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. Gang Related
    As is probably inevitable for a film with two corrupt, murderous, drug-dealing cops for protagonists, Gang Related is a nasty, vicious little movie. It's also an excellent genre film. Like a good pulp novel, it tells a lurid story cleanly and effectively, without calling undue attention to itself. The cast is uniformly excellent, with James Earl Jones, David Paymer and Gary Cole making good turns in supporting roles. Belushi turns in a surprisingly restrained performance as the nastier of the two corrupt cops, but the real surprise here is Shakur's work as an essentially moral officer who is gradually sickened by the murky moral swamp in which he finds himself. Shakur's growth as an actor since his unheralded debut performance in Nothing But Trouble is nothing short of remarkable
  2. Set Fire to the Stars
    An exercise in tasteful pointlessness, shot in flat black and white and scored (by Gruff Rhys, of all people) with tinkling piano and sawing strings that evoke nothing so much as an aura of cut-rate class.
  3. What Men Want
    It tries to replicate the earlier film’s redemption arc, all the while proving that it is more than willing to adhere to the same double standards it ostensibly pokes fun at.
  4. TRON: Legacy
    Disney has once again constructed a digital environment out of cutting-edge special effects, only this time, it isn't merely silly; it's as dry and talky as a PBS panel show.
  5. Tycoon: A New Russian
    While the players are circling and silently sizing each other up, the audience may find itself straining to look around them, to see the history they're blocking.
  6. Nicotina
    Nicotina's lack of originality ultimately proves forgivable. Its glib, heartless nihilism doesn't.
  7. The Thing
    For a film that takes place in such a cold locale, it all feels awfully warmed-over.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Beyond the Black Rainbow
    Beyond The Black Rainbow is more surface than substance, but those surfaces are gleamingly polished enough to make for a hypnotic experiment that goes beyond genre pastiche or art-school wankery to seem formally daring.
  9. The Fifth Estate
    Giving the kind of mannered performance that seems predicated on careful mimicry of 60 Minutes, Cumberbatch impresses without ever coming across as more than an abstraction.
  10. Den of Thieves
    It’s derivative and drowning in stagnant machismo, but stark enough to work.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    My Fellow Americans
    The execution is decidedly wobbly, with too many telegraphed, poorly paced jokes, too much Grumpy Old Men-style insult humor, and too many schmaltzy scenes. But Garner and Jack Lemmon have enough charisma, and there are enough solid laughs, to mostly overcome My Fellow Americans' embarrassing moments and improbable ending.
  12. American Reunion
    The film alternates sloppily executed sex gags with sentiment, as did its predecessors. And it's all just slightly more endearing and amusing than it has any right to be.
  13. Krampus
    Neither particularly frightening nor especially funny, the Yuletide horror-comedy Krampus scrapes by on the novelty of its setup.
  14. Desert Dancer
    The whole thing resembles nothing more than the kind of video a well-meaning high-school teacher would put on to occupy their class while they catch up on some paperwork. It will almost certainly be used for this purpose in the future.
  15. The Best Offer
    Rush has a lot of fun with Oldman’s gradual thaw, and the questions the movie raises about authenticity and deception, while not remotely in the same heady league as those in "Certified Copy," nonetheless allow it to conclude on a satisfyingly ambiguous note.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    The Money Pit
    It’s not high art or sophisticated humor, but there are just enough clever turns in its physical comedy and insight into relationships to give it a bit of cult status.
  17. Your Place or Mine
    Your Place Or Mine isn’t that invested in crafting a world that looks anything like ours; it’s arguably more interested in giving its supporting cast’s ace one-liners (which, I’ll admit, is where the film sporadically got me chuckling).
  18. The Gray Man
    Gosling’s one of those actors for whom a recurring action hero role somehow feels long overdue, and the Russos have taken advantage of more than just his good looks and smoldering gazes.
  19. New York, I Love You
    The segments don’t form anything like a coherent whole, but they aren’t distinctive enough to clash meaningfully with each other, either.
  20. Big Sur
    Nobody’s given the opportunity to do much more than brood prettily and occasionally shout carpe diembromides into the pounding surf.
  21. Apartment 7A
    Musings on motherhood, performance, and power are never fully articulated, leaving a flurry of concepts up in the air without resolve.
  22. People Like Us
    Viewers who dislike movies in which all drama hinges on one character withholding information from another for no reason beyond the need to keep the plot chugging along should stay far away from People Like Us. The film does have its charms, but getting to them means seeing past a Buick-sized contrivance.
  23. Texas Killing Fields
    Without "The Wire" and its like as a point of comparison, Texas Killing Fields might seem the natural heir to a gritty '70s cop drama. But with great contemporary TV around, it seems strangely incomplete.
  24. Gerrymandering
    At the start of Gerrymandering, Reichert quotes Thomas Pynchon, writing, "Nothing will produce bad history more directly nor brutally than drawing a line." The same could be said of documentaries.
  25. The Private Lives of Pippa Lee
    For a movie about the unpredictability of life, Pippa Lee plays it awfully safe.
  26. Jane Got a Gun
    Even when the movie focuses on its imagery rather than its plot mechanics, it seems intent on covering its bases rather than committing to a particular look or mood.
  27. Shoot 'Em Up
    It's all meant as gory good fun, but once the novelty wears off half an hour in, the rest of the film is only meant for people who absolutely agree with Giamatti's character about that violence thing.
  28. Broken City
    In spite of some punchy scenes, crackling dialogue, and fine performances, Broken City is hopelessly overmatched. It has Academy Award dreams, but a detective-show heart.
  29. Big Bad Love
    The junk-shop surrealism ultimately gets the better of everyone's good intentions.
  30. Good Boy!
    Includes a few half-hearted ironies about how people are really serving dogs, not the other way around, but even those gags are cribbed from a retired Seinfeld routine.
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