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. Keeping Up with the Joneses
    Director Greg Mottola deserves some credit for trying to give the film a little bit of cinematic flair, something that’s lacking in many Hollywood comedies these days.
  2. The Magnificent Seven
    More importantly, copying an earlier era’s empty slickness still produces only empty slickness.
  3. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
    The movie feels bloodless, and not just because the gore is muted and computerized to stay within the boundaries of a PG-13 rating.
  4. Time Lapse
    Time Lapse provokes thought, but mostly in spite of itself.
  5. Dirty Weekend
    Don’t get too excited: Not only is there nothing especially dirty about Dirty Weekend, the latest and lamest film by erstwhile provocateur Neil LaBute, but the movie doesn’t even occupy an entire weekend.
  6. Pacific Rim: Uprising
    Simply put, it lacks its predecessor’s curiosity about its world—its fascination with colorful backdrops and machines.
  7. Area 51
    Though Peli stages a few fun and creepy effects shots, nothing that happens here couldn’t be surmised from simply reading the film’s title.
  8. Noble
    The real Noble accomplished a lot, but the movie insists on giving her achievements a mystical and mythical dimension...without the imagination to carry it off.
  9. The 33
    Stalled in management mode for much of its duration, Riggen’s film nonetheless has its solid elements, one of them being Banderas’ energetic lead performance.
  10. He Named Me Malala
    A puff piece for someone who doesn’t need one, Malala wraps Yousafzai’s life in media-circuit testimonials and fairy-tale-like animated sequences that stop just short of drawing an aureola of fire around her.
  11. The Accountant
    At various times, The Accountant aspires to a slick corporate-espionage thriller, a no-nonsense action flick, a tortured family drama, a quirky romantic comedy, and an earnest PSA about autism. At nearly all times, it’s preposterous.
  12. Police Story: Lockdown
    Instead of a claustrophobic thriller à la "Die Hard" or "The Raid," Lockdown is a kind of puzzle-box movie, but it hardly seems worth the effort, for the filmmakers or for the audience. Ol’ Jackie needn’t have bothered getting up for this.
  13. Marguerite & Julien
    It’s somehow both mannered and style-less, fantastical and under-imagined—perversely watchable, in other words.
  14. Dheepan
    Jacques Audiard’s misbegotten Palme D’Or winner Dheepan aspires to be a "Taxi Driver" for today’s Europe, but ends up as a crude cross between "Death Wish" and Ken Loach.
  15. A Tale of Love and Darkness
    Portman’s emotional connection to the material couldn’t be more obvious, yet the film itself is still largely inert.
  16. Unfreedom
    Raj Amit Kumar’s film, which was banned by the country’s national censor board, is an intentional act of cultural and political provocation, and goes about its task as relentlessly as possible.
  17. 3 Generations
    There’s a kind of equality at work here: No one is well-served.
  18. Lila & Eve
    Pitched somewhere between indie domestic drama and direct-to-video exploitation, Lila & Eve is the kind of film in which a sturdy, unsensational piece of acting can take the spotlight.
  19. Pitch Perfect 3
    It’s half-assed in every way but cast retention; almost all the major female characters return.
  20. The Runner
    There’s no revenge, no murder, and no kidnapping. It’s a low-budget New Orleans Cage movie with some dignity. It would be a pleasure to report that The Runner is also good, but this slim if mildly compelling film lands somewhere between character sketch and morality tale.
  21. Boulevard
    It doesn’t help that Boulevard is a movie that feels at least a decade past its sell-by date, if not two.
  22. Dragon Blade
    Whether it’s introducing random flashes of white screen or slowing down shots to a stuttered chop, Dragon Blade seems to be going out of its way to make sure the action never rises above the level of “watchable enough.”
  23. Stung
    Paul and Julia can rescue each other, but they need more help pulling Stung out of "Tremors" and "Party Down"’s combined shadow.
  24. The Kindergarten Teacher
    What primarily comes across is a film about squandered creativity that itself ignores and trivializes the creative process, pretending that child prodigies produce masterworks unconsciously, like a chicken laying eggs. That’s a poor lesson to impart.
  25. Chi-Raq
    Chi-Raq, Lee’s modernized take on "Lysistrata," is mostly bad art; it’s about an hour too long, sometimes leadenly unfunny, and set in Chicago, a place the Brooklynite director has no feel for.
  26. Stonewall
    Though it delivers disaster-movie specialist Roland Emmerich’s usual mix of pop iconography, cornball Americana, and conspiracy theory, and benefits from some better-than-average performances in hokey roles, Stonewall is a farrago.
  27. Our Brand Is Crisis
    It treats the complicated moves and countermoves of a major election as fodder for a broadly comic grudge match.
  28. Air
    The movie cheats whenever it can. At least it’s interesting to look at, if only at first.
  29. Bad Boys for Life
    Bantering back and forth, Lawrence and Smith manage to recreate some of their screen chemistry — though not enough to make anyone want to go on another bumpy ride.
  30. Shanghai
    Pulp without style: Shanghai has many of the staples of noir—back alleys, shadowy figures, hard-boiled narration, and more femmes fatales than a viewer could keep track of—but none of the atmosphere or cool.
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