The A.V. Club's Scores

Select another publication »
For 10,410 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 2.7 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: 5,569 out of 10410
  2. Mixed: 3,735 out of 10410
  3. Negative: 1,106 out of 10410
10410 movie reviews
view
per page
  1. Insidious: The Red Door
    Insidious: The Red Door is not a broken movie by any means. It’s a comprehensible experience, though perhaps less so if viewed as a standalone feature instead of the presumably final chapter of a continuing narrative. But Wilson was tasked with telling a pretty dull story, both in terms of its visceral horrors and its thematic ambitions.
  2. Joy Ride
    Joy Ride is a real blast, offering its sentimentality as a garnish to a road trip that emphasizes the sex in sex positivity.
  3. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning
    A must-watch for anyone looking for a thrilling summer blockbuster.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken
    Whatever emotional heft the pic may aim to harness is lost amid glib jokes, overly complicated mythic lore, and ultimately, pat platitudes about embracing who you were always meant to be.
  5. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
    What’s frustrating about Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny is how clearly it wants to recapture the magic of its predecessors while fundamentally misunderstanding how to approach a sequel set so chronologically apart from the rest of the franchise.
  6. God Is a Bullet
    Cut God Is A Bullet down to a tight 90 minutes, and it might at least consistently deliver the cheap thrills and nihilistic kick it only occasionally achieves.
  7. No Hard Feelings
    Jennifer Lawrence proves, once again, that she can carry a film by the sheer force of her on-screen magnetism and performance agility.
  8. Asteroid City
    Because of the structure of the film—the story within the story—none of them feel urgent or especially resonant. There are moments of brilliance both from the performers and from the writing. But they never cohere together into a complete story.
  9. Extraction 2
    As in Extraction, the action sequences are the whole game here, and they do not disappoint.
  10. The Blackening
    The movie is highly entertaining, while being oddly validating and very funny. It cleverly weaves the horror tropes that it rebukes right into the narrative. And it’s done without slipping into parody like the Scary Movie series, where similar notions are skewered more broadly and, with The Blackening now on the table, way less successfully.
  11. Elemental
    Its world building is so vast and so intricate (the city has a Wetro and you can watch films like Tide And Prejudice!) that it overshadows the textured plot about the burdens placed on second-generation kids.
  12. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts
    It’s an easier-to-follow variation on the template than most of its predecessors, but still one dependent on long-winded exposition dumps. And the character-based material here lacks Bumblebee’s sweetness, coming off as cloyingly manipulative instead.
  13. Flamin' Hot
    Garcia delivers a standout turn as Richard. It helps that he’s not yet a household name, so he isn’t carrying the baggage of any external frames of reference. His earnest and engrossing performance absolutely carries Flamin’ Hot.
  14. The Flash
    It’s sometimes buried under layers and layers of storytelling knots that the film never fully untangles, but the fun is there, and when the film is really working, that turns out to be enough.
  15. Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares: The Robert Englund Story
    It certainly captures a side of the man, and maybe that’s all anyone would ask of it. But it’s hard to shake the feeling there’s an even better movie waiting to be made from all this material.
  16. Shooting Stars
    Some parts of LeBron’s professional career are told in truncated form with a few figures left out or combined for cinematic purposes, but that’s it. And the film is better for focusing on relationships rather than on the easy highs of watching fast breaks and slam dunks.
  17. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
    That it falls short when it comes to matching the emotional impact of Into The Spider-Verse is further exemplified by a surprisingly abrupt cliffhanger conclusion that instead of sending the viewer out on a rousing high just makes one wonder why such an otherwise sharp franchise is going the route of weaker MCU entries in shortchanging its effectiveness as a stand-alone film to tease a future installment.
  18. The Machine
    Hamill, however, is the MVP, continuing to deliver some of his best work as an older man. When he leaves the action for a spell, the energy leaves the movie.
  19. The Boogeyman
    These are jump scares done right, where the struggle to see what’s there is much more effective than any cheap lurch into frame.
  20. You Hurt My Feelings
    Julia Louis-Dreyfus, a treasure as always, basically plays it straight and is terrific.
  21. The Little Mermaid
    But when it comes to picking out what parts of Ariel’s story to tweak for the new medium, the remake still emphasizes the wrong pieces, consequentially bloating a previously brisk story into a meandering pile of producers’ script notes.
  22. White Men Can't Jump
    The remake of WMCJ, also set in the Black communities of greater Los Angeles, fancies itself as having more on its mind than the original flick, but the ball rarely makes it through the hoop.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Fast X
    The focus inside the avalanche of stunts, asymmetrical plot elements, and mismatched genre tropes is still what Vin, and his alter ego Dom, would call “values.” Faith. Family. Honor. Loyalty. Because Dom is the last of a dying breed.
  24. Master Gardener
    While it doesn’t fare well in comparison, Master Gardener still has enough unique characteristics and performances to stand out as a fine film. It’s just the least successful in this particular trilogy.
  25. The Mother
    It’s decent but a tad too restrained for its own good.
  26. Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie
    Still is a solid reminder of why Fox is a magnetic camera presence and why he continues to be beloved, both as an actor and an activist for Parkinson’s research. As rote as many celebrity navel-gazing documentaries have become, it’s refreshing to see a film that can still find the strengths of the format.
  27. Hypnotic
    Hypnotic isn’t just refreshingly straightforward for Rodriguez, but for Ben Affleck too.
  28. BlackBerry
    It’s true that an operatic presentation of ruination or consequences wouldn’t fit BlackBerry. But it does feel like the movie misses the chance for some stick-the-landing moments related to the fates of its chief characters. That said, Johnson’s entertaining time capsule does still capture, in its unfussy way, one immutable truth: good times aren’t meant to last forever.
  29. Love Again
    This is after all a romantic comedy, not a romantic tragedy, though you might not realize it since it’s almost devoid of humor.
  30. What's Love Got to Do with It?
    Though it sets out with noble intentions, What’s Love Got to Do With It is inelegant and reductive. It’s a well-meaning but misguided film that ends up playing into the same prejudices and preconceptions its characters are meant to be challenging.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »