The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,425 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 2.6 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: 5,575 out of 10425
  2. Mixed: 3,741 out of 10425
  3. Negative: 1,109 out of 10425
10425 movie reviews
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  1. Exiled
    Nothing about Exiled is as resonant as To's best work, but it's a clever homage to Sam Peckinpah, right down to the clouds of bloody mist that fill the barroom as To's anti-heroes make their last stand.
  2. Self Medicated
    It's a personal story that feels like it's been constructed from other movies.
  3. Balls of Fury
    Add Balls Of Fury to the list of movies that not even Walken's moon-man delivery and oddball comic energy can save.
  4. The Monastery: Mr. Vig and the Nun
    Between their bickering, Grønkjær's offscreen prompting, and the sappy, ubiquitous soundtrack, The Monastery is like the opposite of "Into Great Silence."
  5. Dedication
    Crudup delivers a bracing, uncompromising performance, but it's unmistakably a solo turn in a romantic comedy that's supposed to be about the blurring of egos and the fusing of two idiosyncratic voices into a single harmonious duet.
  6. Deep Water
    A compelling, well-researched, beautifully assembled document.
  7. Illegal Tender
    For a film about growing up, Illegal Tender loses itself in a lot of silly juvenilia.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Mr. Bean's Vacation
    A very cute movie. Unfortunately, cute is rarely funny.
  9. The Nanny Diaries
    The film belongs to Linney, whose caustic putdowns and status-seeking veneer barely hides her genuine hurt over her husband's philandering and her distant relationship to her own child. No doubt her diaries would be more compelling than the nanny's.
  10. Resurrecting the Champ
    The cast is generally excellent, but Hartnett in particular comes across as convincingly complicated, alternately reprehensible and sympathetic.
    • 25 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    September Dawn
    With its complete lack of empathy for early Mormons and simplistic rendering of historical figures, September Dawn is that rare movie that actually deserves whatever condemnation might come from religious groups.
  12. War
    In spite of a late-game adrenaline surge, the hoped-for fireworks between Li and Statham never quite materialize.
  13. The Hottest State
    Judging by the far more interesting adults in the film--Braga, a terrific Laura Linney as Webber's mother, and Hawke as his father--the solution for Webber and Moreno is to grow up and not be so full of themselves. In their current state, they make for unpleasant company, and so does the film.
  14. Hannah Takes the Stairs
    Doesn't rise to the level of Bujalski's breakthrough feature "Mutual Appreciation," mainly because Swanberg doesn't have Bujalski's eye.
  15. Superbad
    A funny, boozy, ramshackle party.
  16. Death at a Funeral
    Though it grows silly and sentimental, Funeral scores enough big laughs to make its shortcomings eminently forgivable.
  17. Manda Bala (Send a Bullet)
    Manda Bala is exciting and stylish, and Kohn knows exactly what he wants the movie to say. But he makes most of his points in the first 10 minutes, with disgusting slow-motion frog footage and sound bites from social scientists pointing out how "corruption is what links all other crimes." The rest is just so much show.
  18. The 11th Hour
    The 11th Hour is slick and passionate, but neither persuasive nor helpful; it's a headache of a film directed like an Errol Morris project, but with half the substance. It's clearly preaching to the choir, but even they may find it off-key.
  19. The Invasion
    Opting for car chases instead of the thought-provoking ideas of its predecessors, the film looks like the work of, if not pod people, folks who gave up any kind of passion for the material long before the cameras started to roll.
  20. The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
    Gordon's feature directorial debut mostly stops being about video-game obsession and turns into a film about what it takes to make it in America.
  21. The Last Legion
    Though it's never wise to underestimate the power or universal appeal of Rai's cleavage and lustrous hair, that's about all that sets the doggedly mediocre The Last Legion apart from every other sword-and-sandal epic about the origins of Camelot.
  22. Delirious
    Though it scores a reasonable share of laughs, Delirious might have been better off if it weren't a comedy at all.
  23. Love for Sale
    A tough-minded story about how to define self-worth.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Skinwalkers
    While it isn't particularly scary or suspenseful, it's fun and surprisingly breezy compared with its big-budget brethren.
  25. 2 Days in Paris
    For all the verbal jokery, it's more tragedy than farce.
  26. Descent
    Though a clearly gifted new filmmaker, Lugacy doesn't get a handle on the combustible material, and she gets scalded in the process.
  27. Rocket Science
    Rocket Science doesn't go too far into Todd Solondz-style mockery, either; though painful to witness at times, Thompson's determination to face his fears--not just of speaking, but of girls, too--is heartbreakingly noble and courageous.
  28. Rush Hour 3
    For a series devoted to giving audiences exactly what they want, it'd be pretty damn appropriate.
  29. Stardust
    The film's merry, enthusiastic tone--set largely by Robert De Niro, playing a giddy transvestite sky-pirate to the hilt--is hard to beat.
  30. Crossing the Line
    It's an enormous scoop for a Western filmmaker, but a potentially compromising one, too. How much can a filmmaker challenge the dubious elements of Dresnok's story? At what point can the film be considered an unwitting propaganda tool for an oppressive, totalitarian system?
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