The A.V. Club's Scores

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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
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  1. The Fanatic
    Mostly, the action, while bloodier than one might expect, is as goofy and dim-witted as the dialogue.
  2. A Rainy Day in New York
    This is a bad movie, with maybe two good jokes and some of Allen’s clunkiest direction.
  3. Arctic Dogs
    There’s really not much to recommend about this film: the animation lacks texture, the score is overwrought, the plotting is scattershot, and the character design is uninspired.
  4. Body of Evidence
    Evidence tries to one-up Basic Instinct through the sheer quantity and length of its sex scenes, but it backfires.
  5. Striptease
    I don't know that Striptease could ever have been anything more than second-rate Elmore Leonard, but Moore's dour lead performance sabotages the film from the get-go.
  6. Under the Cherry Moon
    There are elementary school playgrounds with substantially higher levels of verbal wit and intellectual discourse than Under The Cherry Room.
  7. The Forever Purge
    In The Forever Purge, we’re told a story that a battered nation has heard a lot—a sermon of immigration and class warfare that’s too heavy-handed to say anything its prospective audience hasn’t been told on countless social media feeds over the last few years.
  8. Graffiti Bridge
    It's a struggle with quasi-profound ramifications that crystallizes Prince's long-standing obsession with sin and salvation, sex and Godliness, the hungers of the body and the demands of the spirit. Or, at least, it should be. Instead it plays like a cartoon parody of Prince's soft-headed spiritual concerns.
  9. Stardust
    As played by actor-musician Johnny Flynn, the Halloween-costume Bowie we meet in Stardust is a miserable, charmless wannabe. Which is to say that the film fails where a single photo of this most chameleonic of music legends would succeed: It makes Bowie boring.
  10. The Man from Toronto
    For a character-driven “mistaken identity” comedy that lives or dies based on the humorous interactions between two A-list leads, its lousy script barely constitutes life support.
  11. Psychomagic, A Healing Art
    Historically, of course, making no earthly sense hasn’t been a major impediment in Jodorowsky’s work. In this instance, he commits a sin graver than charlatanism by just being boring.
  12. Above Suspicion
    For all the star’s efforts, though, Above Suspicion will mostly just appeal to the crowd that found Hillbilly Elegy compelling. Everyone else will be left wishing they could see Khaleesi fly high and free again.
  13. The Binge
    Even the occasional funny line grows wearying, because nothing in this movie happens for any real reason. The details that labor to appear random, the big slapstick plot turns, and the predetermined character arcs are all equally meaningless, unchecked byproducts of filmmakers emptying their joke files with Superbad playing on a loop in the background.
  14. Songbird
    It becomes clear early on that, despite its cheap thriller trappings, the film is headed only in the blandest direction, basically a love story of the kind traditionally told in commercials for tech companies and phones.
  15. Cherry
    This is a film with nothing new to say about love, war, trauma, addiction, crime, or America. It blows through these topics on a bender of hyper-stylization, indifferently twisting its true story into the shape of other, better movies.
  16. Vanguard
    The move from practical stuns to a discount VFX simulacrum (no real cars appear to have been wrecked in any of these chase scenes) has not flattered Tong’s amateurish direction.
  17. Mortal Kombat
    This is supposed to be a world of fighters with bizarre outfits and combat abilities, but a lot of the time, the viewer will just find themselves staring at a screen that’s mostly rocks.
  18. Godspell
    Maybe the broad gestures, colorful costumes, and exaggerated acting worked in the theater. As a movie, it's actively, fascinatingly terrible, with a vision of Christ more likely to instill in viewers a fear of traveling bands of loony street performers than a desire to embrace the Holy Spirit.
  19. He's All That
    There’s nothing inherently wrong with the idea of a teen rom-com centered on social media popularity and influencer culture—even one that doesn’t necessarily see those things as evil. But He’s All That offers nothing beyond buzzwords, empty platitudes, and sponcon.
  20. The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard
    What the set pieces have in common with everything else in this dunderheaded, insultingly mechanical franchise hopeful is the overwhelming feeling that everyone involved said “good enough” at every turn. It’s savvy only in the way it lowers the standards for this kind of thing, assuring that any future sequels that give half an ass instead of barely a quarter of one will prompt more enthusiasm, or at least relief.
  21. Separation
    The film’s lone value may be setting up the perfect answer to that “improve a movie with one letter” challenge: Add an indefinite article to the front of its title, and you’re left with one of the great films of the new millennium—and, incidentally, a much more unnerving portrait of a marriage on the rocks.
  22. The Car
    It is, in short, sub-par as demon-possessed-car movies go, even if watching Brolin attempt to act horrified at the sight of a classic automobile makes it almost worthwhile.
  23. Bullet Train
    Leitch’s talky, violent hit man movie, with Brad Pitt at the center of an over-cranked ensemble cast, reminds us why Hollywood has all but abandoned attempts to copy the successes of Tarantino and Ritchie. This film is not just bloated, tedious, dim-witted, and glib, it’s also redundant.
  24. After We Fell
    Even as young adult softcore, After We Fell is limp. Though the series switched over to an R rating starting with its previous installment, the repetitive sex scenes set to moody pop songs are lacking in anything resembling genuine heat, even as new series director Castille Landon tries to spice things up by adding hot tubs, phone sex, and gym equipment into the mix.
  25. Silent Night
    For a film written and nearly finished before the pandemic (with some reshoots in late 2020), Silent Night practically bleats for relevancy.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    The People We Hate at the Wedding
    This slog of a film will have you checking your watch, wishing for an open bar, and begging for the sparkler sendoff.
  27. Blacklight
    Blacklight cuts corners everywhere.
  28. Ray Donovan: The Movie
    This is perfunctory storytelling, a rather artless and dull 100 minutes that does nothing but check off a few predictable narrative boxes.
    • 32 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    Firestarter
    The best thing that can be said about this new iteration of Firestarter is that it at least gave us a new score by John Carpenter, Cody Carpenter, and Daniel A. Davies. The rest feels like a waste of a talented cast and crew that somehow, against all odds, makes the 1984 film seem like a staggering achievement in the realm of King adaptations.
  30. Prey for the Devil
    The most frustrating thing about Prey For The Devil is that there seems to be a good movie somewhere in this patchwork of themes and pastiches.
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