The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,440 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: 5,581 out of 10440
  2. Mixed: 3,746 out of 10440
  3. Negative: 1,113 out of 10440
10440 movie reviews
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  1. Harriet
    A better version of Harriet might have kept the focus squarely locked on the real-life hero at its center, instead of defining her through the relationship with the man who once owned her.
  2. Scare Me
    The idea that movies can easily lose 10 or 15 minutes of running time to curry favor with impatient audiences is often patently absurd, yet nearly every single scene in Scare Me feels some degree of overlong.
  3. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
    It’s too agreeable, too dutiful to building a new series, and too reluctant to disrupt this new status quo even as it detonates its many explosive setpieces.
  4. Blood Father
    Without Gibson’s baggage, it’s easy to appreciate the movie as a minor throwback to the R-rated action films of the ’80s and early ’90s, which similarly mixed the very lurid and the very wholesome, even if the action scenes don’t live up to the genre’s heyday.
  5. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
    Patchy but occasionally charming, the Harry Potter spin-off Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them delivers most of what has come to be expected from J.K. Rowling’s book series and its successful film adaptations.
  6. Nénette
    As with all of Philibert's work, Nénette is impeccably composed and admirably disciplined, but his patient observation can't unlock the mysteries of an animal that's grown more introspective and likely less expressive over time.
  7. Black Butterflies
    At least Black Butterflies gets the tortured-soul part right.
  8. Beloved Sisters
    The result is immersive and intelligent, but not what one would call difficult. Graf’s knack for no-nonsense storytelling means that Beloved Sisters seems to fly past.
  9. The PianoTuner of EarthQuakes
    Perhaps the film will connect with those attuned to the Quays' allusive wavelength, much as a dog responds to a whistle. Others won't hear a thing.
  10. Elio
    Fun as it is, Elio just goes for the montage, eager to speak a universal language.
  11. Waiting for Armageddon
    Davis and company do get at the odd mix of middle-class lifestyle and cheerful doom-saying that defines the mainstream apocalypticons.
  12. Bandslam
    Throughout its first two acts, Bandslam is charming, sweet, and funny enough to merit inclusion in the upper echelon of teen comedies. Then comes a third act weighed down with arbitrary romantic conflicts, leaden melodrama, and a tiresome subplot.
  13. Do Revenge
    While there are major missteps, overall its bright, spirited attitude and attractive, propulsive gusto power a delightfully wicked journey.
  14. Occupation: Dreamland
    A powerful documentary about a squad of Army grunts patrolling the Iraqi city of Fallujah in late 2004.
  15. Mountainhead
    A wry smackdown of four insanely rich bros hanging out at a gaudy estate in the Utah mountains, the movie generates a decent amount of laughs, but it’s best when Armstrong puts satire aside for rage, seething at the tech kingpins destroying our society to increase their profits.
  16. Mission: Impossible III
    Yes, it's fundamentally business as usual, but it's the best kind of business as usual, and it finds everyone working in top form. Abrams imports and enlarges "Alias'" smooth, stylish, yet remarkably visceral approach to action, and the actors pack a satisfying amount of drama into the moments between action scenes.
  17. Mystery Men
    The characters are funny and the cast's characterizations right on, but the movie repeatedly lets them down.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Thou Wast Mild and Lovely
    The masculine posturing between the two men and uncomfortable sexual tension between Akin and Sarah move the story along nicely, but the editorial techniques that made "Butter’s" loosey-goosey narrative work so well undermine Thou Wast Mild.
  19. Soylent Green
    Though the mystery has been spoiled somewhat by an over-revealed twist ending, Soylent Green still succeeds thanks to director Richard Fleischer's sure command of one of the grimmest and most sadly plausible dystopias put to film.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Puzzle
    Though the film reaches a seemingly artificial either/or scenario with regard to the competitive puzzling, its conclusion is pleasing and not at all pat, a portrait of a woman who's learned she deserves to keep some things for herself.
  21. Steve
    Though Steve is a capable conduit for the myriad familiar dramas of juvenile delinquent storytelling, there’s just not enough time in the day (or the film’s wishy-washy 24-hours-in-hell structure) to give anything the attention it deserves.
  22. Robot Stories
    Disappointing.
  23. Suspended Time
    Though Assayas is best known for his incisive cultural commentary, the subdued regimes and musings in Suspended Time are just as enthralling in their own quiet way.
  24. Deadpool 2
    Though bringing in a bona fide action-cheese aesthete like David Leitch (Atomic Blonde, John Wick) to direct counts as a minor coup, Deadpool 2’s attempts to fight superhero fatigue with self-awareness and meta shock value can become exhausting. Indulgent and uneven, but in spots gruesomely funny, the new film badly lacks the basic momentum of the original’s formulaic plot.
  25. The Way Back
    Between the known metatext and Affleck’s bone-deep commitment, this moving central performance largely purges the film of its high potential for the maudlin.
  26. Puzzle
    It’s hard to fault Puzzle for going in a more rigorous, serious-minded direction... until it trudges in that direction with such repetition. Turtletaub and his screenwriters lay the borderline-anachronistic details of their heroine’s oppressive life on so thick that the movie starts to sag.
  27. I Care a Lot
    The film is arguably too long, with a mushy middle section that slows the momentum of its savage first third. But Pike’s performance remains sharp as her character’s blonde bob throughout, and the pleasures of watching her and Dinklage face off are significant.
  28. The Infiltrator
    Director Brad Furman (Runner Runner, The Lincoln Lawyer) can’t mount a coherent scene even in a Scorsese-aping Steadicam long take, but with this ersatz sting flick, he’s made something so amateurish and baffling that it comes around to being memorable.
  29. Pitch Perfect
    Theoretically, the "Bring It On" model can be applied to any remotely performative art. All it takes is a certain level of sass, some eye-catching performance showcases, and a plot where a talented outsider livens up a moribund group with some fresh ideas. Pitch Perfect slaps that stencil onto college a cappella singing groups, with a smattering of success.
  30. Mary Poppins Returns
    It’s less heartwarming than heart-microwaving.
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