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. Kick-Ass
    Vaughn opts for comic-book bigness—big fights, big laugh lines, big explosions—but without a Spider-Man or Batman at the front of the action, Kick-Ass’s heroes and villains look smaller-than-life in a larger-than-life world.
  2. The Joneses
    The inevitable breakdown on this commercial façade might have led The Joneses into more disturbing territory, but Borte goes the other direction, away from jagged comedy and toward well-meaning homilies. No sale.
  3. Trudell
    Anyone looking for history lessons from Rae's documentary will have to be patient and alert enough to pick through the poetry.
  4. A/k/a Tommy Chong
    Perhaps it was inevitable that a movie about the ultimate stoner would be undone by fuzzy execution and lack of ambition.
  5. Heading South
    Heading South's gender politics keep the movie from being too simple, since these women's self-indulgence can be read as a kind of unfettered (and even laudable) feminism, instead of just unintentional racism.
  6. From Other Worlds
    The word "slight" doesn't even begin to describe how minor the quirky indie comedy From Other Worlds turns out to be, though its sheer lack of pretension may be its greatest asset.
  7. Fay Grim
    Sadly, there's a thin line between goofing irreverently on the maddeningly convoluted nature of spy thrillers and actually being a muddled mess, and Fay Grim crosses it constantly during its deadly second hour.
  8. Hollywood Dreams
    It's unclear whether Frederick's an awful actress or a tremendous one pretending to be awful, but either way, it's hard to pity her nasal, pushy, babyish Iowa girl.
  9. Joshua
    It's regrettable that Joshua veers into outlandish "Omen/Bad Seed/Good Son" territory when the real terror lies much closer to home.
  10. Sangre De Mi Sangre
    The film seems even more one-note when compared to the recent indie feature "Chop Shop," which also follows young immigrant hustlers in NYC, yet takes the time to provide a fuller picture of the city and its opportunities. Zalla prefers to wallow in the dead-end, an approach that's initially powerful, then numbing.
  11. Full Grown Men
    Full Grown Men often becomes as intolerably silly as the twee Amerindies it's reacting to.
  12. Patti Smith: Dream of Life
    The paltry amount of live performances is a crime. In some ways, Smith singing "Gloria" live would've been all the context anyone would ever need.
  13. What We Do Is Secret
    The movie is exciting at times, moving at times, and watchable throughout, but fans of The Germs and L.A. punk may start to pine for what's missing around the time Michele Hicks shows up.
  14. The Dukes
    The Dukes could use more music and less sap, but it's refreshing to see a film about the problems of working-class men on the far side of middle age, struggling just to get by.
  15. Shadows
    A respectable enough little ghost story, but it loses a lot of sparkle by being similar to such other guy-talks-to-the-dead thrillers as "The Sixth Sense" and "Ghost Town."
  16. Memorial Day
    Most of the last hour of Memorial Day feels like a retread at least, and horribly exploitative at worst.
  17. My One and Only
    Dying to hear George Hamilton’s origin story? No? Well, too bad, because the mediocre, nostalgic-soaked comedy-drama My One And Only, loosely inspired by Hamilton’s childhood, has been produced with a few big stars attached.
  18. Wolke Neun
    Ultimately though, apart from the ages of the protagonists, Cloud 9 is a standard-issue infidelity story.
  19. American Casino
    The film doesn’t come to life until too late in the game.
  20. Women in Trouble
    What does it all mean? Nothing much greater than the sum of its seriocomic vignettes. To that end, Women In Trouble tends to sputter to life whenever the stories get racy.
  21. The Missing Person
    Shannon’s performance takes The Missing Person as far as it goes, but when a real-world tragedy commandeers the story, Buschel’s thin pastiche falls to pieces.
  22. Pop Star on Ice
    Perhaps television will prove a better medium to explore Weir’s idiosyncrasies than this engaging yet superficial documentary.
  23. City Island
    The movie too often equates drama with volume, and agita with authenticity.
  24. Who Do You Love
    Works best when it isn’t about freezing time and explaining moments in pop-music history, but is instead about guys playing music together.
  25. After the Cup: Sons of Sakhnin United
    There’s a great story to be told here, but After The Cup feels more like an outline than a finished draft
  26. John Rabe
    In spite of a subtle performance by Ulrich Tukur in the eponymous role, Gallenberger’s film feels labored and emotionally disengaged, an autumn-hued history lesson that’s as studiously reserved as its steel-spined subject.
  27. Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole
    Unfortunately, the story rarely rises above cookie-cutter kids'-fantasy tropes.
  28. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
    So why, given its moment-to-moment surplus of visual imagination, does the film feel so hollow and unsatisfying?
  29. Countdown to Zero
    Walker has something important to say with Countdown To Zero, but if this movie were standing on a doorstep with a petition, most reasonable people would sign it quickly and send it on its way, rather than inviting it in to chat.
  30. Life During Wartime
    "Happiness" was, in its own dry, muted way, a howl of fatalistic despair discernible to anyone who's ever felt life had run out of cruel tricks to play. Life During Wartime is less a reprise of that howl than its echo.
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