The A.V. Club's Scores

Select another publication »
For 10,419 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 2.5 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: 5,574 out of 10419
  2. Mixed: 3,737 out of 10419
  3. Negative: 1,108 out of 10419
10419 movie reviews
view
per page
  1. Bringing Down the House
    Yet another comedy that suggests someone should take Martin aside and remind him that he can do better.
  2. Civil Brand
    Civil Brand's aesthetic is pure mid-'70s blaxploitation, and not in an ironic or reverent sense. Even the heavy-handed political rhetoric is in keeping with the neo-blaxploitation vibe, since even bad blaxploitation movies often had revolutionary undercurrents.
  3. Venus Boyz
    Becomes hard going the longer Baur stretches out the parade of narcissists, all spouting received wisdom, cultural clichés, and bad poetry.
  4. The Jungle Book 2
    Even the animation is imitative rather than inventive.
  5. Rugrats Go Wild
    Rugrats Go Wild! represents one giant leap forward for corporate cartoon synergy, but one similarly large step back for the Rugrats franchise.
  6. Brokedown Palace
    The once-reliable Danes is a particular detriment, but it's really hard to care whether either character escapes from what looks like a really unappealing summer camp.
  7. At First Sight
    It's drainingly mediocre.
  8. High Crimes
    A major disappointment that lacks the courage to follow through on its premise's themes.
  9. Son of the Bride
    The best that can be said of Son Of The Bride is that it's attractively photographed. But, then, so was the Hindenburg explosion, and this packs far less excitement into its two shapeless hours.
  10. Suicide Kings
    The only redeeming moments come from Walken, whose assured, effortless screen presence stands out from his faceless co-stars. Taped to a leather chair and bleeding profusely from a severed finger, he's still the most powerful person in the room.
  11. Species II
    Though it never really taps into the whole JFK-as-alien-sex-fiend plot as a source of satire, Species 2 is still the superior piece of trash its predecessor should have been.
  12. Who Is Cletis Tout?
    In the absence of sincerity, Cletis Tout creates a vacuum that flushes out the entire story, leaving nothing but its own hollow cleverness.
  13. Let's Get Frank
    Everly tries to patch together a profile out of borrowed news clips and shoddy videography. In the process, Frank's charisma and force never emerge.
  14. Johnson Family Vacation
    It's a sign of trouble when watching a movie prompts nostalgia for the movie it's ripping off, particularly when that movie wasn't any good. But walking out of Johnson Family Vacation, it's hard not to feel misty-eyed for the urine-soaked-sandwich gags, incest jokes, and other refined comic elements of "National Lampoon's Vacation."
  15. Dead or Alive: Final
    In Dead Or Alive: Final, Miike trades his grimly comic, sex-and-blood insignia for a self-consciously wacky conflation of Hong Kong action cinema and Japanese anime, with a little cheap science fiction tossed in for good measure.
  16. Greendale
    There's no forgiving the home-movie slackness of Greendale for its numbing dearth of imagination.
  17. Anything Else
    A joylessly plodding film that cannibalizes Allen's classics of the '70s and '80s while managing only a few decent one-liners.
  18. Forces of Nature
    Only succeeds sporadically, even if it's never quite the unwatchable monstrosity it so clearly could have been.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Smilla's Sense of Snow
    The matter-of-fact way in which the story is presented serves as a constant reminder of how implausible the whole thing is. Add to this the single expression Ormond and Byrne are allowed throughout the film, and you're left with one more weak, confusing, ignorable movie that embarrasses its source.
  20. The Perfect Score
    Attempts at high spirits and the presence of Matthew Lillard all suggest that this is supposed to be a comedy.
  21. Bad Boys II
    Bad Boys II is the rare case in which escapism involves leaving the theater.
  22. Kaena: The Prophecy
    With so many plot hooks and so many story demands, it's incomprehensible that Kaena spends so much time on meaningless action.
  23. 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.
  24. Death to Smoochy
    An aggressive black comedy that seeks to satisfy a bloodlust already quelled many times over.
  25. Reign of Fire
    Director Rob Bowman seems at a loss as to what to bring to the film, which, even with its good choice of leads, plods along from one dragon fight to the next, all of them staged to showcase Fire's impressive CGI dragons, but none choreographed with any real flair.
  26. One Last Kiss
    Through it all, Muccino piles on one shrill confrontation after another. At times, he seems headed for the melodramatic turf owned and operated by Pedro Almodóvar, but where the young Almodóvar would have deployed a prankish wit and the older Almodóvar scraped toward the humanity beneath.
  27. Brothers in Arms
    Has little to recommend it. A sterling example of how an unimaginative combination of interviews and archival footage can drain the life from even the most compelling topic, it feels padded at a mere 68 minutes.
  28. Catch That Kid
    The film combines dour heroes with a drab look, and the string of "Don't try this at home"-style stunts should underwhelm even viewers too young for James Bond or XXX.
  29. Radio
    Anyone who already knows better than to taunt the disabled, or former Oscar winners, should probably give it a pass.
  30. Half Baked
    The main problem, however, is Tamra Davis' leaden direction, which prevents Half-Baked from developing comic momentum. There are a few scattered laughs.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »