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. October Sky
    Offers a strange mix of sentimentality and social criticism, sometimes mixing the two to awkward effect.
  2. Identity
    Simultaneously a contrived piece of hokum and an absorbing, old-fashioned mystery.
  3. The Dancer Upstairs
    Though he never quite rescues the film, Bardem continually suggests the tensions bubbling under the surface that Dancer itself never penetrates.
  4. Jim Brown: All American
    Brown sounds guarded throughout, and as a result, Jim Brown: All-American provides a curiously remote portrait that's often compelling, but seems to conceal as much as it reveals.
  5. Me Without You
    Aided by raw, committed performances from her two leads, Goldbacher makes them tough company for themselves and anyone else around them, on or off the screen.
  6. Tomorrow Never Dies
    The second Pierce Brosnan-fronted James Bond movie settles into the groove of unspectacular convention-adhering that has marked the series for the last couple of decades.
  7. Sex and Lucia
    Medem turns screenwriting into a feng shui exercise, shifting story elements like pieces of furniture around a room, as if the best films are the ones that end up facing southeast.
  8. Love Liza
    Love Liza needs more than mood on its side. A moment of recognizable human behavior would have been a fine place to start.
  9. The Shape of Things
    Carries a potent statement about the superficialities of appearance, and how they're more meaningful to people than anyone likes to acknowledge. But when the players themselves are conceived this superficially, LaBute winds up invalidating his own point.
  10. Casa de los babys
    It's a bit more than the film can handle without leaving loose ends dangling, and though it's never preachy, Sayles' political message-sending sometimes comes across too clearly for its own good. He makes valid points, though, particularly when he lets his storytelling do the work for him.
  11. The Fast and the Furious
    Better equipped to deal with the workings of nitro-injection systems than human emotions, director Rob Cohen's film grows less assured the more time it spends with its characters, particularly through its dull middle section. It does earn points for trying, however, and while Walker is a cipher, Diesel has enough personality for both of them.
  12. How Stella Got Her Groove Back
    A glossy, attractive, ultimately empty soap opera that -- despite being based on a true story -- never seems remotely plausible.
  13. The General's Daughter
    The General's Daughter isn't a poorly made or acted film, but it's so shallow, hypocritical, and sleazy that it's difficult not to find it repulsive.
  14. Tying the Knot
    Tying The Knot's central point remains insistently stated. It would be hard for anyone to watch it and still think of the demand for same-sex marriage as a mere passing fancy.
  15. Tuck Everlasting
    Unfortunately, Russell paces the film as if trying to demonstrate what eternity feels like. When the plot begs to move forward, the film keeps lingering over friendly fawns and long walks through the forest.
  16. Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!
    The great character actor Gary Cole, in particular, stands out as Bosworth's father, who tries to impress Duhamel by reading the trades, thumbing through Julia Phillips' autobiography, and donning a Project Greenlight T-shirt.
  17. The Butterfly
    Cutesy and slight, but it's also polished and well-lit, and Muyl makes a weeklong hike roll by pleasantly, reducing it to about 80 minutes of screen time.
  18. Entrapment
    Entrapment is ostensibly some sort of action film, but perhaps out of deference to its sleepwalking star, it moves slowly and contains very little actual action.
  19. Hidalgo
    Mortensen nicely underplays his role, offhandedly tossing off one-liners and making the script's sometimes purple dialogue sound a little less cheesy, but the rest of the film often lurches into hammy overdrive.
  20. Moog
    Short and shapeless but nonetheless welcome documentary.
  21. The Big Bounce
    When the general pleasantness of the atmosphere and the cleverness of the screenplay don't carry the movie, Wilson does -- at least until a hurried, confounding finale that reveals its casualness as sloppiness.
  22. Orgazmo
    The film too closely resembles what it's attempting to spoof--minus the obvious payoffs, of course.
  23. The Time Machine
    Machine makes its look-to-the-future-not-the-past message as clear as a Grammy acceptance speech, but as an exploration of regret and the elusive quality of time, it falls well short of "Memento," another film starring a sad-eyed Pearce.
  24. P.S.
    While not dwelling on plot eventually gets P.S. in trouble during the slack finale, it gives Linney and Grace plenty of room to maneuver.
  25. Gloomy Sunday
    Gloomy Sunday's success in transcending its own clichés and conventionality -- at least until the morose finale -- is due in part to the story's primal romantic pull, aided by attractive actors who either stare longingly into each other's eyes or cavort in states of undress.
  26. Blind Shaft
    A little slow for a crime story, and a little obvious with its anti-capitalism message.
  27. Next Stop Wonderland
    What's good about Next Stop Wonderland -- and nearly good enough to warrant recommendation -- has nothing to do with Anderson's sloppy, disjointed filmmaking, and everything to do with Hope Davis' far more disciplined and appealing lead performance.
  28. I Spy
    I Spy confirms Wilson's ability to turn mediocre, mercenary endeavors into fun crowd-pleasers. Of course, Wilson starring in I Spy is like Phil Jackson coaching a junior-high basketball team, but as long as the results are this entertaining, it's doubtful audiences will care.
  29. Dr. Dolittle
    Isn't as sharp or consistent as Murphy's "The Nutty Professor," but it's an amusing, lightweight diversion.
  30. The Final Cut
    Naim directs The Final Cut as if it were the pilot to a TV series: He teases the audience with all sorts of story threads, focuses on a minor self-contained mystery, and leaves the rest for future episodes that will never come.
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