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. A Christmas Story Christmas
    The result is something that, while never reaching the ineffable magic of Clark’s film, ends up in solidly entertaining, if slightly disjointed, holiday territory.
  2. Almost Christmas
    Whatever its faults, this is a nice movie, a crowdpleaser best experienced with an appreciative audience.
  3. Becoming Jane
    The film tries to squeeze Austen into one of her novels, and the peg doesn't fit.
  4. Green Street Hooligans
    It loses its superficial charm during a labored third act that gets bogged down in tired, groan-inducing subplots.
  5. Taking Woodstock
    Lee’s movie is pleasant enough, but it’s too swept up in the spirit it’s celebrating to ask the relevant questions.
  6. The Relic
    The monster effects, as designed by Stan Winston, are stunners, but after Twister, it should be obvious that it's not the quality of the effects that matter so much as the quality of the film in which they appear.
  7. God Told Me To
    Ambitious in scale despite its modest budget, God Told Me To also established Cohen’s talent for getting a lot of bang for his limited buck. As a film about faith, it’s pure hooey, but it’s hooey with a provocative edge.
  8. The Eagle
    The formalities of the period dialogue and a wavering, inexplicable accent test him (Tatum) beyond his limits, and the film isn't thoughtful or original enough to survive it.
  9. The Devil All the Time
    What’s haunting about The Devil All The Time — and, ultimately even a little hopeful — is this idea that there’s a world beyond this world, where perhaps not everyone is so cruel or intense. It may not be the biblical Heaven; but that’s okay. Sometimes Cincinnati will suffice.
  10. The Brothers Bloom
    Johnson sets viewers up for greatness, but ultimately offers much milder pleasures. The film isn’t an outright con, but it’s easy to feel a little misled by the end.
  11. Cloud Atlas
    Measured scene by scene, the film isn't always successful, and its transcendent moments make it easy to wish it could reach that elevated pitch more often. But Cloud Atlas is the sort of work where the big picture matters more than the details. It's an imperfect film of great daring and tremendous humanity, a work of many stories, but a singular achievement.
  12. Clifford the Big Red Dog
    It’s harmless bad, not torture bad.
  13. Hitchcock
    Making his feature debut, director Sacha Gervasi follows up his fine documentary "Anvil: The Story Of Anvil" with another story about the perils of uncompromising creative endeavor, but his Hitchcock goes only a step beyond caricature.
  14. Never Let Go
    As recent horror offerings disproportionately lean toward disappointing remakes and tepid commentary on our modern way of life, it’s refreshing to encounter genre fare that is equal parts original and entertaining.
  15. J.T. Leroy
    This story remains fascinating, but the perspective here feels skewed.
  16. Resurrecting the Champ
    The cast is generally excellent, but Hartnett in particular comes across as convincingly complicated, alternately reprehensible and sympathetic.
  17. I Love You, Daddy
    Its refusal to over-simplify gives it the structure of a rough cut. Being a grown-up, as far as I Love You, Daddy is concerned, means picking your failures and frustrations; it picks to be too long and poky.
  18. It's About You
    It's About You's sound is relatively clean and dynamic, but there's nothing remotely resembling a narrative here.
  19. Hyde Park on Hudson
    Hyde Park On Hudson once again finds "Meatballs" star Bill Murray leading a populist, crowd-pleasing slobs-vs.-snobs comedy, but this time, his role as Roosevelt reflects his status as a silver-haired heavyweight thespian.
  20. Old
    The film has flashes of clumsiness that should be familiar to those who have stepped before into the Twilight Zone of its maker’s imagination. But Old is also, in its most intense moments, one of his most genuinely disturbing visions: a horror movie about that most universal of horrors, inescapable mortality.
  21. The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat
    As a dramatic interpretation of Moore’s characters and their hardships, it’s hard to think how a direct translation could much improve upon what Mabry and her cast have put on screen. But without that context, the cavalcade of pain is excessive, perhaps even bordering on farcical, without the breathing room that the novel’s prose provides.
  22. Dark Shadows
    Any proper adaptation of Dark Shadows, even one that acknowledges and celebrates its camp silliness as much as Burton's does, has to immerse itself in soap opera, too, and it's here that the director's lack of conviction becomes apparent.
  23. The Fall of the American Empire
    Eventually, both characters and narrative start to feel like an elaborate pretext for what’s really, at heart, a documentary about the various ways that wealthy corporations avoid paying taxes, combined with an earnest public-service message about helping the homeless. Those are admirable goals, but springing them on viewers via an entertaining bait-and-switch risks inspiring disappointment, or even provoking resentment.
  24. Ip Man: The Final Fight
    From fawning beginning to maudlin close, it’s a monotonous, wannabe-mythmaking biopic for Ip completists only.
  25. We Summon the Darkness
    The film is propelled by a confident lead performance from Alexandra Daddario.
  26. Eagle vs Shark
    Might feel like a colorful little train-wreck drama, but given the recent popularity of such films, it comes across more like a nerdcore clip show, a sort of straight-faced "Epic Movie" for fans of discomfort comedy.
  27. The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3
    Tony Scott’s bracingly awful remake/desecration of the classic ‘70s thriller.
  28. Short Cut to Nirvana: Kumbh Mela
    Inept.
  29. Porn Theater
    When Porn Theatre stays in the darkness, its minute observations about grindhouse culture are hypnotic in their accumulating detail.
  30. Below
    Twohy and co-screenwriters Darren Aronofsky and Lucas Sussman don't show their hand until late in the film, but by that time, Below has grown slack and silly.
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