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. Magic in the Moonlight
    Firth and Stone are terrific, but they’re cast as screwball leads. Given only intermittent opportunities for levity, the two end up serving as mouthpieces for Allen’s dubious self-justifications.
  2. Hulk
    Takes the form of a wounded behemoth, battling to negotiate a compromise between a strong artistic vision and franchise expectations. It doesn't fully succeed on either count, but its integrity and substance stand out like an oasis in a field of cotton candy.
  3. The Ranger
    With its blaring hardcore punk soundtrack and aggressive neon color palette, The Ranger isn’t remotely subtle. Given the type of movie it is, that’s mostly a good thing, though the in-your-face style gives away some of the aforementioned character-driven twists earlier than it should.
  4. The Reluctant Fundamentalist
    This might be the best week for The Reluctant Fundamentalist to open or the worst, but the timing doesn’t matter when the powder is damp.
  5. Assassination Nation
    Assassination Nation tells you right up front what to be appalled by, then simply delivers what it promised. Unlike the best examples of either horror or satire, it ultimately comforts and confirms rather than challenges.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Volcano
    Deft filmmaking that allows the special effects to help, not be, the story combines with an actual script to make Volcano a smart, self-aware, and most of all fun disaster movie.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    To Rome with Love
    The storyline involving Alec Baldwin, as an established architect on vacation in the city, is by far the most rewarding in the film, and it provides substance to what would otherwise be a strenuously whimsical endeavor.
  8. An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn
    The cast is mostly made up of film and TV comedy pros, all of whom seem to be having a good time overacting Hosking’s Bizarro World dialogue.
  9. Iron Lung
    As a performer, Fischbach’s frantic performance can sometimes be distractingly monotonous, but as a filmmaker, he has an impressive eye not only for compositional details, but also for how his images cut and flow together.
  10. 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.
  11. V/H/S
    It also, in its best moments, makes horror out of the 21st-century obsession with self-documentation.
  12. And Now... Ladies and Gentlemen...
    It works for a little while, but an Irons-narrated slideshow of the region would have worked just as well.
  13. Deep Blue Sea
    It's every bit as silly as it sounds, sillier really.
  14. Cuba: Island of Music
    As one man's vacation video, it's outstanding, but as a documentary, it lacks verve, stylistically or journalistically.
  15. Cézanne et Moi
    Intensive research has killed many a biopic, but Cézanne Et Moi, which recounts the tempestuous lifelong friendship between Paul Cézanne and Émile Zola, labors even more tediously than most to accommodate personal details, whether or not those details serve the narrative.
  16. Snow Cake
    If only Snow Cake had hewed closer to this idea of showing what an adult autist's life and experiences are like, rather than getting caught up in Rickman's rote re-awakening, it could've been as powerful as it strains to be.
  17. The Green Butchers
    It's a clammy, odd duck of a movie, a black comedy that seems strangely content with merely being morbid.
  18. Imagine That
    Though he commits to a lot of embarrassing silliness, Murphy projects so little genuine warmth that his transformation barely registers.
  19. Puncture
    Puncture excels in the smaller touches, from Shaw's quiet performance to the woozy, unrushed motel idylls where the hard-driving Weiss finally slows down for a few breaths.
  20. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
    Abandoning its more original elements, the movie opts for a banal carpe diem conceit that turns Mitty into a globetrotting bystander.
  21. Charlie Bartlett
    Watching Charlie Bartlett only makes Wes Anderson's work seem more accomplished by comparison, because it underscores that thin line separating the agreeably fanciful from the overbearingly precious.
  22. You Don't Mess with the Zohan
    Spectacularly, unimpeachably, relentlessly preposterous.
  23. The Hunting Party
    It's a hilariously half-baked scheme, one that quickly turns them from hunters to hunted, but the strength of The Hunting Party is its shaggy-dog quality.
  24. Bee Season
    Everyone in Bee Season is chasing spiritual peace and falling behind, and McGehee and Siegel catch them at their most worn-out and static.
  25. Mood Indigo
    No amount of imaginative trickery can fill the void of feeling at the movie’s center. Whimsy for whimsy’s sake is just too much to take.
  26. Life
    Life is a B movie on an A budget, an old-fashioned creature feature that delivers its cheap thrills expensively.
  27. Oslo
    What results is a very Western-specific view of this conflict and of the Oslo Accords that doesn’t embody the “both sides” approach the film ostensibly intends to provide.
  28. Another Simple Favor
    Though the simplest pleasures of Favor remain—catty chemistry between Kendrick and Lively, loopy twists, bravura statement outfits—the heat powering the concept has cooled to the extent that, despite the increased body count, the sequel feels as perfunctory as its title. It’s just Another one.
  29. One Missed Call
    Miike doesn't do enough to shake up the formula, but he's still expert at delivering shocks, and when the level of craftsmanship is as high as it is in the white-knuckle finale, originality doesn't seem to matter anymore.
  30. Thor: The Dark World
    Forget the fairy-tale romance between Jane and her hammer-wielding hunk. The real emotional center of the Thor series is this sibling rivalry, more compelling than any climactic battle royale or winking teaser for the next chapter.
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