The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,436 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: 5,578 out of 10436
  2. Mixed: 3,746 out of 10436
  3. Negative: 1,112 out of 10436
10436 movie reviews
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  1. Kin
    It’s a simple idea, to take this working-class family and introduce what amounts to a high-tech ray gun, but the hook is so effective that it buys Kin a fair amount of time before the story turns from scrappy to stupid.
  2. Operation Finale
    Operation Finale means to embody the banality of evil, but it’s mostly mired in plain old banality.
  3. Johnny English Strikes Again
    Johnny English Strikes Again might actually come closer to success than its predecessors, if only by default. At very least, it proceeds unencumbered by excess story machinations.
  4. Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween
    Though Sandel relies less on exasperating, rubbery digital effects than Rob Letterman, the DreamWorks Animation vet who helmed the original, his direction of the monsters and mayhem is never more than workmanlike, racing joylessly through a shaky plot that barely holds attention.
  5. Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo
    Breakin' 2 turned out to be pure, laugh-a-minute cheeseball entertainment. Granted, it's utterly terrible, with stiff, amateurish acting, enough vivid Day-Glo to blind an army of sunglasses-wearing Corey Harts, and the thinnest and hoariest of thin, hoary old plots. But the camp value is through the roof.
  6. The Grudge
    Overall, though, the director and co-writer’s merciless style is muffled by The Grudge’s over-reliance on clichéd jump scares; more damningly, only some of these are effective, even in terms of cheap thrills. This becomes especially true in the film’s second half, when the ghosts become at once more human and less creepy.
  7. The Towering Inferno
    As the bland, star-laden drama gets swallowed by fiery special-effects setpieces, it feels like one type of big-budget mediocrity giving way to the next.
  8. Clash of the Titans
    Titans forces all aspects of the movie except the spectacle into the background, and historical accuracy isn't much of a concern. It does feature a better-than-average cast, however, aside from uncharismatic star Harry Hamlin.
  9. A Kid Like Jake
    If Howard and Pearle’s idea was to show how an extended argument devolves into the worst values of a previous generation — lashing out with implicit homophobia, resentment, and misogyny in the film’s shouty, snotty, excessively busy final third — then it comes too late here, before being patly resolved. A sharper drama would have made it the focus.
  10. Downrange
    Downrange is trash, but in an almost elemental vein.
  11. Stockholm
    Hawke is no stranger to elevating subpar material with a committed performance, but his fidgety crook-with-a-heart-of-gold act is undercut by Budreau’s uncreative use of the limited setting (almost the whole thing takes place inside the bank) and unskillful handling of the broad tone.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Delta
    While the structure of The Delta—sort of a tag-team narrative that begins with Gray and switches to Chan halfway through—is an intriguing touch, this gritty film never follows through on the issues it raises.
  13. Who's That Knocking at My Door?
    The film never jells, but it's the Rosetta Stone for Scorsese's later work.
  14. Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw
    Yes, Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw is extremely silly. For its first 30 or so minutes, it also manages to be fun.
  15. Toys
    If Levinson weren't so intent on cramming whimsy and joy down the audience's throat for two punishing hours, he might very well have succeeded in his very noble ambitions. Whimsy is a tricky thing: too much can become oppressive.
  16. Capernaum
    Capernaum brims with compassion for the downtrodden, and that will likely be enough for many viewers (as it clearly was for the Cannes jury). But the film amounts to a series of easy emotional lay-ups, devoid of any psychological nuance or challenging inflection.
  17. Like a Boss
    If you’re looking for something truly groundbreaking—or hilarious—Like A Boss isn’t it.
  18. Summer of 84
    The film’s dialogue and characterization are similarly undercooked: The script strains painfully hard for off-the-cuff vulgarity, but never quite achieves it, and while the pop culture references—always a punching bag for critics when dealing with nostalgia-themed entertainments—are applied sparingly, the tin-earned dialogue gives them an awkward, shoehorned-in quality.
  19. Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich
    It’s gnarly as hell.
  20. The Hustle
    While The Hustle is more overt when it comes to discussing gender, including a monologue about why women are better suited to “the con” than men, it doesn’t really have all that much to say. Not about gender, not about con artistry, and definitely not about how to craft a satisfying studio comedy.
  21. Nobody's Fool
    When his zany cast of characters (many but not all played by Perry himself) takes leave of his material, as in Nobody’s Fool, his movie’s faults start to look more congruent with less auteur-driven studio comedies.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Muppets from Space
    The cavalcade of guest spots does give viewers the rare opportunity to see Andie MacDowell getting punched in the stomach by Miss Piggy, as well as the chance to watch Dawson's Creek star Katie Holmes reject the amorous advances of a wise-cracking prawn, but they also undermine Muppets From Space's attempts to transcend its dull, plodding shenanigans.
  23. Maleficent: Mistress of Evil
    It’s hard to say what’s odder about Maleficent 2: that Jolie disappears for long stretches of it, or that her elegant, imperious darkness isn’t much missed when she does.
  24. Hal
    Though clearly aimed at fans, it presents only a chummy overview of his life and career, too superficial to work as a biography, an in-depth appreciation, or even a primer.
  25. Ben Is Back
    Ben Is Back, which buries its promise, premise, and stray traces of insight under a heap of narrative contrivance, leaves you itching for a drama with something solid to actually say about addiction.
  26. 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.
  27. C.H.U.D.
    Perfect for bleary-eyed late-night viewing and pretty much unwatchable at any other hour, it does make for an oddly appropriate refresher course for life under a Republican president.
  28. Let's Spend the Night Together
    The great Hal Ashby (Harold And Maude, Being There) directs, but doesn’t make his presence felt too often. In the midst of the personal and professional problems that plagued him after his '70s heyday, Ashby mostly finds a few angles, hopes for the best, then edits it together with all the artfulness of a televised sports broadcast.
  29. Our Time
    However truthful or invented Our Time may be, its dynamic is tiresomely petty and small, resisting Reygadas’ occasional efforts at expressionism. It plays like therapy.
  30. The Front Runner
    It’s a feature-length whine of frustrated entitlement. A movie less suited to its cultural moment would be hard to imagine.
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