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. Bugonia
    Lacking distinctive social commentary, meaningful character development, or a salient environmental angle, the update feels all but incapable of speaking to the moment.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Gazer
    There is certainly talent in front of and behind the camera, although it works more like a demonstration rather than reaching for something more compelling.
  3. 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.
  4. Unstoppable
    It’s commendable to avoid further clichés with regard to the portrayal of physical difference in film, but Unstoppable fails to pin down what exactly should take their place.
  5. The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim
    The Lord Of The Rings: The War Of The Rohirrim is a slight Middle-earth adventure that’s fleet-footed but inconsequential.
  6. Apartment 7A
    Musings on motherhood, performance, and power are never fully articulated, leaving a flurry of concepts up in the air without resolve.
  7. Saturday Night
    It’s more akin to speed-reading from the SNL memoir library than experiencing the thrilling unevenness—the captivating try-whatever stupidity—of the actual live show. It’s inconsequential in all the wrong places.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Relay
    Rather than discovering anything novel or liberating about the hostile, modern battleground of America, Relay‘s compelling set-up becomes overly dependent on typical rug-pulls and action beats.
  9. Vice Is Broke
    For as much as Huang tries to go for a more freewheeling approach, treating his interviews like off-the-cuff conversations taking place in bars and restaurants, Vice Is Broke isn’t that intimate or revealing.
  10. Hold Your Breath
    For all of the horror subgenres crammed into Hold Your Breath, it never conjures sufficient scares.
  11. Heart Eyes
    Even when its characters do get earnest, Heart Eyes has its tongue so far in its cheek that these moments of vulnerability are also viewed from an ironic distance. Instead of feeling for these characters, we’re waiting for the bloody punchline—which will come, and will be funny in a deliciously morbid kind of way. There’s nothing to hold on to, and certainly nothing to be afraid of.
  12. Companion
    The ongoing sight of a blood-soaked Thatcher finding herself through violent confrontations, essentially figuring out on the fly whether she’s a Terminator or a Final Doll, is diverting enough. Her melancholic presence hints at the trippier, more genuinely unsettling horror movie this could have pivoted into. It’s also a reminder of how facile the rest of the movie really is.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    How to Train Your Dragon
    Rather than trying to train something new, How To Train Your Dragon is riding an already proven beast; even its “first flight” has been done before. It can’t reach those old heights, let alone any new ones. And it doesn’t try to, nor does its audience really want it to. For live-action remakes, cruising altitude is the highest they can hope for.
  14. Novocaine
    Despite the high concept, Novocaine feels as risk-averse as its protagonist, afraid to go full-on action-comedy or veer hard into torture porn.
  15. Don't Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever
    If Don’t Die had a bit more of the discipline its subject imposes on his own days, those feelings might linger longer.
  16. Kiss of the Spider Woman
    Messy and muddled in its presentation and messaging, Kiss Of The Spider Woman needs more than just compelling performances to raise this project to the level of esteem granted to its predecessors from 30 and 40-odd years ago.
  17. Atropia
    Without a tangible connection to the material—most notably to Iraq and its people—Gates’ viewpoint feels unguided, doomed to be influenced by the same pervasive prejudices that Atropia ostensibly attempts to combat.
  18. Mr. Nobody Against Putin
    Plenty of the film feels vital—its observations of a nation’s shifting attitude towards war, towards hate, is crushing and familiar.
  19. Oh, Hi!
    Oh, Hi! is an ambitious, thought-provoking look at modern romance that starts with the terror of weekend getaways before dissecting the gender stereotypes that keep people from finding their happily-ever-after.
  20. Come See Me in the Good Light
    Learning about Gibson’s ‘roid rage from their treatment, and Falley’s acceptance of it, is a more moving example of their care for one another than much of what the film finds in their shared profession.
  21. Bloat
    Though it’s clear that Bloat is riffing on the digital ghosts of Ringu and Pulse, this approach doesn’t mesh with the mythology it attempts to flesh out for itself. But it’s unfair to say that the film is completely devoid of commentary.
  22. 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.
  23. Dreams
    The abusive push-pull between America and Mexico, the conflict between the exotic fantasy of a Latin lover and its xenophobic underbelly, crashes into two people too ill-defined to function as anything more than symbols.
  24. Bullet Train Explosion
    Despite remaking much of that film (Taisei Iwasaki and Yuma Yamaguchi’s tense score being one of the most successful throwbacks), Bullet Train Explosion abandons the complicating human factors that gave the original its soul. It makes the same mistake as so many modern blockbusters: confusing bigger, louder, and simpler with better.
  25. A Big Bold Beautiful Journey
    Is A Big Bold Beautiful Journey a piece of wannabe creativity with a yawning hollowness at its center, or an A-list romance with some welcome aesthetic sensitivity? Like the outcome of a first date, it will ultimately be determined by chemistry.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Never Too Young to Die
    While the film may not have led to a desired franchise or any sort of success for anyone involved, it has certainly left an indelible mark on many hearts of those who love cheesy action flicks.
  27. Heads of State
    As an action-comedy, Heads Of State is more successful at the former than the latter. It’s a junky, diverting movie, one with major tonal issues and a completely predictable storyline, no matter how many twists and red herrings the filmmakers throw at us. Not sharp enough to be memorable but just well-crafted enough that you wish everyone involved had tried a little harder.
  28. The Old Guard 2
    The Old Guard 2 is broader, zippier, and more caught up in explaining the rules of its immortal superheroes rather than simply living in their complex emotional reality.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Nouvelle Vague
    The filmmaker’s adoration for the people on-screen is never in doubt, but as consistently pleasant as his Godardian homage may be, it has limited use as an evocation or understanding of the late master’s work.
  30. Lost in Starlight
    Han Ji-won’s sci-fi romance is caught between its genres.
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