The A.V. Club's Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
  1. Table 19
    And yes, it’s as tired as “The Breakfast Club remade with adults” implies.
  2. Act of Valor
    It's thin material, to say the least, and manipulative to boot, putting women, children, and a SEAL father-to-be in jeopardy in ways more about servicing cheap thrills than any larger point about the perilous state of the world in 2012.
  3. The Boss
    The Boss, without quite reaching the heights of McCarthy’s work with Paul Feig, establishes its star as sort of a comic auteur — which is not the same as repeating herself.
  4. The Carpenter's Son
    It takes dedication to make a dull movie where Nicolas Cage plays Joseph and Jesus gets into a fistfight with Satan, but The Carpenter’s Son sets to its task with devotion, if little else.
  5. Horrible Bosses 2
    The laughs don't linger, even within individual scenes. What remains, reinforced by a set of end-credit outtakes, is the sense that Sudeikis, Day, Bateman, and Pine had a really good time making a sort of okay movie.
  6. Video Games: The Movie
    Video Games: The Movie talks a lot about storytelling, but practices very little of it.
  7. Maniac Cop
    Maniac Cop is heavier on the goofery than the relevance.
  8. Unhinged
    This may be the first role that’s really capitalized on Crowe’s celebrity reputation as a hothead, even if the unnamed lunatic he’s playing only barks threats into a phone instead of chucking it at anyone.
  9. Shaft
    Among all the cardinal sins of moviemaking it commits (up to and including reusing an iconic needle drop from a Martin Scorsese movie), the worst is this: It makes Shaft look uncool.
  10. The Good Heart
    Cox’s character is a living, hissing embodiment of the idea that no good deed goes unpunished. As an actor stuck in a movie that wastes his talents, Cox can surely relate.
  11. Igor
    While the stitches holding together the plot are clearly visible, Igor breathes some enjoyable life into its stolen grab-bag of gimmicks.
  12. Here Comes the Boom
    Here Comes The Boom seems to have made it from the pitch stage - Kevin James does MMA to save his school or something! - to the big screen without an iota of inspiration, ambition, or personality seeping in at any juncture.
  13. In the Blood
    In The Blood plays like demented cruise-commercial fan fiction.
  14. Derailed
    Much of the second half is spent waiting for the other shoe to drop, though you don't have to have 20/20 vision in order to see the big twist coming from miles away. Once it arrives, the film officially disembarks from reality with an over-the-top climax and denouement that play shamelessly to the bloodthirsty masses.
  15. Suicide Squad
    Like so many of Ayer’s directorial efforts, Suicide Squad feels like it was re-drafted in the editing room. It’s clumsy, disrupted by at least eight different plodding flashbacks, filled with lines of dialogue that cut well into trailers but make zero sense in context, and patched up with an embarrassment of rock-along musical cues.
  16. Appleseed
    Its busy, stiff, artificial graphics are a perfect match for its busy, stiff, artificial plot. A simple Shirow pinup parade might almost be preferable.
  17. 65
    Aiming to be a gripping survival thriller, 65 rarely surprises. With only two characters to speak of, the stakes feel decidedly low.
  18. Ceremony
    Trouble is, it feels like a film going through the motions, never finding mooring in believable human feelings.
  19. Martin Lawrence Live: Runteldat
    Lawrence's public foibles haven't magically transformed him into a comic genius, but they have made his act surprisingly poignant, if never especially funny or profound.
  20. The Phantom of the Opera
    Adding an additional layer of cheese to a project that already reeks hopelessly of Velveeta, Schumacher pumps up the empty spectacle, stranding his fetching-but-lifeless mannequins amid giant sets and overblown production numbers.
  21. Bloat
    Though it’s clear that Bloat is riffing on the digital ghosts of Ringu and Pulse, this approach doesn’t mesh with the mythology it attempts to flesh out for itself. But it’s unfair to say that the film is completely devoid of commentary.
  22. Dance Flick
    It would be hard to imagine a film with less going for it than Dance Flick.
  23. The Goldfinch
    It’s an empty approximation of art, all gleaming surfaces masking a hollow center. And unlike a fake vintage chair, there’s no basic utility to this imitation.
  24. Meg 2: The Trench
    It’s faint, if legitimate, praise to say that The Meg 2: The Trench is better than the first film because, while it repeats everything the first film did wrong, it improves on everything it did right. It lacks the drive, imagination, and sense of awe to work as a pastiche of Aliens, The Abyss, Jaws, and Jurassic Park. But the more fulsomely the movie embraces its big budget, DVD-era silliness, the longer it and the audience are riding the same enjoyably stupid wave.
  25. The Virginity Hit
    Bennett never lets us forget that his character is in profound pain, even while attempting to perform oral sex on a transsexual blow-up doll. It's a daring, sweet performance that almost single-handedly elevates The Virginity Hit from a standard Superbad knock-off into a film that feels raw, painful, and real.
  26. Over the Top
    With Over The Top, Stallone had clearly exploited the Rocky formula once too often and audiences rebelled against its condescending family melodrama and heavy-handed working-class trappings.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Message in a Bottle
    The depressing results will likely make viewers feel jerked around when it's all over.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Bliss
    The emotional impact of those shots comes mainly from Wilson, who’s captured in several dialogue-free long takes. His signature drawl is silenced, and his face is forced to do work the screenplay hasn’t. He gives a weighty performance, delivered into a simulated void.
  29. Father Stu
    Distilled, it is a fairly well-sketched portrait of self-care — spiritual, yes, but also psychological and physical — and the outwardly rippling effects of healing that can flow from that single choice.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Tanner Hall
    The result isn't bad, it just lacks momentum and a strong reason for existing.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »