are on par with a Syfy original.
  5. Little Boy
    A colossal miscalculation in audience uplift.
  6. The Boy Next Door
    Plenty of credit is due to Barbara Curry’s deranged script, set in a suburban fantasyland of doofus bullies, junior proms, and middle-class sex fears; it probably isn’t meant to be a Verhoeven satire, but it sure moves like one.
  7. Queen of the Damned
    A surreal piece of silliness.
  8. Waiting...
    There's real potential in the premise of young, unmotivated screw-ups logging time at a dead-end restaurant job--a hash-slinging "Office Space," basically--but first-time writer-director Rob McKittrick makes it look like a homemade sitcom laced with profanity.
  9. Expend4bles
    For a property that not only held unlimited potential for sequels galore, but also spin-offs (an all-female Expendables was briefly bandied about), it’s disheartening to see it face such creative bankruptcy. That’s not to say that, in the future, the right marriage of innovative directors and screenwriters can’t revive this flailing corpse and return it to its former glory. Unfortunately, recruiting those miracle workers seems more difficult than any mission any Expendable ever faced.
  10. White Noise
    It's a testament to Michael Keaton's fine lead performance that White Noise doesn't come off as laughably preposterous.
  11. 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.
  12. The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild
    It’s the extreme age-specificity and seeming low effort of Buck Wild that makes it more content than feature film.
  13. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning
    It's really gory and really dull. Mostly just dull.
  14. The Electric State
    The Electric State isn’t playful and colorful, it isn’t soberly thoughtful, it isn’t bleak yet emotional. It’s just a slog.
  15. Basmati Blues
    The movie starts out heedless in its desire to charm, but it winds up feeling constrained by self-consciousness, and more’s the pity.
  16. Boo! A Madea Halloween
    Madea remains a distinctive, weirdly compelling character. Maybe someday Perry will make a good comedy for her.
  17. Marmaduke
    Marmaduke saves its farts for the beginning and end, but the stink carries through the whole movie.
  18. Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore
    And it's still, in the spirit of the original film, an unbelievable piece of sh--.
  19. 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.
  20. 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.
  21. Grown Ups
    If Grown Ups were any lazier or more slapdash, it'd be a home movie.
  22. The Unborn
    What darkness the movie achieves comes solely from the lighting.
  23. Stonewall
    Though it delivers disaster-movie specialist Roland Emmerich’s usual mix of pop iconography, cornball Americana, and conspiracy theory, and benefits from some better-than-average performances in hokey roles, Stonewall is a farrago.
  24. The House
    The pace is hectic, but the jokes just aren't there.
  25. The Marc Pease Experience
    In a squandered lead performance, the adorable, winning Schwartzman plays the non-adorable, non-winning title character.
  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. The Butterfly Effect
    A bad-movie-lover's heaven, and a good-movie-lover's hell.
  28. The Smurfs
    Actual kids may find this fun, but for adults, watching The Smurfs may feel a little too much like trying to wrangle an overcrowded kiddie birthday party.
  29. Finding Bliss
    It's a big-hearted, well-intentioned disaster.
  30. I, Frankenstein
    If the film is made with the understanding that campiness needs to be straight-faced to be funny, then are its “unintentional” laughs really that unintentional?
  31. The School for Good and Evil
    Fans of Chainani’s books may relish seeing his inventiveness and heartfelt storytelling on a (green) screen. If only Feig had the latitude to prioritize his actors, rather than his VFX team, as those storytellers.
  32. Slender Man
    In a movie this flat-out dull, even a tasteful lack of direct exploitation feels like a failure of nerve.
  33. Knockaround Guys
    Knockaround Guys proceeds with a gravity that's constantly tripped up by its characters' stupidity.
  34. Never Again
    Clayburgh and Tambor demonstrate genuine chemistry, but the film keeps diluting it with awful attempts at comedy and worse attempts at drama.
  35. Incarnate
    Incarnate is a comic-book movie in search of a comic book.
