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. Paranormal Activity 2
    What was scary once is scary twice, like a carnival funhouse remodeled with a few new mirrors and spring-loaded spooks.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    2010
    2010 is an essential text of the late Cold War.
  3. The Dead Don't Die
    Sure, the cast is full of exciting names, but all of Jarmusch’s absurdist thematic flourishes—the Romero tributes, the meta commentary, the political humor—are half-baked and inconsistently applied.
  4. Shorts
    Jon Cryer and Leslie Mann have a couple of sly moments as overworked career people, and Spader again proves he learned a lot by working with William Shatner for so long. But the bottomless slapstick and silly effects quickly grow wearying, as does a cast of young actors whose work can politely be called energetic.
  5. In Satmar Custody
    Given the complexity of this case and of the Satmar/Zionist feud, the documentary would've benefited from some dryly expert talking heads and a more conventional structure.
  6. Red Dawn
    As an action movie, Red Dawn is a repetitive headache, and anyone with Blue State sympathies will be appalled at its manipulations and exaggerations. But there's smart subtext beneath the big dumb explosions.
  7. Music Within
    Sheen is often the saving grace of Music Within, thanks to an aggressively profane wit that gives an otherwise tapioca-bland story a little edge.
  8. Sinister
    It's all done in questionable taste, mucking around in the nasty terrain of snuff films and children in constant peril, but Sinister is smart and well-crafted, and it scarcely gives the audience a moment to breathe.
  9. The Tale of Despereaux
    Despereaux at least has too much ambition rather than too little, but its curiously intellectual pleasures suggest a quaint puzzle rather than a passionately loved fairy tale.
  10. Alice in Wonderland
    The best adaptations have found ways to put a personal stamp on the familiar stories. Others have simply reproduced an Alice facsimile in the image of their own era. Surprisingly, Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland belongs to the latter camp. That doesn’t necessarily make it a bad movie, just another frustratingly impersonal one from a director who once had trouble compacting his personality down to movie size.
  11. A Wrinkle in Time
    Only Reid and Pine feel like they’re playing fully imagined characters, and DuVernay wrestles with how to make the overstuffed material both contemporary and timeless.
  12. Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid
    A dry, dour film where the moments of poetic Americana barely cohere.
  13. Conan the Destroyer
    Destroyer makes all the mistakes Barbarian avoided. Dropping the first movie’s grim approach to achieve an audience-friendly rating, the sequel goes for a lighter, more overtly humorous tone, with multiple characters serving as increasingly unnecessary comic relief.
  14. The Beekeeper
    The Beekeeper feels stale and rather one-note.
  15. The Big Year
    In The Big Year co-stars Owen Wilson and Jack Black appear on the verge of succumbing to the same terminal blandness that's gripped Martin for so long.
  16. It Ends with Us
    There are worse and more mind-numbing portrayals of domestic abuse out there, but is it helpful to offer up a pipe dream, double-acting as a trauma fantasy for eager voyeurs?
  17. Book Club
    The script is so lazy and outdated in its humor, it condescends to the same audience it purports to empower.
  18. Wrinkles the Clown
    The story of Wrinkles The Clown and the public reaction to his antics is funny, weird, and timely — there may just not be enough of it to warrant a feature-length documentary.
  19. Blackbird
    With its quasi-literary tone and over-calculated concessions to the messiness of real life, the movie settles for coming across like a clumsy amalgamation of the wonderful Amy Bloom short story “Love Is Not A Pie” and the 1998 Sarandon tearjerker "Stepmom." The hollow, unsatisfying feeling the movie leaves behind may be the most authentically funereal thing about it.
  20. Beowulf & Grendel
    Removing many of the mythical elements of the tale is an intriguing idea that would undoubtedly have paid richer dividends if it didn't mean relying on a heavy who looks like a cross between a Neanderthal on steroids and stilts, and an unusually hirsute wrestler.
  21. Alpha Dog
    All the bright colors Cassavetes splashes on the canvas don't make Alpha Dog art.
  22. Anemone
    While it wades in its mysteries and mythologies a bit too long, Anemone ends up being a poignant, promising project about the stains of war on the soul—in this case, the Irish Civil War—and the tendency for one to self-destruct in the aftermath of ruthless service, regardless of where one’s sense of duty or regret lies.
  23. Prisoners of the Ghostland
    What keeps Ghostland from flatlining is Sono’s gift for delirious spectacle, along with the movie’s tacit acknowledgment that it’s utterly ridiculous.
  24. Mister Lonely
    Has its moments of wonder and beauty, but the film is obscure by design, and meant to appeal to those who favor the alternative canon of directing greats: the one that includes the likes of Alejandro Jodorowsky, David Lynch, Crispin Glover, John Cassavetes, Claire Denis, Abel Ferrara, and Vincent Gallo.
  25. Ha-Hesder
    Ultimately, writer-director Joseph Cedar has created a film that resembles a subtitled very special episode of "JAG."
    • 53 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    George of the Jungle
    This appalling desecration of Jay Ward's 1960s cartoon series suffers from countless movie-ruining flaws.
  27. Ella Enchanted
    None of it would work without Hathaway, whose self-possession and lack of irony represents a throwback to old-fashioned Hollywood wholesomeness and glamour.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Rookie of the Year
    Rookie isn’t a bad movie. It’s also not good.
  29. The Blind Side
    Sports movies have a long, troubled history of well-meaning white paternalism, with poor black athletes finding success through white charity. But The Blind Side, based on Michael Lewis’ non-fiction book, finds a new low.
  30. The Program
    It’s a rote hatchet job, rehashing information that virtually everyone already knows, but at least it facilitates one of the year’s oddest and gutsiest performances.
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