The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,447 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: 5,587 out of 10447
  2. Mixed: 3,746 out of 10447
  3. Negative: 1,114 out of 10447
10447 movie reviews
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  1. Brighton Rock
    Rowan Joffe (son of Roland Joffe) provides busy, if never particularly distinctive direction, but it's the leads that continually threaten to sink the film.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    London Boulevard
    The directorial debut of William Monahan, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of "The Departed," London Boulevard collapses under the weight of its own ideas and the amount of talent it has to burn.
  3. The Raven
    Poe was a flawed figure, but his greatest strength was in avoiding convention, or reinterpreting it to create something new. The Raven aspires to both, but abandons those ambitions to lie limply on the floor - only this, and nothing more.
  4. Trespass
    Trespass begins loopy and mounts in craziness until it's frothing-at-the-mouth insane. It's hard to sustain that level of inspired lunacy over the course of 90 minutes, but Trespass is up to the challenge. As always, it's foolish to underestimate the appeal of Cage at his most agreeably unhinged.
  5. Tower Heist
    In the end, Tower Heist isn't a black Ocean's Eleven or a bold leap forward for feature-film distribution, just a passable piece of commercial entertainment that falls closer to product than art.
  6. Wanderlust
    The effortlessly charming Rudd - who is never funnier here than when trying to psych himself up for a tryst with commune-dweller Malin Akerman with a series of increasingly preposterous voices - and an attractive, game supporting cast nearly sell the warmed-over material.
  7. What's Your Number?
    There's a smart, funny, observant comedy-drama to be made about the role our romantic pasts play in determining our futures, but director Mark Mylod and screenwriters Jennifer Crittenden and Gabrielle Allan are less interested in making that movie than in cycling Faris through a series of non-starting encounters with one-note-joke ex-flings.
  8. Jane Eyre
    Wasikowska doesn't seem much changed from her "Alice" role, and she trips through Jane's adulthood as though it were a fantasia instead of a moody suspense story.
  9. Iron Man 3
    Here, it’s hard not to wish Downey were sparring with his costumed comrades again, instead of trading barbs with the far-less-colorful cast members — old and new — of this busy, sporadically diverting sequel.
  10. Johnny English Reborn
    Johnny English Reborn's sharpest gags riff on its protagonist's unshakeable Britishness.
  11. Dolphin Tale
    Dolphin Tale is as casual as a pleasant afternoon nap and about as substantive.
  12. Joyful Noise
    Like so many underdog movies, Joyful Noise will go over best with those who show up hugely eager for it to be exactly what it looks like, and to tell them exactly what they want to hear.
  13. Safe House
    Safe House does altogether too good a job establishing Washington as a seemingly unbeatable adversary: He brings so much gravity to his role that Reynolds seems hopelessly overmatched.
  14. Zero Bridge
    Zero Bridge is a rigorous piece of filmmaking, but it's played at too minor a key, honoring the neo-realist tradition so slavishly that it lacks an identity of its own.
  15. Cat Run
    Words like "smug," "derivative," and "shallow" could all be fairly applied to the film, but as a piece of late-night exploitation, it delivers the violence and nudity with the regularity of an IV drip, and some familiar faces in the cast help class it up.
  16. Dr. Seuss' The Lorax
    The handful of songs are catchy, and the whole film feels pleasantly airy. But this is a dark story with a heavy message, and it's been transformed into a harmless, pretty confection. In defanging it for comic effect, the filmmakers have done Seuss as much of a disrespectful disservice as if they'd laid on the fart gags.
  17. The Dark Tower
    It would be a waste of everyone’s time to go on about how this 95-minute movie deviates from the source. Let’s just say it turns The Dark Tower into something generic, and leave it at that.
  18. Queen to Play
    Queen To Play has a winning heroine, who fantasizes about being special and then works hard to make it happen. Too bad the rest of the movie is so common.
  19. Sympathy for Delicious
    The character's miraculous gift never plays as more than a melodramatic contrivance-it's a gimmick, not an outgrowth of faith. The movie reaches for the heart, but only comes back with a balloon filled with fake blood and chicken livers.
  20. Ice Age: Continental Drift
    Continental Drift feels less like an extension of a theatrical franchise than an episode of a middling TV cartoon, lolling around on territory that's already been settled. Jokes are recycled so frequently, it's as if comedy writing was eating a hole in the ozone layer.
  21. Our Idiot Brother
    Rudd ably carries the film while retaining a light touch, though even with Rudd in the lead, it's still a featherweight trifle, an afternoon nap of a feel-good comedy.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Dumbstruck
    The film's tendency to pull away once its character start their performances adds to the sense that director Mark Goffman knows his money shots will showcase the vents' oddities rather than their acts.
  23. The Devil's Double
    Dominic Cooper is electrifying yet stiff in The Devil's Double; he's simultaneously the film's biggest asset and its greatest flaw.
  24. Higher Ground
    At times, Higher Ground feels like a lower-stakes "Welcome To The Dollhouse" for adults: It's a systematically built portrait of disappointment and despair, centering on a perpetual underdog looking for affection and surety in any possible form. But while Higher Ground is less painful than Dollhouse, it's also less passionate.
  25. A Little Help
    It's difficult to figure out exactly where the film might be heading at any given point, since it follows the loping, meandering rhythms and casualness of a character study rather than conforming to the conventions of any particular genre.
  26. The Robber
    It might've mattered to the audience too, if we had any inkling from the first hour of The Robber who this guy is, or why we should care what happens to him.
  27. Hey, Boo: Harper Lee and 'To Kill a Mockingbird'
    The filmmaking is prosaic, the pacing sleepy. It's a solid but unremarkable experience, perfect for insomniacs watching the History Channel late at night, but not nearly as satisfying as simply re-reading Lee's book.
  28. A Good Old Fashioned Orgy
    A Good Old Fashioned Orgy takes its cues from Sudeikis' character and performance: It's randy, good-natured, moderately amusing, and charming in a glib, facile way.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Magic Trip
    In spite of this honey-toned self-documentation and some trippy visuals from the Imaginary Forces studio, Magic Trip is about as fun as being the only sober person at a party.
  30. Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life
    What's surprising, and ultimately disappointing, about Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life is the degree to which Sfar allows biopic obligations to smother his more whimsical instincts.
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