The A.V. Club's Scores

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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:
  1. Positive: 5,578 out of 10435
  2. Mixed: 3,745 out of 10435
  3. Negative: 1,112 out of 10435
10435 movie reviews
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  1. Honeydripper
    There are precisely zero surprises in how things play out--the main thread is basically "Big Night" revisited--but the film gets better as it goes along, and it closes with a rousing musical flourish, as immensely charismatic newcomer Clark Jr. finally hits the stage. At last, Sayles' sleepy drama wakes with a start.
  2. The Orphanage
    While some of the trappings and even some of the plot elements could easily be called unoriginal, Bayona and screenwriter Sergio G. Sánchez arrange them in a fresh way, crafting an emotionally resonant, nerve-jangling experience.
  3. There Will Be Blood
    Anderson's uncompromising masterpiece will continue to resonate as a harrowing cautionary warning to a country with oil pumping through its veins, clouding its judgment and coarsening its soul.
  4. AVPR: Aliens vs Predator - Requiem
    A tasteless, witless, mindlessly perfunctory bloodbath that has the discourtesy to take itself seriously. Pitting aliens against predators may be the height of frivolity, but God forbid anyone have fun with it.
  5. Persepolis
    The two main points Persepolis makes are that strife is relative, and all politics are personal.
  6. The Bucket List
    There are certainly worse ways to spend the holiday season than in the company of two charming old actors, being reminded that human companionship makes life worth living, even as it makes dying a little tougher.
  7. The Great Debaters
    Too bad the story is all over the place. One second, it focuses on a love triangle between students; the next, it's about Washington's efforts to unionize the local farmers.
  8. The Water Horse
    Few kid films manage to assemble this much ambition alongside this much sincere, sweet emotion.
  9. P.S. I Love You
    Working from a novel by Cecelia Ahern, LaGravenese brings some intelligence and maturity to a genre that sorely needs it, but it isn't enough to prop up this long-winded and thoroughly bland romantic comedy.
  10. Charlie Wilson's War
    Nichols succeeds in spinning an entertaining yarn, but the cautionary aspects feel fatally undernourished.
  11. National Treasure: Book of Secrets
    It's a measure of the film's infectious goofiness that Cage seems altogether more interested in clearing the name of a long-dead ancestor than in finding a city of gold.
  12. Steep
    Enthusiasts and neophytes alike should be able to join together in gasping at the sight of people plunging down vertical walls of ice, taking their lives into their own hands for a brief, lion-lifed adrenaline charge.
  13. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
    Burton brings his signature visual style, and a pair of stock players for his stars, into this film adaptation, but he wisely follows Sondheim's lead, letting the music and spirit of the original piece show the way.
  14. Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
    Walk Hard offers a quantity of laughs that few comedies could match, yet it's likely to leave viewers vaguely unsatisfied, particularly when the closing minutes completely run out of steam. That's the danger of spoofs: You're only as good as your last laugh.
  15. Flakes
    The characters Lehmann and company use as generational mouthpieces bear no relation to any people who have ever existed, and they barely work as parody.
  16. Alvin and the Chipmunks
    There's just not enough here for a movie. It's almost as if some ideas were meant to live for three and a half minutes each Christmas season, not to get stretched to the breaking point for 50 years.
  17. I Am Legend
    While I Am Legend is reasonably absorbing, it can be difficult to focus on the film that actually made it to the screen, instead of the many versions that didn't.
  18. The Kite Runner
    It's okay to be manipulated, so long as you don't feel the strings being pulled. Here the tug is constant, and constantly distracting.
  19. Look
    Aside from a smattering of irony and a resolution for one of the storylines, the security cameras aren't really threaded into Look's essential purpose. If the idea is that we're always being watched, why does it seem that in this movie, no one's really paying attention?
  20. Youth Without Youth
    In the context of Coppola's life and career, the film has a searching intelligence and ambition that can't be entirely dismissed; with his own money and nobody looking over his shoulder, Coppola has gone uprriver again in an effort to reinvent himself and cinema in the process. He ultimately fails, but he can't be faulted for trying.
  21. The Perfect Holiday
    It's a measure of the film's lack of imagination that Morris Chestnut, as an aspiring songwriter logging time as a mall Santa, can't even think of a good fake occupation.
  22. Atonement
    The generous, sharp performances, especially Garai's, deepen the story's emotional impact, as does Wright's assured, frequently astounding direction.
  23. The Golden Compass
    The Golden Compass does manage the job of bringing Pullman's world to the screen. With luck, any future entries will try harder to get the job done right.
  24. Grace Is Gone
    Attempts to address grief frankly, gently, and without didacticism, and it largely succeeds.
  25. Revolver
    Ritchie has said that it takes several viewings to fully understand what's going on in Revolver, but once will be enough for most to agree to take his word for it.
  26. The Walker
    A paper-thin character study undermined by a convoluted conspiracy thriller.
  27. Juno
    It comes off as calculatedly irreverent at times, and its Wes Anderson-isms are too precious by half, but its sweetness is genuine and next-to-impossible to resist.
  28. Billy the Kid
    If the film has a significant flaw, it's that Venditti never explains in the film how she found Billy, or why she's interested in him. Billy The Kid often plays more like an extended home movie than something intentional and artful.
  29. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
    Schnabel's sleepy, drifty, at times morbidly funny film tackles something more ambitious, by getting into the head of someone who's trying to get out of there himself.
  30. Awake
    Only the so-bad-it's-good crowd need apply.
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