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. Casanova
    At best, it's a light, boisterous little confection, but hasn't Hugh Grant already starred in this film a few times?
  2. War Dogs
    Despite all the time War Dogs spends with these two characters, it never develops them past the initial impression that one is basically a good guy and that the other is bad news incarnate.
  3. Rubberneck
    The entire story hinges on a thinly calibrated twist ending that’s meant to provide emotional weight to Karpovsky’s actions, but instead clarifies them to the point of utter banality. There’s no mystery left to linger.
  4. The Equalizer
    It’s just more joyless junk, another title to bury at the bottom of Fuqua’s resume.
  5. Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit
    The movie eventually evokes the sense that Branagh is better at directing in front of the camera than from behind it; its best moments are typically the ones that feature Branagh’s Viktor Cherevin on-screen.
  6. Sherlock Holmes
    This is very much a Sherlock Holmes movie for the blockbuster era.
  7. Immaculate
    Uneven and sometimes predictable though it is, it’s a film that knows how to push the buttons of its particular subgenre, and you get the sense that any number of stars might have been able to carry it in the right context. You also get the sense, from the very first moment she’s onscreen to the unforgettable final frame, that none of those other possible stars could have carried it quite as well as Sweeney.
  8. The Intervention
    Clea DuVall makes her debut here as writer-director, and after two decades in front of the camera, she knows actors — but the movie’s stifling familiarity prevents it from making much of an impact.
  9. Brotherhood of the Wolf
    It's impossible not to admire what, apart from "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," may be the most ambitious action film since "The Matrix."
    • 56 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    The First Grader
    The First Grader offers a tumultuous but uplifting journey.
  11. Opal Dream
    The filmmaking here is flat, straight, and thoroughly lacking in poetry, and the script--co-written by Cattaneo, Rice, and Phil Traill--tells instead of showing.
  12. Combat Obscura
    Unsurprisingly, the results aren’t pretty.
  13. Date and Switch
    In effect, it feels a lot like the characters at its center — not terrible, just incomplete. A comic take on this premise and these themes feels like a necessity in 2014. Unfortunately, Date And Switch isn’t the movie this day and age needs.
  14. The Kingdom
    The heroes of Peter Berg's gung-ho retribution tale are fighting the terrorists over there so we don't have to fight them here, but his film is indulging in a queasy brand of escapism. Winning imaginary wars isn't the same as winning real ones, but The Kingdom nonetheless smells like victory.
  15. Good for Nothing
    Good For Nothing is billed as the first Western shot in New Zealand, but that tourist-brochure distinction pales besides its more pungent claim to fame as the first Western whose hero spends the entire film attempting to overcome a bout of erectile dysfunction.
  16. Extraction
    Add a script that would have seemed derivative even in the early ’90s, and you begin to get a sense of the kind of undigested pastiche that director Sam Hargrave and writer-producer Joe Russo are going for.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    3 Hearts
    While the controlling deities might have found some amusement in this narrative, in Jacquot’s hands the tale is more bland than tragic.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    A Very Brady Sequel
    A Very Brady Sequel is too often content to rely on strained plot machinations that, given the subject, may be suitably uninspired, but come off as flat anyway.
  19. Christmas with the Campbells
    It’s a surprisingly thoughtful blend of earnest and silly, and Niederpruem’s confident, Hallmark-tinged direction only adds to that sense of familiar surroundings ready to be subverted.
  20. Mufasa: The Lion King
    One could even make the argument that Jenkins has made a fundamentally better film than Favreau while working with inferior, less elemental material. But that doesn’t change the fact that Mufasa is, ultimately, compromised by its studio formulas in terms of both story and style.
  21. Minions: The Rise of Gru
    Ultimately, The Rise Of Gru exerts a negligible impact on the Minions’ canonical journey. If nothing else, the film serves as a reminder of the characters’ cartoonish charms, both literally and thematically, and their transcendent appeal.
  22. Buffalo Soldiers
    Tightly plotted and well-acted, the film litters its brisk run time with darkly funny and haunting setpieces.
  23. Infinite Storm
    What sustains a viewer’s interest in Infinite Storm is Watts’ controlled performance, and the film’s direction.
  24. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
    Perfume is ultimately an unmistakable failure, but there's a strange majesty to its epic overreaching. It can be faulted for many things, but not for lacking the courage of its convictions.
  25. The Commuter
    The Commuter’s script may not be an exercise in fool-proof logic (the actual plot makes almost no sense in retrospect), but its politics are consistent — a rare quality for a contemporary thriller.
  26. The Lizzie McGuire Movie
    As it goes with the TV show, so it goes with the movie, which benefits from being shot largely in Rome and suffers from trying to stretch its sitcom antics to feature length.
  27. Hidden in Plain Sight
    Nods at objectivity but announces its activist intentions throughout.
  28. I Am Michael
    Both of Kelly’s movies so far have shown the same strengths and weaknesses. He has an emotionally distant, observational approach, which makes the most outlandish behavior seem grounded and plausible, but which also makes moments of passion and confrontation come off a little flat.
  29. Die Another Day
    The many shots of characters operating devices with remote controls will do little to quiet the complaints that the films have started to resemble video games, and the same can be said of the proliferating digital effects.
  30. La Maison de la Radio
    Aside from the Tour De France segments (the only scenes in the movie to be shot entirely handheld), La Maison lacks the warmth that’s characterized Philibert’s best work. Eventually, the film begins to resemble a cross between a radio station’s webcast and a security-camera feed.
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