The A.V. Club's Scores

For 10,435 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:
10435 movie reviews
  1. Cameron acts like a childish jerk, even in the reconciliation phase, and the underlying reason is that he--and the movie--hates women.
  2. Forever Strong is generic faith-and-redemption fare, devoid of nuance.
  3. It'd probably feel just a little bit timelier and more relevant if it took place in a universe that bore even the faintest resemblance to our own.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Miracle plays like "School Daze" transplanted to the European front, with the token militant, the token uplift-the-race type, and the token buffoon all marching inexorably toward Checkpoint Irony.
  4. Cluttered, flavorless Choke, which crams the novel's nervy narration into an irritating voiceover, and leaps around in time and space with all the attention span of an ADD-addled child.
  5. This isn't a movie: it's a feature-length Ralph Lauren commercial.
  6. Queen Raquela's plotty elements don't always work: The acting in the story-driving scenes sometimes comes off as amateurish, and the circumstances that send Rios halfway around the world seem contrived. But de Fleur gets an astonishingly good performance from Stefan C. Schaefer.
  7. Yhough Obscene tells the story without fully exploring its nuances, that story is both fascinating and more than a little inspiring.
  8. Boogie Man doesn't delve too deep into its subject's private life, beyond some cheap psychology positing his brother's horrible early death as the root of his winner-takes-all philosophy. But then, Atwater's work was his life.
  9. Most of the film isn't as willing to reach out to viewers, and most won't be willing to do all the work in order to connect with it.
  10. As with many other mediocre actor-directors, Harris' attention to the performances, including his own fine turn, has cost him in other areas.
  11. It's the next best thing to being there, in that it's likely to make shuddering viewers intensely glad that they weren't.
  12. Thoroughly populist and middlebrow, full of all the high wigs, thick powder, perfect diction, and straightforward dialogue that define bodice-ripping prestige pictures about silently suffering souls.
  13. Pretty but overwrought, Hounddog doesn't deserve its infamy, nor does it merit being seen or remembered.
  14. Ultimately, Lakeview Terrace isn't about race so much as it's about being a man, which has been LaBute's fallback theme from the start.
  15. Though the plot contrives to throw Gervais and Leoni together and then pull them apart, the two leads stay consistently in sync through it all, laughing at each other's jokes and generally sharing the kind of normal adult communication that's often missing from movies about people falling in love.
  16. While the stitches holding together the plot are clearly visible, Igor breathes some enjoyable life into its stolen grab-bag of gimmicks.
  17. Dane Cook plays a smug jerk in the dismal comedy My Best Friend's Girl. Strike that: He's only ACTING like a smug jerk.
  18. This feels like a second-shelf Coen comedy, particularly when compared to their no-less-shaggy "The Big Lebowski."
  19. Skips right past depressing on its way to apocalyptic.
  20. From its title on down, Towelhead alarms and manipulates, and succeeds in goading the audience like a schoolyard bully, but apart from Bishil's harrowing attempts to find herself, the strings stay too visible.
  21. Perry deserves due respect for exploiting an untapped niche.
  22. Trudging through a thriller that would have felt warmed over in 1988, the pair investigate a serial killer.
  23. The original was a tart dipped in acid; this one's a biscuit sprinkled in Splenda.
  24. Moshonov's capering, wheedling, and stagey monologuing become deeply taxing, and so does the conclusion, which makes more sense as metaphor than narrative.
  25. Something is missing here.
  26. Dimly lit, emotionally empty, and devoid of thrills, Bangkok Dangerous should disappoint Cage fans looking for Wicker Man-style camp thrills just as thoroughly as action buffs looking for a passable thriller. It's never close to good, and it can't even get bad right.
  27. A Secret is suitably tense, sad, and deeply poignant as it moves toward an epilogue exploring the idea that everything rots and decays, no mater how well-maintained.
  28. The unforced ease of the performances make August Evening an intermittent pleasure, but its images aren't strong enough to sustain its undisciplined length.
  29. It's a funny, sweet-natured humanist character piece.

Top Trailers