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. Rise of the Guardians
    While Rise Of The Guardians boasts a great deal of visual energy and amounts to a lot of fun, it's mostly lacking in that kind of depth elsewhere.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2
    Comes as close as the film series has gotten to reconciling the epic romance it's billed as and the self-aware camp-fest it often hints at wanting to be, but it's still a messy, unwieldy slab of film product that's targeted directly at fans of the book series, with little regard for anyone else.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Hitler's Children
    The subjects of Hitler's Children all speak about the actions of their infamous forebears with shame, shock, or disgust, but they also make it clear this isn't true of everyone in their families.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Chasing Ice
    As someone who admits to having harbored skepticism about climate change himself, two decades ago, Balog is trying to present an image-based response to all the denialists featured in the news montages scattered through the film, people who scoff at the numbers and lack of scientific consensus on whether global warming exists, and what it entails.
  5. Buffalo Girls
    Buffalo Girls' main problem is that Kellstein can't seem to settle on whether he's making an inspirational sports movie (complete with triumphant music on the soundtrack during the fights), or an exposé of child exploitation among the Thai underclass.
  6. Citadel
    Citadel is plenty scary: a bare-bones man-against-his-worst-fears white knuckler, shot through deep, menacing shadows.
  7. 28 Hotel Rooms
    In its own small way, by documenting the petty panic of two people who want to be together but are otherwise entangled, 28 Hotel Rooms is often masterful.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God
    Mea Maxima Culpa is not gentle about placing blame on a structure that elevates priests above the rest of mankind and prioritizes maintaining an appearance of pious perfection over addressing some grievous wrongs committed.
  9. Anna Karenina
    If only the emotions of the performances, the themes of the story, and Wright's cinematic virtuosity synced up more often. A lopsided abridgement that speeds through the plot doesn't help.
  10. Silver Linings Playbook
    It's the perfect material for Russell, who not only deals perceptively with the dizzying swings of manic depression, but makes it the fabric of a big, generous, happy-making ensemble comedy.
  11. The Law in These Parts
    But while the facts cherry-picked by Alexandrowicz won't surprise anyone who's paid even the slightest attention to what's been going on in the Middle East for the last four decades, the direct inquiries into who should be classified as a "soldier" and who a "terrorist" is still bracing (and relevant to more than just the Israelis).
  12. Dangerous Liaisons (2012)
    Hur invests the period setting with an eye-popping opulence that's meant to highlight the elite decadence that came before the fall, but his Dangerous Liaisons isn't particularly sophisticated on a political or historical level.
  13. Miami Connection (1987)
    Hits the sweet spot between stunning ineptitude, hilariously dated period touchstones, and a touching naïveté that gives it an odd distinction. As with the other so-bad-it's-good sensations that have toured the midnight circuit over the last few years - "The Room," "Birdemic," "Troll 2" - its awkwardness comes partly from a foreign-born auteur making an American film, and the culture clash plays out for all to see.
  14. Nature Calls
    There's nothing wrong with the idea of trying to make a Bad News Bears for the '10s, and Rohal has the comic talent in front of the camera to do the job. In addition to Oswalt and Knoxville, he has Maura Tierney as Knoxville's wife.
  15. The Comedy
    There's genuine pain at the core of Heidecker's character - or at least a numbness where the pain used to reside - but the film is keen on obscuring it.
  16. Starlet
    Starlet is an unusually subtle, quiet character study - especially given the potentially salacious subject matter - that builds to a quietly powerful climax.
  17. A Royal Affair
    Newcomer Følsgaard is the wild card, but he manages to make the king both villain and victim, sometimes a vindictive schemer, at others far-eyed and helpless, a puppet for the forces behind him.
  18. Skyfall
    Skyfall doesn't forget it has to be an exciting spy film above all, but from its first scene, it ratchets up the drama in ways that have little to do with action.
  19. Lincoln
    Lincoln is built around a magnetic Day-Lewis turn, and the film is a memorable, sometimes stirring look at how even the most righteous bill must struggle, and even cheat, to become a law. It demands a bigger stage than the one it's given here.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    In Another Country
    It almost seems as if Hong is poking fun at his own single-minded oeuvre, creating a fractal representation of how his other films obliquely interrelate.
  21. The Man with the Iron Fists
    The Man With The Iron Fists has the same advantages of many musical debuts. It's the product of a man who has been storing up ideas, setpieces, characters, and gags for a lifetime, in preparation for the magic moment when he'd be able to unleash his full vision on the big screen.
  22. Bones Brigade: An Autobiography
    Bones Brigade is surprisingly emotional and inspirational too, as these now-grown men look back on the days when they were competitive, easily bruised kids, drawn to Peralta's calming, avuncular presence.
  23. The Bay
    The result is surprisingly satisfying, like "Jaws" for the YouTube/Skype era.
  24. The Details
    The lone standout is Linney's performance as the deranged neighbor, whose erratic combination of sexual desperation and extreme vulnerability keeps the film on life support.
  25. Wreck-It Ralph
    It's a wildly exciting ride, the fastest-moving, most enthusiastically kinetic kids' action film since "The Incredibles."
  26. Vamps
    Heckerling also struggles woefully with special effects, but even then, she's capable of pulling off a beautiful sequence where Silverstone remembers a specific city block as it's evolved through the ages. Her shambling little comedy never finds a consistent groove, but it's eager to please, and has the ancient gags to do it.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    This Must Be the Place
    This Must Be The Place practically dares viewers not to find it ridiculous, but few will accept the challenge.
  28. A Man's Story
    Trouble is, even a finely tailored suit needs a body to fill it, and A Man's Story never gets its man.
  29. A Liar's Autobiography - The Untrue Story of Monty Python's Graham Chapman
    What's missing from this movie is any of that sense of what made Chapman so important, or why he was so often at the center of Monty Python's best skits and movies, up until his death from cancer at 48.
  30. A Late Quartet
    Yaron Zilberman's first feature has a solid structure, but as with a piece of music, the way it's played makes all the difference. His principal actors aren't great at faking their instrumental prowess, but they're perfectly in tune with each other, playing artists who've postponed life's decisions in the name of pursuing their craft.
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