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. Inescapable
    It’s a deeply confused movie, sometimes productively so.
  2. My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2
    Maybe Vardalos should revisit this material when she’s ready to write "My Big Fat Greek Funeral."
  3. Freddy vs. Jason
    Aside from a promising scene involving a cornfield rave and the pyrotechnic potential for grain alcohol, it drags along, taking a small eternity to set up a final showdown that plays more like a bloody pro-wrestling event than the stuff of nightmares.
  4. Be Cool
    Be Cool more often evokes the image of a screenwriter furiously trying draft after draft to accommodate all the stars. Accommodating the audience becomes a distant priority.
  5. Resident Evil: Afterlife
    Really, the whole series would be unthinkable without the films of George Romero. In that respect, Anderson has taken another page from the Corman playbook for his superior B-movie: If you're going to steal, at least steal well.
  6. Gimme Shelter
    There’s nothing wrong with social-cause filmmaking, and the movie’s chief problem is less its political talking points than the corny way it tries to impart them.
  7. Burying the Ex
    In spite of its modest running time, Burying The Ex feels stretched thin; it takes a good 35 minutes to get going, only kicking into gear once Evelyn returns from the dead.
  8. Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer
    Not that anything in Judy Moody is meant to be taken seriously - or could be, even if it was meant to - but even for sugary neon fluff, it's awfully lightweight.
  9. Son of God
    It’s hard to think of another movie in which Jesus’ followers are so clearly shown as Jews themselves. There’s a quietly powerful post-Crucifixion scene in which the disciples say Kaddish for their fallen leader.
  10. Serenity
    Though Serenity is blessed with a goofily enjoyable high concept, it doesn’t exploit it very effectively. You can make the viewers detectives themselves, allowing us to slowly unravel a mystery, or you can give up the charade early and just run with the premise you’ve opted not to conceal very carefully. There’s little sense in doing neither.
  11. The Tourist
    von Donnersmarck's meat-and-potatoes direction makes The Tourist astonishingly lifeless and awkward, reducing two of the world's biggest movie stars to something akin to shy, pimply teenagers on their first date.
  12. The Living Wake
    The Living Wake is cursed with a permanent smirk of smug self-satisfaction: It’s so delighted with itself that it leaves audiences out of the equation.
  13. Atlas
    Without a visionary director at the helm to make better use of its simplistic concept and with no infusion of camp to match its zanier facets, Atlas is a shrug.
  14. Domino
    Domino de-emphasizes the human element--not to mention such niceties as plot and clarity--to such a degree that only those who show up purely to watch combustibles go "boom" won't feel insulted.
  15. xXx: State of the Union
    Thankfully, State Of The Union's pulpy, adrenalized blaxploitation spin on the secret-agent genre provides the dumb fun its predecessor should have dished out.
  16. Wrath of the Titans
    Wrath Of The Titans is shopworn and derivative even by the degraded standards of contemporary blockbuster filmmaking.
  17. The Lone Ranger
    Hammer’s performance — always game, never mugging — certainly helps; his likable but buffoonish Lone Ranger is an essential part of the movie’s irreverent tone.
  18. Evan Almighty
    It goes without saying that Evan Almighty, a kid-friendly follow-up to the Jim Carrey vehicle "Bruce Almighty," is more Ronald McDonald than Holy Bible, but it didn't have to be this epically trite.
  19. The Face of an Angel
    Past Winterbottom films have turned “real life” into both comedy and tragedy. The Face Of An Angel turns it into a directionless skulk.
  20. Waist Deep
    Like the forgotten blaxploitation schlock it often resembles, the film aspires to nothing but cheap thrills, but while it's plenty cheap, it's far from thrilling.
  21. Seven Days in Utopia
    Not a second of it is convincing - or compelling - but then the film is about "utopia," a blandly idealized place unblemished by hardship, malice, sin, or errant golf strokes.
  22. Charlie St. Cloud
    The film is memorable mainly for attractive people sailing and smooching against an attractive backdrop. There's no urgency behind all the preening.
  23. Walking with Dinosaurs
    Instructive mainly for screenwriters looking for tips on what not to do, Walking With Dinosaurs takes the education out of “educational entertainment.” The entertainment, too.
  24. Annabelle
    As a blunt object, a machine built to put nerves on edge and fingers over eyes, Annabelle is still crudely (and cruelly) effective. Fear comes cheap.
  25. Cold Comes the Night
    The Breaking Bad star — who looks here not unlike the Heisenberg of last season — can’t buoy material so thin that it would’ve barely supported an episode of "The Killing."
    • 37 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Miracle at St. Anna
    Miracle plays like "School Daze" transplanted to the European front, with the token militant, the token uplift-the-race type, and the token buffoon all marching inexorably toward Checkpoint Irony.
  27. Bad Company
    Company almost seems like the product of a post-Sept. 11 world. Like a cartoon version of a real threat, the villains are terrorists of a non-specific nationality with an ill-defined anti-American agenda and a tendency to spout complaints too clichéd to take seriously.
  28. Love Don't Cost a Thing
    This is teen product at its most generic.
  29. 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.
  30. The United States of Leland
    Hoge, who scripted and directed The United States Of Leland, caters to his cast too much. He gives almost every character a way-too-involved subplot, which distracts from the heart of his story.
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