The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,414 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: 5,571 out of 10414
  2. Mixed: 3,736 out of 10414
  3. Negative: 1,107 out of 10414
10414 movie reviews
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  1. The Transporter
    If anything, The Transporter isn't ludicrous enough; only one scene (a hand-to-hand showdown in the middle of an oil slick) reaches the inspired, delirious comic heights of the best Hong Kong movies.
  2. Punch-Drunk Love
    It's funny, too, though marked by an uneasy humor that's usually difficult to achieve. Anderson handles it with expert ease: At this point in his career, he moves the camera like a skilled dance partner, investing the smallest gesture with significance.
  3. Tuck Everlasting
    Unfortunately, Russell paces the film as if trying to demonstrate what eternity feels like. When the plot begs to move forward, the film keeps lingering over friendly fawns and long walks through the forest.
  4. White Oleander
    White Oleander goes through the paces with a little more dignity than usual, which is a mark of either director Peter Kosminsky's refusal to overplay the melodrama, or his inability to wring it for all it's worth.
  5. Bowling for Columbine
    Often uproariously funny, even though much of its queasy power comes from its acknowledgment that some matters are too horrifying to be washed away with cheap laughter, or packaged into soundbites.
  6. Swept Away
    Ritchie's frivolous comedy tries to have it both ways, thinning out the material for mass consumption while still sticking to the script -- an unstable alchemy that backfires horribly.
  7. How to Draw a Bunny
    The opportunity to dig into the trove of Johnson's art is an ultimate reward beyond all offbeat attempts to understand the artist himself. At its best, How To Draw A Bunny amounts to a shadow history of the American avant-garde.
  8. Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie
    Mike Nawrocki and Phil Vischer, who co-write, co-direct, and supply much of the voice talent, soft-pedal the proselytizing and explicitly Christian elements in favor of gags and gentle lessons, keeping the pace fast and the scenery colorful.
  9. Heaven
    With Heaven, Tykwer completes his self-appointment as Kieslowski's heir apparent, but since he has always been a better filmmaker than a thinker, his ideas drift into the ether.
  10. Welcome to Collinwood
    A low-key charmer that balances half a dozen winning performances, Welcome To Collinwood's momentum occasionally stalls, and it doesn't always produce laughs.
  11. Bloody Sunday
    At its best, Bloody Sunday produces the same chilling illusion of history writ large, clearly detailing the strategies of both sides, then blankly observing the conflict through unadorned, newsreel camera stock and the precise orchestration of large-scale chaos.
  12. Red Dragon
    Norton is a strong lead in an overwrought, mediocre film that trumps even Hannibal in its mercenary shamelessness.
  13. Just a Kiss
    The film's moralistic streak leaves a sour taste, especially because its battle of the sexes is so wildly off-balance.
  14. The Tuxedo
    A frenetic, busy, expensive machine that looks good but runs on autopilot.
  15. The Man from Elysian Fields
    Less a fantasy than a somber, enveloping mood piece, which is a large part of what makes it so strangely, irrationally compelling.
  16. Wasabi
    Offers watchable light entertainment, even though the prospect of the most respected national cinema indulging clunky cop-movie stereotypes is, if not scandalous, then at least disappointing.
  17. Sweet Home Alabama
    The film does coast along smoothly to the inevitable, which is a credit to the always-game Reese Witherspoon, who's courteous enough to pretend she doesn't know what's coming, then make it look like a huge surprise.
  18. Moonlight Mile
    Hoffman and Sarandon work well together, and Gyllenhaal, who's carved out a niche for himself as the new face of internalized conflict, fits nicely into a role Hoffman would have made a meal of 30 years ago.
  19. The Trials of Henry Kissinger
    On the whole, the filmmakers hold too much to the text, and too often employ the smugly knowing, self-righteous tone typical of British telejournalism.
  20. Invincible
    An extraordinary story uniquely suited to Herzog's abilities, it eventually becomes easy to accept Ahola as a nearly mute witness to the obsessives around him, most immediately Tim Roth in a striking performance as Ahola's employer.
  21. Slap Her... She's French
    Mayron tries for a junior-league "All About Eve," but that backfires horribly, not least because her diabolical Eve (Perabo) is more charismatic and imaginative than her heroine.
  22. Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever
    Looks like a video-game promo, has a story that plays like the fifth episode of a struggling syndicated action show, and feels like a headache waiting to happen.
  23. The Four Feathers
    Ledger is a charismatic, conflicted hero who internalizes his character's shame and anguish to powerful effect. Wes Bentley is similarly strong as Ledger's best friend turned romantic rival, and Kapur makes the most of Africa's breathtaking desert, crafting a gorgeous spectacle that's at once stately and hyper-real.
  24. The Banger Sisters
    Gets off to a bumpy start and runs into trouble along the way, but once it gets going, it's surprisingly warm and engaging.
  25. Trapped
    A tone of lurid idiocy permeates Trapped, a Z-grade woman-in-peril thriller starring scenery-chewing Kevin Bacon.
  26. The Ignorant Fairies
    His Secret Life's languid pace and general aimlessness keep getting in the way.
  27. 8 Women
    Intoxicates and overwhelms at the same time, giving off so much pleasure in a small space that the effect can be suffocating.
  28. Secretary
    There's something appealing about an unapologetic love story set in an office that's only a few clicks off from looking like a fetish dungeon, and Spader and Gyllenhaal make sure that the romance, kinks and all, carries the day.
  29. Spirited Away
    A wonderful encore, marked by the painstaking attention to detail and artful balance between terror and joy that make Miyazak's work unique.
  30. Quitting
    Because Quitting admits its basic falsehood up front, the film is never emotionally affecting, but Jia's participation in this confrontation of his past shows remarkable courage and honesty, especially when his behavior doesn't inspire much sympathy.
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