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. The Nutcracker and the Four Realms
    Every aspect of of the movie feels as if it’s been determined by algorithm, workshopped and test-marketed into a state of pleasant, fleeting dullness.
  2. Nights in Rodanthe
    This isn't a movie: it's a feature-length Ralph Lauren commercial.
  3. The Boss Baby: Family Business
    Family Business feels like trying to eat lunch in a room full of screaming toddlers who keep slapping the sandwich out of your hands.
  4. Life as We Know It
    Pity any poor kid stuck in a house like that. Pity, too, anyone who has to stop by for a visit.
  5. Dirty Weekend
    Don’t get too excited: Not only is there nothing especially dirty about Dirty Weekend, the latest and lamest film by erstwhile provocateur Neil LaBute, but the movie doesn’t even occupy an entire weekend.
  6. Zoe
    Wrestling with the intrinsic creepiness of the premise would involve some social commentary, self-awareness, and honest-to-God storytelling, and that’s not Doremus’ bag.
  7. Queen of the Desert
    Whatever imprint Queen Of The Desert makes belongs mostly to Kidman, who stresses Bell’s compassion, her fearlessness, her eponymous regality.
  8. The Home
    The truth is that crummy, un-scary horror movies are nothing new, and are more the norm than the exception. And while The Home doesn’t distinguish itself in terms of style or subtext (one can argue that it doesn’t have any of the latter), it at least throws out just enough gross-out imagery to keep a viewer awake.
  9. The Edge of Love
    The Edge Of Love is more like a museum piece, placing historical figures in frozen positions, and asking us to judge them as the curators do.
  10. Aftershock
    Right up until the quake, Aftershock is a bland, sub-"Hangover" comedy about guys on the make in South America. Then finally, blessedly, the ground swallows up these shallow idiots.
  11. The Greatest Beer Run Ever
    The arguments presented by the characters on each side are broad and reductive. There’s no nuance and no original thoughts. The information is obvious and presented at its least confrontational. It’s a scene meant to depict the moral dilemma at the center of its story, and it ends up being ridiculous.
  12. Provoked: A True Story
    There's a noble cause buried under all the clumsy speeches, blatant manipulations, and foreordained conflicts, but the thudding lack of subtlety proves exhausting.
  13. Alvin and the Chipmunks
    There's just not enough here for a movie. It's almost as if some ideas were meant to live for three and a half minutes each Christmas season, not to get stretched to the breaking point for 50 years.
  14. Man of the Year
    If there's anything sadder than a satire without teeth, it's a thriller without thrills. Even sadder is the rare movie that fails at both genres simultaneously. That, and that alone, makes Man Of The Year exceptional.
  15. Silk
    Sensual but profoundly silly, Silk is ultimately little more than softcore porn with arthouse trappings, a moony, dopily romantic "Red Shoe Diaries" variation for the NPR set.
  16. Growing Up and Other Lies
    Part of what made Edgar Wright’s "The World’s End" so refreshing was the way that it feinted at being a certain tired sort of movie before suddenly making a wild leap in another direction. Growing Up And Other Lies, is exactly the mediocre movie that The World’s End was pretending to be.
  17. Here
    For all of its ambitions, Here is ultimately too simplistic to work as either a domestic drama or a deconstruction of the same—an experiment in storytelling that turns out to be an object lesson in undercooked ambition.
  18. Never Back Down
    Director Jeff Wadlow and screenwriter Chris Hauty are so committed to following through on the "Karate Kid" formula that they don't care for novelty; it's enough for them just to hit their cues and play up the slo-mo MMA brutality. In the future, movies this derivative will be made by robots.
  19. 3 Ninjas Kick Back
    Going from subplot to subplot illustrates the apathy that exists on every level of the filmmaking, from the screenplay to the fight choreography.
  20. Synchronicity
    Synchronicity is more contraption than movie, its plot as mechanically functional as a clock, rotating characters around like gears.
  21. The Deliverance
    The Deliverance is alternatingly dull and totally nuts. It is never scary, and only sometimes holds your attention.
  22. The Exorcist: Believer
    An exorcism movie may not need to be compelled by the power of Christ, but something about it still needs to be compelling, and slapping the name The Exorcist on a screenplay that reads like a brainstorming session is just not enough.
  23. Moonwalkers
    By the umpteenth scene where the “joke” is that one of the characters is on drugs, the movie’s strained wackiness becomes wearisome.
  24. Get Away If You Can
    One hopes the entire process made for great couples therapy, because watching it certainly doesn’t.
  25. Dot the I
    The plot's profound implausibility wouldn't matter if the ideas and emotions behind it had any power.
  26. The Wraith
    The Wraith’s plot is predictable and its genre nods skimpy (primarily limited to The Mystery Racer’s ability to resurrect himself after crashes), but Marvin directs with real energy and wit.
  27. Paul Blart: Mall Cop
    James has a sweet, appealing presence, but the dreary, joke-light script and generic direction do him no favors.
  28. The Darkest Minds
    A generic and frankly very tedious compendium of YA clichés.
  29. Intruders
    Intruders ultimately comes across like basic-cable schlock (or is it Netflix schlock now?), slightly redeemed by the germ of a great idea, even if said idea never truly germinates.
  30. UglyDolls
    Adults in charge might want to take a cue from the movie’s penny-pinching, and save some money on movie tickets.
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