The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,425 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 2.6 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: 5,575 out of 10425
  2. Mixed: 3,741 out of 10425
  3. Negative: 1,109 out of 10425
10425 movie reviews
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  1. Next Day Air
    A very pleasant surprise, Next Day Air is the rare crime comedy that does justice to both sides of the equation.
  2. Outrage
    Audience reaction to Outrage will depend heavily on how people feel about outing. Dick’s film probably won’t persuade anyone who finds the practice to be a loathsome and intrusive invasion of privacy, but after a relatively dry beginning, the film builds in passion and intensity until attaining a stirring cumulative power.
  3. Rudo y Cursi
    Carlos Cuaron's otherwise terrific new comedy Rudo Y Cursi barely survives its third-act "Goodfellas" descent into seedy coke-and-crime drama.
  4. Star Trek
    Gripping action and vulnerable heroes writ large. It boldly goes somewhere different and makes it hard to leave the film not hoping for a return voyage soon.
  5. The Limits of Control
    Too much of The Limits Of Control feels canned and airless, so stifled by Jarmusch's obsessions that it loses all sense of surprise.
  6. Revanche
    Revanche is, first and foremost, a good story, craftily told.
  7. X-Men Origins: Wolverine
    A couple of halfway decent action scenes do little to distract from the story’s mounting ludicrousness—two words: adamantium bullets—or a conclusion that’s only a little more satisfying than a projector breakdown. Maybe.
  8. Battle for Terra
    On one level, it's a down-market Star Wars-inspired shoot-'em-up for kiddies; on another, it's a radical alien invasion story where the HUMANS are the aliens.
  9. Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
    At least Douglas has a good time bringing the smarminess that McConaughey so studiously avoids.
  10. The Merry Gentleman
    If ever a film needed a double shot of espresso and a swift kick in the caboose, it's this one. At best, the film is hypnotic; at worst, it challenges--no, dares--audiences not to fall asleep.
  11. The Informers
    Though The Informers is by no means great--nor wholly true to the vision of Ellis, who co-wrote the screenplay with Nicholas Jarecki--moments sprinkled throughout the film capture Ellis' particular mix of flip yuppie satire and lived-in paranoia better than any big-screen version of his work to date.
  12. Obsessed
    Doing his best to class up the joint, "The Wire's" Idris Elba stars as the perfect man.
  13. Fighting
    Fighting doesn’t break new ground so much as animate B-movie types, but New York movies this gritty and flavorful don't come along very often.
  14. Il Divo
    Through Sorrentino's lens, Andreotti's chief lieutenants are made to look like Reservoir Dogs, with Andreotti as a calm, tight-lipped, upper-crust analog to Lawrence Tierney.
  15. The Soloist
    The result feels cluttered, overcooked, and underfelt.
  16. Tyson
    Tyson can be brutal with himself, but Toback's fawning documentary lets him off easy.
  17. Earth
    On the nature-documentary continuum, Earth falls closer to the cuddly anthropomorphism of "March Of The Penguins" than the cold rationality of "Grizzly Man."
  18. Treeless Mountain
    At times, Treeless Mountain almost feels like a fairy tale--but without the magic.
  19. State of Play
    Though solidly plotted and executed all around, the film, too, feels like a quaint relic from another era, aping the form of journalistic thrillers like "All The President’s Men" while missing much of their urgency.
  20. 17 Again
    Director Burr Steers (Igby Goes Down) doesn't always have a firm handle on what is and isn't appropriate; the film makes a few sharp detours into misogyny, and the level of smuttiness is surprisingly high, which may be a function of Efron wanting to grow away from his core audience too fast.
  21. American Violet
    It’s hard not to get swept up by the film's progressive zeal, but Disney doesn’t allow for much grey area.
  22. Crank: High Voltage
    It'd be silly to call Crank: High Voltage over the top: The top is so far below that it isn't even visible. But at this mostly unexplored altitude--only 2007's inferior "Shoot 'Em Up" comes close.
  23. Every Little Step
    It's a huge improvement over the Attenborough film; given the film’s non-fiction roots, it seems poetically apt that a documentary take is much more satisfying and engaging than the Hollywood treatment.
  24. Is Anybody There?
    The script is always shakier than the performers trying to bring it across, and by the third act, it lets them down completely.
  25. Lemon Tree
    This story--or stories like it--has been told and re-told too often. Lemon Tree works best when Riklis cuts out the predictable melodrama and trusts the fertility of his central metaphor.
  26. Anvil! The Story of Anvil
    Yet in his despair, there's something Kudlow misses, and it's what makes Anvil! as moving as it is hilarious.
  27. Dragonball: Evolution
    The film is crammed with treats for old-school "Dragonball" fans, from the inclusion of all these characters (who don't actually do much) to the moment when spiky-haired Goku dons his orange gi. For everyone else, this amounts to another seen-it-before, probably-willing-to-see-it-again distraction.
  28. Hannah Montana: The Movie
    The only folks Montana is interested in pleasing are prepubescent girls and Disney stockholders.
  29. The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
    Only Sarsgaard shows a pulse, creating a self-destructive, omnisexual rogue who, for all his faults, would probably be great company. The same can't be said for the film around him.
  30. Observe and Report
    Something of a cross between the formalist whimsy of Wes Anderson and the God's-lonely-man psychosis of "Taxi Driver," the film breaks all the rules, but the tonal schizophrenia that results isn't an accident.
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