The A.V. Club's Scores

For 10,413 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:
10413 movie reviews
  1. 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.
  2. It's simultaneously intriguing and repulsive, a would-be cult curio not even the most indulgent cult could love.
    • 18 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    The tired racial stereotypes that Caddy inserts into the old Caddyshack-style "slobs vs. snobs" formula should probably make it much more offensive than it is.
  3. Misbegotten late-summer special.
  4. Mostly, the action, while bloodier than one might expect, is as goofy and dim-witted as the dialogue.
  5. Not since Mark Wahlberg trembled in fear beside a menacing houseplant in "The Happening" has a film tried to provoke terror with such an unlikely object of menace.
  6. For a film that has nothing to offer but lazy '80s nostalgia, Kickin' It Old Skool doesn't even bother to get the details right.
  7. The hilariously convoluted thriller contains all the elements for a wacky parody of exorcism movies, except a sense of humor about itself: The Devil Inside never acknowledges its innate ridiculousness, so the laughs are unintentional.
  8. Zany antics of the most painful sort.
  9. Everything abhorrent about Death Wish—its inner-city stereotyping and casual racism; its embrace of lawlessness and righteous bloodletting; Paul’s rancid transformation from naïve, bleeding-heart liberal into gun-toting angel of vengeance—gets blown up to such a grotesque degree that no sane person could mistake its world for the real one. It’s like a paranoid right-wing small-towner’s vision of what the big city is like: a gang-infested war zone, lorded over by the cast of Breakin’.
  10. The sketches aren't united by a half-ignored framing device, so much as by an enduring fascination with bodily functions. Movie 43 is the most star-studded collection of jokes involving menstruation, flatulence, incest, bestiality, Snooki, and nutsacks ever assembled, but the stars don't elevate the material-they just descend to its level.
  11. Has an agreeable air of anything-goes vulgarity, which is so transcendentally idiotic that it's impossible to tell whether the film is a brilliant, deadpan parody of raunchy lowbrow farces from the '70s and '80s, or one of the stupidest, most regressive films ever made. Or, more likely, it's a little of both.
  12. While it’s not consistently funny, and is as enamored as any other Sandler movie with making reference to its own limp running gags (including one about donkey shit), there is a certain inclusiveness that harkens back to his earlier work.
  13. Nutcracker In 3D doesn't just compound past errors in re-imagining the story. Thanks to a big budget, huge staging, massive overacting, and the non-wonders of post-production 3-D conversion, it adds a wide bevy of new errors.
  14. The boys similarly deserve very minor props for choosing a satirical target that lends itself to satire: the glum, self-important Twilight novels and movies. Sadly, that's where the filmmakers' mild accomplishments end and the groaningly predictable hackwork begins.
  15. It's a potentially creepy setting that would give an innovative director a chance to do a lot with a little. Unfortunately, Lincoln isn't one of those.
  16. Aniston is bad here, but she’s not alone. Marshall allows everyone in the movie to either play to their worst instincts or avert their eyes while skipping through the wreckage.
  17. An unspeakable nadir in the career of its writer-director-star.
  18. Bad doesn’t have to mean boring. Case in point: Vice, a bargain-bin high-concept sci-fi thriller full of Joel Schumacher-esque canted Steadicam moves, leaden expository dialogue, and cheap fluorescents-glued-to-the-wall sets.
  19. A bargain-bin biblical epic that delivers the requisite mass-murder-by-ass-jaw as a cheapjack approximation of Zack Snyder-esque pomp, but is for the most part clinically dull.
  20. Actually, it's pretty much the definition of absurd.
  21. A punishingly awful slasher film with monosyllabic banter dreadful enough to make viewers yearn for the sophisticated repartee of earlier Dark efforts like "White Bunbusters."
  22. Likely to be appreciated only by homeless viewers who need a quiet place to nap during the cold months of winter, the movie has more awkward dead space than jokes.
    • 17 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    The most shocking moment comes during the closing credits, when it's revealed that not one, not two, but three screenwriters were responsible for a plot that someone seems to have hastily slapped together after taking a walk around a Sephora outlet while listening to "Beat Of My Heart" on loop.
  23. Extreme Ops seems to have only the slightest grasp of its own absurdity (or its own horribleness), which makes it almost charming.
  24. The problems with Street Fighter: The Legend Of Chun-Li began with the casting of dead-eyed, sleepy-voiced, charisma-impaired automaton Kristin Kreuk.
  25. There's really nothing much to Prom Night: No twists, no atmosphere, no big Grand Guignol setpieces, not a single moment when it tries to do something novel with the event, the killings, the villain, or the victims. It's a little like going on a tour of the slaughterhouse, where death is meted out with mechanical regularity, but visitors are kept at a safe, PG-13 distance from all the butchering.
  26. The first Human Centipede had audacity on its side. Human Centipede II has only excess.
  27. How do you make a movie about a protagonist so profoundly irritating that even her loved ones barely tolerate her? And how do you avoid annoying audiences to the point of distraction in the process?
  28. LaLiberte is the best thing about Girls Against Boys. She has an unforced coolness, even when Chick sticks her with sub-Quentin Tarantino business, like having a conversation about the nutritional value of Captain Crunch, or singing along to not one, but two Donovan songs.

Top Trailers