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. House of Sand and Fog
    Folds like a house of cards, collapsing under its own flimsy foundation.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Deep Impact
    If director Mimi Leder is really guilty of anything, it's of wasting three first-rate actors (Morgan Freeman, Vanessa Redgrave, and Robert Duvall) in underdeveloped roles while allowing Leoni's shell-shocked, unconvincing turn to become an embarrassment.
  3. A Slipping-Down Life
    The two leads help create an atmosphere of quiet surety, but they can't elevate the film beyond its self-imposed smallness.
  4. Testosterone
    It might as well be retitled "Waiting For Antonio," since Sabato's appearances bookend miles of convoluted nonsense. For the prurient, that's probably too much to endure.
  5. Suspect Zero
    Given nothing to do, Carrie-Anne Moss looks on from the sidelines as the film halfheartedly toys with the tired old notion that only a thin line separates the dogged investigator and the compulsive killer. She looks bored, and she should.
  6. Facing Windows
    Girotti has no magical powers, but his dementia has a way of coming and going at just the right time to move the story and themes wherever director Ferzan Ozpetek and co-writer Gianni Romoli want them to go.
  7. Rick
    It's hard for Rick to maintain this jangled tone, which aims to be simultaneously heartbreaking and broadly satirical. The latter tack pushes Rick too far, and too soon.
  8. Daredevil
    Casting Affleck would have paid off had the conflicted, acerbic star of “Boiler Room,” “Changing Lanes,” or even “Bounce” shown up. Instead we're left with the cardboard hero of “Armageddon” and “The Sum Of All Fears,” a caretaker leading man wholly dependent on the quality of the movie around him. Sadly, there's not much of that.
  9. Walking Tall
    To its credit, the new Walking Tall is a good half-hour shorter than its predecessor, but even at 86 minutes, sitting through it is a chore.
  10. Gigli
    Writer-director Martin Brest lends the film a professional sheen, and his stars (who some rumors suggest may have become romantically involved) have charisma to spare, but the film has all the charge and momentum of a Paxil ad.
  11. The Reckoning
    Maddeningly dull. It works on the cerebrum while the rest of the body drifts off to sleep, and the dullness only intensifies as the film goes on.
  12. Tea with Mussolini
    While Zeffirelli couldn't have assembled a more capable cast, none of them, except Cher, are given characters colorful enough to make the film worthwhile; almost everyone gets lost amidst the Tuscan scenery.
  13. Brother to Brother
    Well-intentioned to a fault, the film packs a strange, ultimately unsuccessful combination of prurience and clumsy identity politics.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Vampires
    Profoundly disappointing--though Carpenter's score is, as usual, good fun.
  15. Power and Terror: Noam Chomsky in Our Times
    Doesn't aspire to do much more than disseminate Chomsky's ideas. On that level, it's a success, but on every other level, it's downright snooze-inducing.
  16. Valentin
    It takes mere seconds for every charming moment to go from "Ahhh..." to "Aarrggh!"
  17. The Matrix Revolutions
    Once the dust clears, it's hard to think of a film saga that's wound down with such a profound anticlimax. It's a whimper in bang's clothing.
  18. The Hebrew Hammer
    Ultimately more interested in exploiting clichés than subverting or commenting on them, and Coyote and Dunn's grotesque caricatures are embarrassing.
  19. Grind
    First-time director Casey La Scala and some talented stunt doubles squeeze in a fair amount of impressive skating footage, but the film around it will gleam the cube only of viewers with an unusually high tolerance for porta-toilet and Dutch-oven gags.
  20. Noel
    Palminteri and screenwriter David Hubbard desperately want the crazy misfits in their movie to move the audience, but they're all too cracked to inspire empathy. There's no holiday magic, just famous faces playing people who don't exist.
  21. Payback
    Consider that in “Point Blank,” Lee Marvin walks through the film with the look of a man who's lost his soul. You can see it in his eyes. Look in Gibson's eyes in this one and you'll see soullessness, but it doesn't seem to come from anywhere within his character.
  22. Good Will Hunting
    Van Sant's direction is surprisingly static and conventional, which doesn't help this earnest, underwhelming misfire.
  23. Gypsy 83
    The outsider road picture Gypsy 83 means well, but writer-director Todd Stephens can't keep his aesthetic out of the way.
  24. White Chicks
    Stupidity has worked for the Wayans brothers in the past, but White Chicks will likely test the patience of even their most loyal fans.
  25. Sleepover
    That points to the problem at Sleepover's heart: It buys into the caste system it ostensibly flouts.
  26. Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius
    Duller than a rain delay on the Golf Channel.
  27. Seed of Chucky
    Seed Of Chucky goes even further toward comedy over horror, but the Chucky-as-comic-antihero gag has grown stale.
  28. Gothika
    While stylistic excess keeps Gothika mildly diverting, though suspense-and horror-free, Kassovitz can't do anything to keep the film's ending from degenerating into camp.
  29. A Man Apart
    A film that sometimes suggests "Traffic" remade as a brainless action thriller.
  30. Red Dragon
    Norton is a strong lead in an overwrought, mediocre film that trumps even Hannibal in its mercenary shamelessness.
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