The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,443 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: 5,584 out of 10443
  2. Mixed: 3,746 out of 10443
  3. Negative: 1,113 out of 10443
10443 movie reviews
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  1. Two Men Went to War
    Cleverly realizing a novel premise, it's a slight but charming look at the lighter side of WWII.
  2. Thirteen Conversations About One Thing
    In spite of the uniformly strong performances, 13 Conversations largely factors out human nature, leaving a giant puzzle where each piece is pre-determined to fall into place. In the end, the Sprechers have a movie for people who brag about finishing the New York Times Sunday crossword in pen.
  3. The Hunted
    Aided by cinematographer Caleb Deschanel, Friedkin works economically, lending the film the mark of a master craftsman, albeit of the coldly efficient variety. The terseness and surplus of technical skill make The Hunted surprisingly engaging.
  4. Stone Reader
    There's a terrific short film somewhere inside Mark Moskowitz's feature-length documentary Stone Reader. Unfortunately, it's buried within a flabby 128-minute slog that feels like a rough draft nobody had the heart to edit down.
  5. The Missing
    Born to play a Western hero, Jones sells the film's syrupy message with a soulful, wounded performance, relieved at times by his agreeably cantankerous sense of humor.
  6. Johnny English
    Johnny English's international popularity may or may not translate here, but in a sequel-glutted summer, even a mildly amusing time-waster can't help but stand out.
  7. Tarzan
    The main problem with Tarzan is its story, which, after a strong start, finds a steady groove and stays with it, offering no particular highs or lows.
  8. The Embalmer
    Both the actor and the character deserve a better movie, one that might have channeled the latter's desires into more than just a few rote genre thrills.
  9. Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas
    Given the talent on display in Sinbad, and the winning brio it dredges out of questionable material, it's easy to wonder what Dreamworks' animation department could accomplish if it stopped following Disney's lead and started forging new paths of its own.
  10. Frida
    Save for two spectacularly impressionistic sequences, Taymor brings little of that imagination to Frida, a turgid and conventional biopic that skips through the major incidents in Kahlo's life without giving them any special resonance, or even much visual panache.
  11. Enigma
    Achieves a dullness that defies its pedigree and its story's potential.
  12. Step Into Liquid
    The astonishing visual poetry of Step Into Liquid's best surfing footage nearly compensates for the mindless boosterism of Brown's constant narration and the often comically banal observations of the film's largely homogeneous master surfers.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Men in Black
    Deserves credit for supplementing its special effects with a breezy script and genuinely charismatic performances by Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones.
  14. The Seagull's Laughter
    A pleasantly inconsequential small-town quirkfest that's presumably more meaningful to native audiences.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Shooting Fish
    As a cute diversion, it's a pleasant, painless, wonderfully forgettable surprise.
  16. What a Girl Wants
    It's a tame, hypocritical fantasy.
  17. Star Trek: Nemesis
    Once it reaches the meat of the story, it seems to lose its confidence.
  18. Yossi & Jagger
    A sprint when it should be a marathon, Yossi & Jagger crackles with promise, but much of it goes unrealized. Without the time or resources to develop its characters and overstuffed plot, the result feels like the Cliffs Notes for a longer, more satisfying film.
  19. Kissing Jessica Stein
    Eventually Stein's habit of dodging its own issues grows frustrating.
  20. Secret Lives: Hidden Children and Their Rescuers During WWII
    The lack of a splashy style puts the tales of the rescued and their rescuers properly at the center, but whether viewers connect will depend in part on how saturated they are with Holocaust lore.
  21. Seaside
    The writer-director's overthinking on the matter is part of what's wrong with her debut film, which is sensitively shot, deeply felt, and dry as dirt.
  22. Winged Migration
    Settles into pleasant monotony and repetition, without any narrative arc or purpose. Seasoned bird-watchers, however, may find that the sensory overload leaves them close to spiritual nirvana.
  23. The Eye
    For a while, it's a dark, insubstantial treat.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    I Know What You Did Last Summer
    The characters are never really more than stereotypes (the brain, the beauty, the dreamer, the jock), but as the body count begins to mount, you feel their terror build.
  25. He Loves Me... He Loves Me Not
    It's clever enough, but it's mostly a contrivance to hide the fact that there's nothing interesting about the story itself.
  26. Wasabi
    Offers watchable light entertainment, even though the prospect of the most respected national cinema indulging clunky cop-movie stereotypes is, if not scandalous, then at least disappointing.
  27. Tupac: Resurrection
    Doesn't pretend to be objective, and the film derives much of its power from the way it invites audiences to look at the rapper's life and times through his own soulful, animated eyes. It doesn't always succeed, and there are times when it feels terribly strained.
  28. Love Object
    Love Object's plot is reminiscent of Guy Colwell's underground comic-book series "Doll," only Colwell dealt more with sex toys as emblematic of the systematic objectification of women, while Parigi just uses the concept for a bunch of weird shocks, dark laughs, and a fairly repellent twist ending.
  29. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
    As her character resorts to increasingly cruel and devious pranks, Hudson only seems funnier and more endearing.
  30. The Italian Job
    Even if it weren't a remake, The Italian Job would still look startlingly unoriginal, but in a summer that promises plenty of sold-out showings, it could be the season's breakout pretty-okay-second-choice film.
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