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. Zookeeper
    As a study in insanity, Zookeeper is mildly interesting. But as a kiddie comedy, it's something to watch only once the little ones have worn out their "Dr. Doolittle" DVD.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Love Etc.
    It's too bad the wanness of the majority of those storylines makes it seem more like a fling than a relationship with any chance of going the distance.
  3. Crime After Crime
    Through the ceaseless efforts of two dedicated pro bono lawyers-both with personal reasons to keep up the fight for five or six grueling years-director Yoav Potash follows every revelation and setback with an urgency most fiction films can't muster.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Small Town Murder Songs
    The film is as much music-video collection as crime drama: The interludes in which the songs swell into voluptuous prominence balance out a tale of crime and redemption so spare, it's almost abstract.
  5. Terri
    deWitt's script is much better than anything Jacobs has worked on before, with a story that gets richer as it goes.
  6. The Perfect Host
    It's best enjoyed as a crackling performance piece.
  7. Larry Crowne
    The story feels half-considered, the relationships thin, and the direction visually indifferent.
  8. Monte Carlo
    Monte Carlo finally resolves itself in a farcical climax that at least shows a little energy, but it isn't enough to overcome the discomfiting tensions and indifferent formula filmmaking that plagues nearly every scene.
  9. Aurora
    Over a difficult three-hour sprawl, Cristi Puiu's Aurora fully explores the time before and after a killer strikes, and it has the cumulative effect of making what passes for a "motive" seem absurdly simplistic.
  10. Transformers: Dark of the Moon
    Solidly mindless, breathless summer fun.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    General Orders No. 9
    General Orders No. 9 is bound to test the patience, but there are rewards to be found in its deliberate rhythms - foremost amongst them, the glorious, haunting visuals.
  12. The Best and the Brightest
    The farce withers away when it should be expanding.
    • 22 Metascore
    • 33 Critic Score
    A Love Affair of Sorts
    Infuriatingly navel-gazing and insubstantial.
  14. The Names of Love
    The American romantic comedy has grown distressingly moribund lately, but anyone looking to freshen up the genre a bit need look no further than Michel Leclerc's The Names Of Love.
  15. Leap Year
    Never to be confused for the rom-com starring Amy Adams - though that would be the mother of all video-store mix-ups - Leap Year lets actions speak louder than words, and the actions here are shockingly explicit.
  16. A Better Life
    A Better Life leans too heavily on sad music, broad symbols, and weighty speeches to tell its story; it's more effective when it lets images speak in place of words.
  17. Passione
    As an actor, Turturro brings wit and a healthy sense of absurdity to many of his roles, but his directorial efforts are notably lacking in self-awareness or restraint.
  18. Conan O'Brien Can't Stop
    The overall mood of Conan O'Brien Can't Stop is curdled and sour. It leaves the feeling that the next chapter can't come soon enough.
  19. Bad Teacher
    Teacher underutilizes a smartly cast-against-type Timberlake and the perpetually winning Segel, but Diaz ultimately earns a rooting interest in the unlikely redemption of her scheming opportunist.
  20. Cars 2
    Cars 2 looks fantastic, but the studio has never given audiences - especially audiences over the age of 10 - less reason to be emotionally invested in the beautiful shiny things flying across the screen.
  21. Kidnapped
    What's missing from Kidnapped is a grander context - or richer subtext - to all the terror.
  22. Buck
    Perhaps Brannaman's art is too subtle and instinctive to be captured on camera, but it's a shame Meehl doesn't do a better job of capturing exactly what makes him, by all accounts, a miraculously successful trainer.
  23. Battle for Brooklyn
    Most viewers should find the documentary Battle For Brooklyn gripping and provocative, no matter their opinions about eminent domain, historic preservation, or public dollars going to support private development.
  24. The Art of Getting By
    By the end, the most charming thing about The Art Of Getting By is that while its adults cut Highmore far too much slack, they aren't Hughes-movie oblivious idiots, and they eventually draw a few firm lines. Unfortunately, the movie isn't daring enough to follow suit.
  25. Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times
    Rossi never gets around to exploring his opening question: What would the world be without The New York Times? Perhaps, as with a lot of his subjects here, the answer is just too painful to consider, no matter the economic realities.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 33 Critic Score
    Mr. Popper's Penguins
    Mr. Popper's Penguins reins in its rubber-faced star, leaving most of the rote physical comedy (and overabundance of fart jokes) to his nonhuman counterparts, comprised of a combination of CGI and real penguins.
  27. Green Lantern
    A film so utterly lacking in conviction, it needs a 25-year-old Tom Cruise vehicle just to keep its spine straight.
  28. Trollhunter
    The trolls are the best part of Troll Hunter; they're funny and creepy.
  29. Queen of the Sun: What Are the Bees Telling Us?
    A fine enough piece of work, but it's a shame Werner Herzog didn't get to Gunther Hauk first.
  30. Bride Flight
    The subtitles and period setting conjure a smattering of respectability, but in essence, this is arthouse pap, particularly for older audiences, turning the past into a concatenation of worn-out tropes that comforts as it distorts. Think of it as instant mashed potatoes for the soul.
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