The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,425 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: 5,575 out of 10425
  2. Mixed: 3,741 out of 10425
  3. Negative: 1,109 out of 10425
10425 movie reviews
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    • 34 Metascore
    • 33 Critic Score
    The Smurfs 2
    The film undermines its rudimentary plot points at every turn with base humor.
  2. Frankenstein's Army
    Frankenstein’s Army is a ludicrous World War II horror flick bogged down by its found-footage gimmick, which is compromised and contradicted so often that it becomes a distraction.
  3. Stranded
    Stranded is unmistakably bad, but somewhat enjoyable, especially for viewers who have a soft spot for the "Mystery Science Theater 3000" favorite "Space Mutiny."
  4. Breaking the Girls
    Literalizing "Strangers On A Train’s" gay subtext might theoretically have been interesting, but Breaking The Girls’ LGBT angle, like everything else about it, seems pandering rather than heartfelt — a “contemporary rethinking” of material that was once sturdy enough not to require a pseudo-sleazy hard sell.
  5. Drug War
    Drug War brings to mind Soderbergh’s recent "Side Effects", a film defined by similar changes in perspective and genre. However, while "Side Effects" is best at its midpoint, before the viewer has really figured out what kind of movie it is, Drug War becomes both weightier and more playful with each transition, building to a harrowing finale.
  6. Blue Jasmine
    Unlikely as it may seem, though, Blue Jasmine finds Allen charting bona fide new territory.
  7. The To Do List
    The film’s as clumsy yet earnest as a nervous first-timer, groping gracelessly in the dark for ecstasy and meaning.
  8. 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.
  9. The Wolverine
    Now here’s a comic-book movie. In a summer that’s delivered one overstuffed Phase Two sequel and a bloated reboot designed to establish a whole new universe of interconnected franchises, The Wolverine has a self-contained efficiency that’s hard to resist.
  10. R.I.P.D.
    Nothing short of wiping their memories with a real-life neuralizer is going to convince moviegoers that the supernatural buddy-cop comedy R.I.P.D. is anything more than a thinly disguised "Men In Black" ripoff.
  11. Girl Most Likely
    The blame belongs most plainly with Michelle Morgan’s script, which requires this gifted comedian to play straight woman to a supporting carnival of Indiewood types.
  12. The Conjuring
    As an exercise in classical scare tactics, delivered through an escalating series of primo setpieces, The Conjuring is often supremely effective.
  13. RED 2
    Like its predecessor, it’s a one-joke movie; the difference is that this time around, the joke is better.
  14. 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.
  15. The Act of Killing
    By tackling one man’s sense of right and wrong (or lack thereof), Oppenheimer is ultimately tackling human nature.
  16. Blackfish
    Blackfish’s strongest argument against the existence of parks like SeaWorld is how much more gorgeous orcas look in the open ocean than leaping about an oversized swimming pool. And the audience won’t get soaking wet watching them frolic in movies, either.
  17. Broken
    Doggedly manipulative and yet consistently affecting, Broken piles on the miserablism to almost unbearable effect.
  18. Grabbers
    Once the battle is joined in earnest, what began as sharp-edged parody starts to feel more like a cheap imitation, even if it’s still shot through with a few priceless zingers. The tough thing about genre hybrids is that they have to fulfill both genres, and Grabbers only nails one of them.
    • 14 Metascore
    • 16 Critic Score
    Evidence
    There have been a lot of shoddy found-footage flicks over the past few years, but maybe none quite so shoddy as this.
  20. My Little Pony: Equestria Girls
    My Little Pony: Equestria Girls continues the appeal of Friendship Is Magic, as the heartening lessons of Ponyville—on friendship, leadership, morality, etc.—transcend its equine-dominated world.
  21. 100 Bloody Acres
    At its best, though not often enough, 100 Bloody Acres is as mercurial as its central character, breezily offbeat one moment, spattered in gonzo gore the next. It’s as if the filmmakers ground the bits of other movies fine enough that it made a rich foundation for their own.
  22. Viola
    It’s a pleasant, negligible wisp of a movie, notable mostly for what it suggests of its director’s potential.
  23. Computer Chess
    What’s more, it’s fun, generating pleasure not from canned jokes or clichéd plot twists but simply from a sense of unhindered freedom.
  24. Dealin' with Idiots
    Jeff Garlin’s second directorial feature, Dealin’ With Idiots, is a largely improvised ensemble piece about a comedian who decides that his son’s Little League team would make an interesting subject for a movie. It doesn’t.
  25. Turbo
    For all its chronic familiarity, the movie has its minor pleasures, many of them visual. Though at this point it's basically a given that a new studio-animated movie will look good, Turbo often looks downright exceptional.
  26. Grown Ups 2
    Largely free of Sandler’s usual schmaltz and lame romance, it’s pure plotless, grotesque high jinks, bizarre and inept in a way that’s fascinating without ever being all that funny.
  27. Killing Season
    With casting this unconvincing, no one is watching to get a lesson in the horrors of war.
  28. Fruitvale Station
    Putting a human face on a public tragedy that already had a human face, Fruitvale Station plays like an uncomplicated eulogy, with little more to say on its subject than “what a shame this bad thing happened.”
  29. The Hunt
    None of the complexity of that initial interaction between teacher and lovestruck little girl carries over into the town’s reaction, which closely resembles that of the villagers in "Frankenstein." It’s like watching a deer run from shotguns for two hours — it evokes some sympathy, but that’s about all.
  30. V/H/S/2
    In nearly every respect, V/H/S/2 improves on its predecessor. Free of poky mumble-horror filler, it offers four fruitful variations on the original’s best chapter.
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