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. Dark Water
    Dark Water devolves into something resembling genre schlock, albeit the kind featuring zesty supporting performances from the classy, Oscar-nominated likes of John C. Reilly, Tim Roth, and Pete Postlethwaite.
  2. Fantastic Four
    A garish mediocrity.
  3. The Beautiful Country
    A gorgeous film, framed with an eye that makes every country seem beautiful in one way or another. It's probably fitting that the human element seems fragile and flat by comparison, but the contrast leaves Beautiful Country fairly bland.
  4. Chronicles
    It's daring and it's different.
  5. Steve + Sky
    Has more flavor than leftovers have a right to.
  6. Doing Time, Doing Vipassana
    The film is as low-key and internal as the meditation it touts, and nearly as uplifting.
  7. A Sidewalk Astronomer
    Jacobs focuses almost exclusively on Dobson's theories and mission, which he illustrates by contrasting jaw-dropping images of the sun's surface with people ignoring Dobson's entreaties to "Come look at the sun."
  8. Rebound
    It'd be tempting to accuse Rebound of neutering Lawrence, but the sad fact is that Martin Lawrence doesn't have a whole lot of comic genius to betray.
  9. The Beat That My Heart Skipped
    As tense and taut as any crime saga, but the stakes are more personal.
  10. The World
    The World's dull weave of frustrated romances and worker exploitation is far too obvious, and Jia can only relieve the tedium so many times.
  11. Twist of Faith
    Perhaps because the trial hits so many delays and roadblocks, Twist Of Faith doesn't gather much dramatic momentum, though there's something to be said for the emotional grind of running in place.
  12. War of the Worlds
    In an unfortunate case of star casting, Cruise strains credibility as a hard-edged Jersey dockworker.
  13. Tropical Malady
    In light of Apichatpong Weerasethakul's young career, it's fitting that his beguiling, transfixing romantic fable Tropical Malady splits down the middle into two radically different halves.
  14. A Decent Factory
    Director Thomas Balmès mostly just tags along for the ride, but the incidental details he picks up taint the sense of guarded hopefulness.
  15. Bewitched
    Bewitched piles miscalculation upon miscalculation, beginning by casting the iron-willed Kidman, one of film's gutsiest and most fearless actresses, as a regressive pre-feminist dumb-blonde doormat, a sort of mildly retarded amalgam of Marilyn Monroe, Renée Zellweger, and Meg Ryan.
  16. Land of the Dead
    The satire is headline-fresh, the action scenes keep pace with summer blockbusters, and no one shoots an evisceration with as much skill.
  17. Rize
    Rize eventually gets a little preachy and sentimental, but a little sermonizing seems a small price to pay for such an industrial jolt of kinetic electricity.
  18. Yes
    Like Potter's "Orlando" and "The Tango Lesson," Yes showcases a craft and a hushed, vibrant intensity that prove compelling even when the story loses its focus.
  19. Dallas 362
    From the combustible opening-credits sequence, Caan displays a whip-crack sense of timing, pace, and energy that's so rare for a first-time filmmaker that it's tempting to call him a savant.
  20. Lila Says
    One long tease, not just because it keeps promising sex it doesn't deliver. It teases at deeper themes and cultural commentary.
  21. Memories of Murder
    It takes enormous skill to pull off such a high-wire act without diminishing the gravity of the situation, but Bong and his first-rate cast are up to the task.
  22. March of the Penguins
    The glacially beautiful new documentary March Of The Penguins confirms that no computer-animated or hand-drawn penguin could ever match the curious majesty of the genuine article.
  23. The War on the War on Drugs
    Writer-director-producer-actor-composer-singer Soling claims to have spent a year researching the war on drugs before deciding to make a satire instead of a documentary, but he apparently threw most of his facts out the window in favor of absurdism, exaggeration, slander, and self-congratulatory humor.
  24. Herbie Fully Loaded
    In reviving the beloved Disney property, Robinson attempts to resuscitate the fast-motion shots and sub-Three Stooges physical comedy of classic Herbie, but the new model seems distantly related to the innocent, peppy little car of old.
  25. Waging a Living
    Waging A Living's biggest failing is that Weisberg gives his subjects too much of a pass when it comes to their bad past romantic and career choices.
  26. The Deal
    If Epstein and Kahn's plot mechanics were as fresh as the headlines from which they borrow, they might have been on to something.
  27. Pure
    Pure loses a bit of its nerve in the home stretch, but Eden's unforgettable performance alone makes it a compelling portrait of a smart young boy forced to grow up way too fast.
  28. The Perfect Man
    Where Locklear's careful, clipped delivery confirms that she's better suited for TV stardom than the movies, every time Duff opens her mouth, she confirms that her natural home is in magazines. Or voicing animated squirrels. Either one would work.
  29. The Great Water
    Had the orphanage years been the first chapter in a longer story, The Great Water might've stretched toward a finish as unforgettable as its start.
  30. Heights
    Director Chris Terrio adapts Amy Fox's play with flashes of wit, moments of insight, and some fine performances. But Heights' characters move along such preordained paths and perform such familiar movie actions that they might as well sport antennae.
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