  36. Endless Love
    The film also contains fleeting moments of authenticity. Most of these come courtesy of Robert Patrick, who plays David’s father, and Greenwood. Together, these two veteran actors turn could-be-thankless “good dad/bad dad” roles into credible depictions of wounded masculinity. Unfortunately, the movie isn’t about them.
  37. Area 51
    Though Peli stages a few fun and creepy effects shots, nothing that happens here couldn’t be surmised from simply reading the film’s title.
  38. I Can Only Imagine
    This is an interesting idea, executed with a reductive, tin-eared understanding of what constitutes art to go along with a faith-based movie’s reductive, tin-eared understanding of what constitutes entertainment.
  39. After
    The real problem with After is that it’s a lifeless slog of thinly written clichés, one that’s missing the charismatic spark of the actual One Direction boys.
  40. Cabin Fever: Patient Zero
    A pandemic thriller infected with horror-film clichés, Cabin Fever: Patient Zero ditches the nasty allegory of Eli Roth’s original and Ti West’s studio-butchered first sequel for far duller, standard-issue conventions.
  41. Nature Calls
    There's nothing wrong with the idea of trying to make a Bad News Bears for the '10s, and Rohal has the comic talent in front of the camera to do the job. In addition to Oswalt and Knoxville, he has Maura Tierney as Knoxville's wife.
  42. Purple Hearts
    Purple Hearts would be a lot more interesting if it interrogated the specific moments of weakness that attract Cassie to Luke, but that’s far too complex an idea to explore in this kiddie pool of sentimentality.
  43. The Tuxedo
    A frenetic, busy, expensive machine that looks good but runs on autopilot.
  44. Damnation Alley
    Mostly the film just feels too skimpy. The first third is largely taken up in establishing the nuclear devastation of Damnation Alley’s world, leaving just an hour for the heroes’ perilous road trip across lands infested with what Peppard calls “killa cockroaches.” By the time the action really gets cranking, the movie is half-over.
  45. The Gallows
    Making audiences care about the characters is always a more effective fear-generating strategy than just knocking off a bunch of dimwits in the dark.
  46. Zookeeper
    As a study in insanity, Zookeeper is mildly interesting. But as a kiddie comedy, it's something to watch only once the little ones have worn out their "Dr. Doolittle" DVD.
  47. She Hate Me
    While not quite a red herring, the corporate stuff serves as a prelude to a long-winded and mostly embarrassing treatise on alternative lifestyles and filial responsibility.
  48. Let's Be Cops
    At times, the movie seems to exist for no other purpose than to collide these two personalities together, privileging their antagonistic banter above all else. But isn’t that the basic point of all buddy comedies?
  49. Crossover
    Crossover doesn't have the competence to make it exciting or the desire to explore what's really at stake for these players.
  50. Cost of a Soul
    It's a lousy movie, but it has spunk.
  51. Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension
    By making it so that everyone can see the evil coming, it also robs the franchise of one of its most potent pleasures: studying the frame for signs of trouble, little telltale hints that something is about to go horribly, horribly wrong. Sentient inkblots are a poor substitution for that sensation.
  52. Daddy's Home 2
    Like the passable original, this formulaic comedy can’t stop teasing the possibility of a funnier, smarter movie being made with the exact premise, central conflicts, and stars.
  53. Body of Evidence
    Evidence tries to one-up Basic Instinct through the sheer quantity and length of its sex scenes, but it backfires.
  54. 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.
  55. Without a Paddle
    Buddy comedies rely heavily on their leads' chemistry, and in this regard, Without A Paddle fails.
  56. Premonition
    Had it been easier to comprehend at the beginning, there's no telling how bad Premonition might have been.
  57. A.X.L.
    Something worse than bad. It’s utterly forgettable.
  58. Johnson Family Vacation
    It's a sign of trouble when watching a movie prompts nostalgia for the movie it's ripping off, particularly when that movie wasn't any good. But walking out of Johnson Family Vacation, it's hard not to feel misty-eyed for the urine-soaked-sandwich gags, incest jokes, and other refined comic elements of "National Lampoon's Vacation."
