The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,422 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 10422
  2. Mixed: 3,739 out of 10422
  3. Negative: 1,108 out of 10422
10422 movie reviews
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  1. We Jam Econo: The Story of the Minutemen
    For people who are Minutemen fans and movie buffs, We Jam Econo is kind of a mixed blessing. Watt and Hurley tell the Minutemen story well, but Irwin relies too much on corroborating interviews from punk vets like Flea and Ian MacKaye, who talk about how great the band was without offering much fresh insight.
  2. The 40 Year Old Virgin
    Funny and realistically romantic, but almost never at the same time.
  3. Red Eye
    If constructing a thriller could be likened to building a house, then Wes Craven's Red Eye is a perfect piece of architecture: It's clean-lined and soundly structured, without a foot of wasted space or any materials left unused.
  4. Valiant
    It was made fast and cheap, which shows in every none-too-slick frame.
  5. El Crimen Perfecto (The Perfect Crime)
    As it progresses from black comedy to something approaching surreal horror, El Crimen Perfecto swells into a nightmare reminiscent of Griffin Dunne's journey through Soho hell in "After Hours."
  6. Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance
    It's a difficult balancing act, but Park crafts his layers carefully and masterfully. He's the kind of filmmaker who can meaningfully craft the gory details of an eye-gouging without ever forgetting the message that an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.
  7. This Divided State
    Greenstreet's film at least serves as a reminder of how useless public debate becomes when everyone's screaming and no one's listening.
  8. Cup of My Blood
    Working under a limited budget, Catania stirs up a thick gothic atmosphere and delivers the goods with a certain amount of proficiency, but when professionalism is the best thing a film has going for it, there isn't much else to discuss.
  9. Supercross
    Since the focus is on the track, the filmmakers aren't out to reinvent the wheel, but for such a simple piece of formula storytelling, they do a remarkably poor job of dotting I's and crossing T's.
  10. Reel Paradise
    The Piersons are warm, funny people, and most of Reel Paradise shows them comically bickering with each other and laughing at the absurdity of the whole project.
  11. The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till
    Thankfully, it boasts a story that doesn't require a surplus of style to be compelling.
  12. Lustre
    Argo's job should only be a minor piece of this Gotham mosaic, but Jones makes the racketeering scenes so familiar that they grate against the rest of the movie.
  13. The Skeleton Key
    Wholly devoid of suspense or chills, The Skeleton Key simply bides its time until its big final plot twist, but the filmmakers don't seem to realize that a second-rate twist can't redeem a third-rate fright flick.
  14. Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo
    What's perhaps most surprising about European Gigolo is its reactionary streak, exemplified by knee-jerk attacks on Europe's equally knee-jerk anti-Americanism. Then again, that seems fitting. The sequel functions as the ultimate Ugly American, good for a few cheap, vulgar laughs and nothing else.
  15. Four Brothers
    Four Brothers regresses into gallows comedy, rampant misogyny, and one preposterous Hollywood action setpiece after another.
  16. The Great Raid
    A lumbering, disappointingly bland war movie.
  17. Asylum
    Mackenzie's film could almost use one or two lurid touches in place of its stately distance. Then again, a more stylized approach might have allowed less room for Richardson, whose unsparing performance makes other elements almost irrelevant.
  18. The Goebbles Experiment
    Mostly though, The Goebbels Experiment proves that historical figures have the worst perspective on themselves.
  19. Grizzly Man
    Herzog is still the only person who could have made Grizzly Man. His admiration for Treadwell has its limits, but he understands, better than most directors, what it means to follow dreams into the belly of the beast.
  20. Pretty Persuasion
    In a star-making performance, Evan Rachel Wood stars as essentially a younger version of Nicole Kidman's media-age femme fatale from "To Die For," an aspiring 15-year-old actress who hides a sharp, calculating mind behind a façade of vapid, chattering self-absorption.
  21. Pulse
    Storytelling clarity has never been a Kurosawa strong suit, yet Pulse baffles even under those standards, so it's best to just get on his abstract wavelength and ride the thing out.
  22. 11:14
    The best possible feeling that 11:14 could leave behind is that Marcks has pulled off something clever, but just bringing the puzzle pieces together isn't that impressive a feat. As "Memento" proves, it's the big picture that really counts.
  23. Clean
    The film gets its distinction from the performances by Cheung and Nolte, whose scenes together are suffused with loss and unexpected mutual compassion.
  24. A State of Mind
    Beautifully shot and crisply edited to emphasize the Mass Games' pageantry, but amid the synchronized blocks of performers, Gordon singles out the cranky coaches and giggling schoolgirls, subtly emphasizing how the individual endures even when she's trying hard not to.
  25. The Dukes of Hazzard
    It's got a few laughs and some impressive car chases, but mostly, it's just a puzzling jumble of gags and exhaust fumes.
  26. Broken Flowers
    Murray and Jarmusch, two modern masters of minimalism, triumphantly join forces in Broken Flowers, a bittersweet tour de force about a wealthy, deeply depressed lothario.
  27. 2046
    Just as memorable and emotionally intense as any of Wong's films. It's a mood as much as a movie.
  28. My Date with Drew
    As trivial as the micro-budget documentary My Date With Drew may seem, it has novelty on its side, and even when that flags, it coasts along on sheer personality.
  29. Saint Ralph
    Scott can invest just about any scene with heft and intelligence, but neither the material nor his co-star give him much help.
  30. Secuestro express
    Writer-director Jonathan Jakubowicz does his best Quentin Tarantino impersonation, loading the film with percussively profane dialogue, smug adolescent nihilism, rampant drug use, pop-culture references, homophobic invective, and empty stylistic excess.
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