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. Bright Future
    But save for the mesmerizing final tracking shot, Bright Future just mopes around aimlessly, hoping that its vague themes will eventually congeal into something profound.
  2. Along Came Polly
    With a cast this gifted, some of the throwaway jokes stick, but when Along Came Polly goes for its biggest, grossest laughs, the strings show well in advance.
  3. When Will I Be Loved
    Beyond the "hell hath no fury" angle that overlays the story, When Will I Be Loved amounts to nothing more than another repository for kinky Tobackisms: Seen one (and the one to see remains 1978's Fingers), seen them all.
  4. Holes
    An ambitious undertaking, but not a successful one: It unfolds with the studied determination of a grade-school book report.
  5. The Alamo
    Turns into an edited-for-TV version of Sam Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch"--flat, bloodless, and utterly bereft of period grit.
  6. Robot Stories
    Disappointing.
  7. The Inheritance
    An initially engaging but ultimately wearying combination of naturalistic acting, cinéma vérité camerawork, and broadly melodramatic plotting.
  8. A Home at the End of the World
    The result: some intriguing moments, even more intriguing performances, and a film that doesn't quite work.
  9. Gozu
    Miike has served up some of the most dumbfounding images in contemporary cinema.
  10. Zhou Yu de huo che
    An empty lake, drained of any tangible substance and refilled with wispy, pseudo-poetic metaphor.
  11. Instinct
    A mushy-headed, unintentionally funny inspirational drama that plays like a clumsy attempt to crossbreed "The Shawshank Redemption" and "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest."
  12. Dig!
    By giving Taylor the last word, Dig! becomes little more than a self-serving, unconvincing infomercial for a musician who comes across as functional and bearable only when compared to his counterpart.
  13. Under the Tuscan Sun
    Writer-director Audrey Wells never aims higher than postcard filmmaking, and Under The Tuscan Sun at least works on that level, by casting its little operetta of self-realization and remodeling travails against some of the most beautiful scenery in the world.
  14. Warriors of Heaven and Earth
    In spite of the unavoidable disappointment that comes from raised expectations (and lowered elevations), it's clumsy storytelling that ultimately keeps Warriors grounded.
  15. Paper Clips
    The story they get may be heartfelt and inspiring, but all that powerful sentiment doesn't make it any more complete.
  16. Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst
    Guerrilla still holds up as social history, primarily because its description of seething frustration in a divided America has become spookily relevant.
  17. Intermission
    Like many stylish, whipcrack American and British indies made in the wake of Quentin Tarantino and "Trainspotting," the film gets off on the same anything-can-happen storytelling brio, which at least keeps things lively. But without any resonant characters or ideas, it's all empty calories.
  18. Pieces of April
    Though Pieces Of April comes together with improbable grace, Hedges evokes unearned tears from a premise that's already loaded from the start. Like Holmes, he serves up boxed stuffing and canned cranberries, then fishes for compliments to the chef.
  19. Tokyo Godfathers
    No amount of shoehorned-in razzle-dazzle can keep this forced fable from feeling like a shadow of Kon's early work.
  20. The Matrix Reloaded
    In making The Matrix's leaden answer to "The Phantom Menace," the Wachowski brothers seem to be afflicted with George Lucas Syndrome: They're so enthralled by the convoluted mythology of their own private universe that they've lost touch with its human core.
  21. Stage Beauty
    As historical speculation, it's clever enough. As a film, it glows with flop-sweat.
  22. Happy Times
    Happy Times doesn't buck the clichés so much as infuse them with feeling, playing off the pleasant, unforced rhythm of two characters who pine for simple companionship.
  23. Being Julia
    It looks handsome but seems infected by the idea of playing different roles; a comedy in one scene, it adopts a mood of a high seriousness the next and clutters the stage with minor characters that contribute little. In the end, this inability to make up its mind does the film in.
  24. The Last Samurai
    What it lacks is artistry, those small touches of personality that might have distinguished its lugubrious history lesson from a bunch of pretty pictures with captions telling the story.
  25. Scary Movie 3
    Sneaks in the occasional child-molestation or bestiality joke, but otherwise seems content to cannibalize the broad slapstick of Zucker's halcyon days with Jerry Zucker and Jim Abrahams.
  26. True Romance
    The Tony Scott version of Tarantino comes out vulgar; the graphic violence and profanity-laced posturing represent everything that the wannabes soon used to exhaust audiences. Nevertheless, True Romance contains so many unforgettable moments.
  27. After the Sunset
    When it comes time for the actual robbery, so little has been explained that the plan seems ridiculously easy in some respects and totally improbable in others.
  28. Danny Deckchair
    Best known for "Notting Hill," Ifans remains a charming actor, but even his fine work can't get this lead zeppelin off the ground.
  29. The Clearing
    It never adds up to much. There's a fair amount of fine acting (with that cast, how could there not be?), but it's in the service of a story that bubbles without ever boiling.
  30. EuroTrip
    The brain trust responsible in part for last year's "The Cat In The Hat," Eurotrip seems like the result of a particularly half-hearted brainstorming session.
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