  59. The Hot Chick
    Schneider and director/co-writer/Animal vet Tom Brady continue to subscribe to the notion that any joke worth making is worth beating to death, but there's still something strangely endearing about Schneider's willingness to do anything for a laugh.
  60. The Condemned
    Viewers who enjoy a big rug-pull will want to keep an eye out for this one, as it essentially combines the surprise endings of several notable films into one all-encompassing “Gotcha!”
  61. The Collector
    For his directorial debut, The Collector, Dunstan streamlines the "Saw" concept slightly by silencing the killer and focusing more intently on a house that’s been converted into a jury-rigged deathtrap.
  62. 13
    For a film about a "sport" where every competition is literally a matter of life and death, the oddly inert, suspense-free 13 is strangely lacking in urgency.
  63. Lake City
    All the performers are fine--even the miscast Romijn--but they're still too much like actors playing dress-up.
  64. Don't Go in the Woods
    Give Don't Go In The Woods credit for not being a wholly conventional horror movie. Debit it for not caring about horror in the first place.
  65. Peppermint
    It’s a shame, because Garner’s herculean efforts throw the film’s sloppiness into even sharper relief. Like Keanu Reeves, Garner has a gift for making every kick, punch, bullet, and desk dropped on someone’s head feel like a spontaneous decision.
  66. New in Town
    New In Town grinds its plucky protagonist through a predictable arc from dispassionate big-city ice queen to redeemed small-town tenderheart.
  67. Timeline
    Until Timeline reaches its flaming-trebuchet-siege finale -- which should impress anyone who's never seen "The Two Towers" -- it has the stirring production values of an episode of the Tia Carrere action series "Relic Hunter," but with only a fraction of the acting talent and intellectual heft.
  68. Civil Brand
    Civil Brand's aesthetic is pure mid-'70s blaxploitation, and not in an ironic or reverent sense. Even the heavy-handed political rhetoric is in keeping with the neo-blaxploitation vibe, since even bad blaxploitation movies often had revolutionary undercurrents.
  69. Brahms: The Boy II
    None of the mounting dread is surprising, and only some of it is more effective than the average haunted-whatever picture. But Brahms himself remains an oddball delight.
  70. Undiscovered
    The vapid teen talent show Undiscovered turns on a plot point so moronic that even the most dedicated bad-movie buffs have cause to stay away.
  71. Answers to Nothing
    Films like these have taught us that suffering is the incontrovertible existential fate of attractive Los Angeles residents. Must these dour exercises in alienation make audiences suffer as well?
  72. Ethan Mao
    Without contrivances, the movie would only run about five minutes.
  73. Best Defense
    Not even a young Eddie Murphy is capable of generating hilarity out of thin air and Best Defense gives him nothing to work with. Even with Murphy inside the tank the film sorely lacks urgency and momentum.
  74. Battle of the Year
    Too incompetent to work as an underdog dance flick, but not nearly weird enough to qualify as howling camp, Battle Of The Year is destined to please only bad movie buffs desperate for a fix of awful dialogue, blatant product placement, and clunky exposition.
  75. Hurry Up Tomorrow
    The movie is 105 minutes long and would feel stretched thin even if cut down to the cutscene bookends of a music video. It is a thing you can see, technically.
  76. Hot Tub Time Machine 2
    The difference here — aside from the fact that the jokes aren’t as funny and that John Cusack is nowhere to be found — is the lack of a motivating factor.
  77. AVPR: Aliens vs Predator - Requiem
    A tasteless, witless, mindlessly perfunctory bloodbath that has the discourtesy to take itself seriously. Pitting aliens against predators may be the height of frivolity, but God forbid anyone have fun with it.
  78. AVP: Alien vs. Predator
    It would take a true visionary not to borrow from Alien Vs. Predator's predecessors, but Anderson lifts more than most will consider polite, borrowing to the point where some viewers may wonder whether he simply edited in footage from the old movies (or even, at one point, "Jurassic Park").
