The A.V. Club's Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
  1. The Sisters
    The Sisters is still somewhat compelling thanks to Bello, whose unguarded, provocative work continually resuscitates this corpse of a melodrama whenever it lays fallow.
  2. Stick It
    So along with being fake punk-rock, Stick It is also a fake protest movie. That leaves the only traces of genuineness to Bridges, who plays the coach with a fatherly patience that earns him a paycheck, but not the better film he deserves.
  3. Hoot
    The kids Hoot is aimed at weren't around to see all the previous films it echoes, particularly the toothless Disney live-action films of the '70s. They'll probably like Hoot fine. Everyone else in the audience is likely to nod off and have genial, bland, easygoing dreams.
  4. Typhoon
    This may be the biggest production in Korean-film history, but viewers should search elsewhere for a better sampling of what the country has to offer.
  5. The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
    The racing sequences are the series' meat and potatoes, but in terms of story, Tokyo Drift barely offers a stalk of asparagus.
  6. Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties
    Two Kitties marks a considerable improvement over its predecessor. It's faster paced and the filmmakers wisely shift the focus away from bland owner Breckin Meyer and onto a menagerie of chattering animals.
  7. Nacho Libre
    How can any comedy with Jack Black as a Mexican wrestler not be gut-bustingly hilarious? Nacho Libre provides an all-too-convincing answer.
  8. Click
    Charlie Kaufman could have made a great movie out of Click, a soupy existential comedy about a "universal remote" that lets a man magically rewind, fast-forward, and pause his life.
  9. The Devil Wears Prada
    Sometimes actors get parts so rich that they almost can't help but make meals of them. Playing a frosty, high-powered editor in The Devil Wears Prada, Meryl Streep turns the role into a four-course dinner and shows up with her own dessert...But it's hard to care about what's going on whenever she's offscreen.
  10. My Super Ex-Girlfriend
    Confusing gender issues like the ones dredged up in Ex-Girlfriend call to mind another Reitman dud, the pregnant-Arnold Schwarzenegger comedy "Junior," and the sophistication level has only slightly improved since then.
  11. John Tucker Must Die
    Revenge movies often end with the message that vengeance is empty and futile, but it's never encouraging when revenge seems pointless from the start.
  12. Step Up
    Rather than cast actors who can't dance or dancers who can't act, Step Up splits the difference with stars Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan, who pull double duty with uninspired competence.
  13. Accepted
    The ideal viewer of Accepted probably won't have seen any college comedies before. Or any slobs-vs.-snobs movies like "Caddyshack." For those who have, it's kind of a snore.
  14. Idlewild
    Idlewild boasts too much personality around the edges--especially in Terrence Howard and Macy Gray's scene-stealing turns--and not enough at its center. It's a vehicle for OutKast's music and personality in which the music and lead roles feel like afterthoughts.
  15. The Quiet
    The few effective scenes in The Quiet suggest that the film might have worked as a kinked-up Hitchcockian thriller rather than the drab, serious drama it turns out to be.
  16. Rolling Family
    Still, after an hour and a half of exquisite photography and mushy action, audiences may well ask the unspoken question that plays across the faces of the Rolling Family clan right before the closing credits. Was it worth it?
  17. Black Gold
    There's been a proliferation of "globalization sucks" documentaries over the past couple of years, but few have been as blunt as Black Gold.
  18. Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker
    Rourke's hammy, eyeliner-enhanced acting alone almost makes Alex Rider worth a look.
  19. Marie Antoinette
    It's a daring move, focusing on the isolated splendor and interior dramas, and letting the politics remain at most a distant rumble; Coppola deserves credit for offering a different, and probably truer, perspective on life as a royal. But the perspective rarely lends itself to compelling filmmaking.
  20. Catch a Fire
    The problem with Tim Robbins' dreadful turn as a South African "anti-terrorist" official in Catch A Fire--and it was also a problem with his sniveling Bill Gates impersonation in "Antitrust"--is that he can't hide his distaste for his own character.
  21. Saw III
    Saw III may be the best of the trilogy; hopefully, it'll encourage its makers to wrap the franchise on a relatively high note.
  22. A Good Year
    Though he invests every ounce of his considerable charisma in the lead role, Russell Crowe still comes across as a man unworthy of the paradise offered to him.
  23. Copying Beethoven
    Aspires to the sublime, but it stalls at the merely ridiculous.
  24. The PianoTuner of EarthQuakes
    Perhaps the film will connect with those attuned to the Quays' allusive wavelength, much as a dog responds to a whistle. Others won't hear a thing.
  25. Bobby
    The film has virtually nothing to say about the man, or about much of anything, really. It's a sketchbook trying to pass as a tapestry.
  26. Opal Dream
    The filmmaking here is flat, straight, and thoroughly lacking in poetry, and the script--co-written by Cattaneo, Rice, and Phil Traill--tells instead of showing.
  27. Unaccompanied Minors
    The film is too busy hurling its cast from one labored slapstick setpiece to another to loosen up and allow them to have fun or be spontaneous.
  28. Off the Black
    Nolte almost makes it work.
  29. Screamers
    The band is sincere, and many of its followers are just as sincere, but there's always a danger that too much "screaming" can turn a meaningful statement into an inarticulate din.
  30. The Good Shepherd
    De Niro made the right choice in making this a film of cold, gray Leiters rather than dynamic Bonds. But he never makes us feel the chill.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »