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. Backstage
    Bercot moves the characters up and down like lines on a chart, never granting full access to what any of them are thinking. And access is what Backstage promised.
  2. Van Wilder 2: The Rise of Taj
    Penn, who probably didn't need this shoddy placeholder after the cult success of "Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle's," acquits himself with a gentle charisma that makes the crudity go down easy. Granted, it's still s---, but with a sweeter odor than usual.
  3. The Architect
    The Architect wears its heavy social consciousness like an albatross, and Tauber's plodding, earnest direction does little to wean the material away from its stage roots.
  4. Turistas
    Once the torture finally commences, the film attempts to float a political point about the Third World taking back First World health-care privileges, but the chief torturers' sadistic humanitarianism is never seriously considered.
  5. Eragon
    If Eragon proves anything, it's that not all dragons produce magic.
  6. Happily N'Ever After
    Even Eddie Murphy's endless hyper "Shrek" vamping is more entertaining.
  7. Stomp the Yard
    Unfortunately, it misses the one cliché that might have been welcome: the predictably plotted flashy dance movie where the actual dance makes it all worthwhile.
  8. The Hitcher
    Somehow, music-video veteran David Meyers fails to hurtle this project into the pantheon of great horror movies.
  9. Smokin' Aces
    The plot tangles until it seems irrelevant, the jokes can't push through the somber tone, and the most interesting moment apart from the action scenes involves one character using the corpse of one of the more famous cast members for a grisly ventriloquist act.
  10. Hannibal Rising
    Director Peter Webber can't do much about what's missing from the story: a soul or a sense of purpose.
  11. Gray Matters
    Far from a watershed moment for lesbian coming-out films, Gray Matters has a queer sensibility that's several miles south of "Will & Grace."
  12. Shooter
    Fuqua keeps the action moving efficiently, but he doesn't know when to stop piling it on, and eventually, Wahlberg's army of one becomes more a comic-book vigilante than a righteously disgruntled patriot.
  13. Firehouse Dog
    The lesson here is that dogs don't need "attitude." They're loveable enough on their own.
  14. Pathfinder
    If this uninspired fight-fest had been delayed out of existence, it's unlikely anyone would have missed it.
  15. Perfect Stranger
    When the left-field ending finally arrives, it explains a lot, including why she's so off-putting and histrionic, but it never really explains why audiences should bother sitting through such a tangled mess.
  16. In the Land of Women
    "Women" confirms that the only thing less enjoyable than enduring long, drawn-out conversations about feelings and relationships in real life is watching movies about people having long, drawn-out conversations about feelings and relationships.
  17. The Condemned
    The film keeps adding layers of superfluous nonsense to its plot until all that's left is glowering ultra-violence and a whole lot of missed opportunities.
  18. Kickin It Old Skool
    For a film that has nothing to offer but lazy '80s nostalgia, Kickin' It Old Skool doesn't even bother to get the details right.
  19. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
    What started out as a fleet one-off swashbuckler with novel supernatural elements has become loaded and graceless, with each new entry barreling across the goal line like William "The Refrigerator" Perry.
  20. Day Watch
    Like the dream it so closely resembles, it's fairly distracting while it's going on, but it fades into forgettable nonsense by the light of day.
  21. La Vie en Rose
    For all its florid pretensions and epic length, the film's overwrought take on its subject's not-so-rosy life leaves behind no lasting insight.
  22. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
    Purists will balk at a pointless--and boring--revamp of a major villain, but that's the least of the film's worries. Only a few isolated shots of the group striding together as a team make Surfer feel like a Fantastic Four movie.
  23. Transformers
    Turns the franchise into a terrible '80s comedy.
  24. Cashback
    In short form, Cashback simply dealt with how a quirky group of supermarket employees whiled away the endless hours of a night shift, but the feature version spoils that economy by tacking on a romantic subplot and indulging its hero's precious ruminations on love and art.
  25. Goya's Ghosts
    If Forman is trying to communicate that art isn't an effective way to change American society, he's proved his point neatly with this muddled, wandering dud.
  26. I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry
    If it doesn't look ridiculous now, try watching it again in a decade or three. Then it'll be funny for all the wrong reasons.
  27. Fat Girls
    In the words of his own character, this young filmmaker hasn't found his "inner fat girl."
  28. No Reservations
    No Reservations is pretty much the dramatic equivalent of a burger and fries, however pretty the presentation.
    • 18 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Who's Your Caddy?
    The tired racial stereotypes that Caddy inserts into the old Caddyshack-style "slobs vs. snobs" formula should probably make it much more offensive than it is.
  30. Bratz
    Bratz's strong anti-clique sermonizing would be slightly more convincing if it weren't tethered to a movie romanticizing the most awesome clique ever.
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