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. Dean
    Dean turns out to be quite touching, in retrospect. If only it were funny, clever, or in any other way particularly inspired from moment to moment.
  2. Frontera
    The complexities of those people are diluted in a movie that’s not quite a functional ensemble but not intimate enough to qualify as a character study.
  3. Fuck
    The movie doesn't add much to the culture wars, beyond histrionics from a lot of people who take their causes too f*cking seriously.
  4. Creative Control
    In the end, it all comes down a cautionary tale call to “real life” — a call that the movie will heed, just as soon as it’s done with this latest scene of David pretending to f--k a polygonal figure to Vivaldi.
  5. Jojo Rabbit
    Jojo Rabbit, a very nice but thin crowd-pleaser about love conquering all, bills itself as an “anti-hate satire.” But true satire challenges and provokes. This one offers free hugs.
  6. Mother Mary
    Mother Mary is not scary, nor is it particularly violent. But it does conjure an emotional and metaphysical weight that is practically impossible to shake off post-viewing. This is the most successful Lowery has been at evoking a sensory experience.
  7. The Express
    Long on inspiration, short on specifics.
  8. Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero
    Though little about the technical skill of Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero brings to mind Spielberg, it’s hard not to think of "War Horse."
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
    While Eclipse’s action highs are higher, its expositional lows are lower, particularly during the numerous scenes featuring Lautner.
  10. Lights Out
    The film is blatantly, unmistakably about mental illness, and that makes it hard to ignore or forgive what it ends up saying (hopefully by accident) on the subject.
  11. The Deer King
    Though the recipe of a feudal setting with fantasy and myth-making elements ought to be strong, the mixture is off, like a handsomely plated sandwich where the ingredients are more bland than anticipated.
  12. The Woman
    The mix of blunt sexual politics and dime-store-paperback luridness has the bracing quality of tub-brewed rotgut. It eats away at the stomach lining - that is, if it can be stomached at all.
  13. The Man Who Killed Don Quixote
    While an extended sequence set in a Holy Week festival at a baroque Spanish castle does provide some flashes of that old Gilliam magic, mostly this is just a warmed-over Fellini rehash.
  14. Cry Macho
    The fact is that, as a movie, Cry Macho is slow and sometimes dull. But as a statement by Hollywood’s oldest leading man and working director, it offers its share of gleaming low-key insights.
  15. My Best Friend's Exorcism
    Although the film makes some notable insights about the teenage psyche, there isn’t quite enough ‘there’ there to elevate the film above the ranks of average horror programming.
  16. Splinter
    There's potential for a lot more excitement in Splinter, but Wilkins seems content just to bring it across the finish line.
  17. Sun Choke
    The film doesn’t always work as a genre exercise, but it’s a winner as a character study, in large part because of how committed Hagan is to playing Janie’s derangement. Casting directors in search of the offbeat should take note.
  18. Getting Straight
    Rush undercuts the subgenre's innate didacticism with a light touch and a playful, assured visual style; he never lets audiences forget there's a surplus of authorial intelligence behind the camera. Gould is in a unique position to see the weaknesses of the stodgy academic establishment and the confused counterculture alike, but as it enters its third act, the film grows less ambiguous and more heavy-handed.
  19. Blue Hawaii
    Compared to the morose plots of later Elvis movies, Blue Hawaii is a breezy vacation, and Presley looks appealingly relaxed as every Hawaiian's favorite haole.
  20. (Untitled)
    The three main characters aren’t cardboard-cutout poseurs, and for that alone, (Untitled) stands apart.
  21. Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie
    Mike Nawrocki and Phil Vischer, who co-write, co-direct, and supply much of the voice talent, soft-pedal the proselytizing and explicitly Christian elements in favor of gags and gentle lessons, keeping the pace fast and the scenery colorful.
  22. Shanghai Knights
    Coasts heavily on Chan and Wilson's charm, which would be a big problem if those prodigiously gifted stars weren't taking on roles that fit like two pairs of comfortable slippers.
  23. Gozu
    Miike has served up some of the most dumbfounding images in contemporary cinema.
  24. Populaire
    A candy-coated French throwback to the Hollywood rom-coms of the ’50s — especially the ones starring Rock Hudson and Doris Day — Populaire is old-fashioned in more than just its pastel color scheme.
  25. Men in Black III
    The film is largely redeemed by an unexpected emotional resonance befitting a Steven Spielberg production.
  26. Big Fish
    Burton rebounds in a big way with Big Fish, a Daniel Wallace adaptation and visual feast that recaptures the fairy-tale simplicity and wrenching emotional power of "Edward Scissorhands."
  27. Wrong
    It’s a Dada daydream of a movie, but no one who sits through it can complain that they weren’t warned up front.
  28. Snowden
    A duly serious and ambitious fall movie that, despite the best efforts of its formidable director and cast, can’t remotely match the excitement of real life.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Hello Lonesome
    Though it can occasionally seem like an indie-dramedy answer to "The Grudge," structured to pack in the maximum moments of whimsical connection instead of supernatural kills, the film does find something deeper in its treatment of Smith and Lloyd.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Lawless
    A thoroughly familiar-but flavorful and rousing-shoot-'em-up set among Prohibition bootleggers.
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