  79. Swimfan
    At least Christensen seems to have the right idea: She gives her character a look that's part lust, part thousand-yard stare, and part Machiavelli in tight sweaters and form-fitting skirts. It's not exactly acting, but it's not predictable, either, which makes it stand out all the more.
  80. No Stranger Than Love
    No Stranger Than Love offers an accidental lesson: Attempts to write poetry ought to be preceded by attempts to read it and, preferably, understand it.
  81. Pathfinder
    If this uninspired fight-fest had been delayed out of existence, it's unlikely anyone would have missed it.
  82. Drive Hard
    There was a time when the very presence of someone like John Cusack could enliven otherwise normal movies, and lift worthier ones onto a higher plane. But films like Drive Hard are too slapdash to even allow for coherent performances, let alone movie-saving heroics.
  83. The Quiet
    The few effective scenes in The Quiet suggest that the film might have worked as a kinked-up Hitchcockian thriller rather than the drab, serious drama it turns out to be.
  84. Ratchet & Clank
    Like a lot of entertainment pitched at the family matinee audience, it sits at the zero point of watchability.
  85. The Mean One
    For a film with such a promising premise, it turns out to be a plodding example of how to squander potential.
  86. Fool's Gold
    Tennant keeps his extravagantly stupid new comedy breezing along affably on the strength of photogenic locales, obscenely beautiful stars, a laid-back soundtrack, and a wholesale unwillingness to take itself the least bit seriously.
  87. The Time Being
    After all the ponderous heavy breathing, it has nothing more profound to say than “artists should not neglect their families in pursuit of excellence.” Which might not ring so false if Bentley didn’t constantly look on the brink of devouring his family alive.
  88. Tasting Menu
    Doesn’t even remotely qualify as flavorful. Among other demerits, this is the rare foodie movie that doesn’t seem to care much about food.
  89. Red Riding Hood
    The main difference is that while the "Twilight" films strive for straight-faced grimness, Red Riding Hood often verges on outright florid hilarity. It isn't laughing at itself, but that needn't stop the audience.
  90. Rock the Kasbah
    It’s "Ishtar" with the passion and sincerity replaced with a surface-level shrug.
  91. Bright
    Bright gestures vaguely at an allegory about police brutality and race, which may have been more impactful in the original script. It’s hard to tell. For his part, Landis has largely disowned the final product, which buries some glimmers of interesting ideas under a thick layer of adolescent tough-guy posturing.
  92. Hector and the Search for Happiness
    There’s more existential wisdom in five random, zombie-infested minutes of Shaun Of The Dead than in the full two hours of this feel-good folly.
  93. Force of Nature
    It certainly isn’t Polish’s intention to make any grand political statements with his action thriller, but expecting empathetic connection with a callous white cop is a big ask in today’s climate. And it sours what’s otherwise just a lackluster B movie drowned in buckets of rain.
  94. 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.
  95. Snow Dogs
    Snow Dogs never comes close to transcending its own inherent silliness, but Coburn, Gooding, and a genial tone help make the movie harmless tomfoolery the whole family can tolerate.
  96. The King and I
    It's hard to imagine a more ill-advised choice of source material.
  97. Poolman
    If you’re a Chris Pine super-fan looking to live inside the actor’s head for a little while, Poolman just might be for you. But if you’re pretty much anyone else—even someone looking for some so-bad-it’s-good fun—take a lesson from the walkouts and stay out of the splash zone.
  98. Pulse
    Ultimately, the glacial pace kills Pulse. What was dreadful and trance-like in the original feels here like nothing-much-at-all sandwiched between some stock horror jolts.
  99. Old Fashioned
    Old Fashioned — a deathly dull small-town drama with the marketing smarts to bill itself as the conservative Evangelical answer to "Fifty Shades Of Grey" — is all about the importance of sexual chastity, which is another way of saying that it’s all about sex.
  100. The Lost Girls
    After watching, you may well wish that Peter Pan could be re-copyrighted to be kept out of the hands of anyone inclined to make this much of a mess of it.
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