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 Love Guru
    Myers combines his love of references, silly names, and mindless repetition by having his guru use "Mariska Hargitay" as a greeting/mantra. The first time it's employed, it's merely unfunny; by the 13th or 40th time, it's almost hypnotic in its awfulness.
  2. Brick Lane
    Brick Lane comes far too late to be groundbreaking, and tries to do too much to be fully coherent, but its talent for avoiding obvious choices on all fronts, narratively and stylistically, make it worth a look.
  3. Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
    By the time it reaches an action-packed finale that's choreographed like an ancient Keystone Kops short, Kit Kittredge has cornered the market on bland.
  4. Medicine for Melancholy
    Medicine For Melancholy offers a personal spin on the "walking around a city" genre.
  5. The Happening
    Shyamalan still has an abundance of personality and ambition, and there are scattered moments of craft throughout, but the gulf between his lofty aspirations and feeble accomplishments has seldom been wider or more chuckle-inducing.
  6. The Incredible Hulk
    The Hulk himself looks more steroidal than superheroic, as if the expressive beast from the first film had been replaced by a WWE star.
  7. Chris & Don. A Love Story
    Describing the early stages of their sexual attraction, Bachardy sums up the whole outrageously fortunate arc of his life. "It was exactly what the boy wanted," Bachardy says. "And he flourished."
  8. My Winnipeg
    Maddin talks at length about Winnipeg's hidden layers, but what makes My Winnipeg perhaps his best film to date is that so much of it is right out in the open.
  9. Quid Pro Quo
    Stahl quietly plays the straight man, giving the usually skillful Farmiga plenty of room to overact with abandon; she plays her character as one part Rosanna Arquette in David Cronenberg's "Crash" to two parts Natalie Portman's magical life-saving pixie in "Garden State."
  10. To the Limit
    To The Limit is full of a lot of talk about "risk" and "dreams" and "making the impossible possible," and Danquart's stabs at making this an inspirational tale can be a little exhausting.
  11. Encounters at the End of the World
    A sort of distracted, freewheeling form of inquiry and observation drives Encounters At The End Of The World, a loosely constructed documentary that seems to have been made on a whim.
  12. Kung Fu Panda
    Yet another celebrity-voiced animal adventure, but it stands out from the crowd of similar films with its lightning wit and whirlwind brio.
  13. You Don't Mess with the Zohan
    Spectacularly, unimpeachably, relentlessly preposterous.
  14. Mother of Tears
    Compared to a recent Argento dud like "The Stendhal Syndrome," Mother Of Tears at least has some of the go-for-broke gothic spirit of his earlier work. He's just lost the ability to shape it into something artful.
  15. The Promotion
    It's a sweet, human movie, if not an entirely successful one.
  16. Take Out
    The movie took a long time to get distribution, but there's no expiration date on filmmaking this strong.
  17. Dreams with Sharp Teeth
    All told, Ellison is a fascinating person to spend 96 minutes with. But you probably shouldn't risk that 97th.
  18. Operation Filmmaker
    Operation Filmmaker takes a thrilling left turn from its original conceit, and Davenport does a nice job rolling with the punches.
  19. Bigger Stronger Faster*
    Attempts to look beyond the hysteria and consider exactly how and why a culture that values physical power has internalized the idea that steroid use in sports is a scourge.
  20. The Foot Fist Way
    Trouble is, the gags just keep finding new ways to make McBride's strip-mall sensei seem pathetic, and the few scattered laughs never justify the cruelty.
  21. Savage Grace
    Savage Grace should have the force of Greek tragedy, but Kalin's chamber drama feels curiously stifling and flat, and Moore's volatile turn isn't enough to quicken its pulse.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Sex and the City
    Ultimately, Sex And The City serves as a glitter-laced love letter to its fans, which is really all it needs to be.
  23. The Strangers
    It isn't particularly original--for one, it owes an unacknowledged debt to the French film "Them"--but as an exercise in controlled mayhem, horror movies don't get much scarier.
  24. Stuck
    It's a righteously nasty piece of work, and a rare example of a movie that traffics in B-movie grime without a trace of "Grindhouse"-style self-consciousness.
  25. Cleaner
    Don't let the film's highbrow cast, portentous tone, and leisurely pace fool you: Cleaner is just as empty and formulaic as his previous films, just much, much duller.
  26. The Children of Huang Shi
    It's a polished, beautifully shot story, and it acknowledges the messiness of real life. But like real life, it's often baffling and frustrating.
  27. War, Inc.
    The overall experience is manic, juvenile, and hit-or-miss, as if the auteurs behind "Epic Movie" were trying to remake "Wag The Dog." It's too soon to laugh about Iraq, and it'll never be time to laugh about it with this kind of maladroit humor.
  28. Postal
    A provocation first, an insult second, a publicity stunt third, and a film a distant fourth.
  29. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
    The biggest problem with Crystal Skull is one that's lately plagued Spielberg in otherwise excellent films like "Munich" and "War Of The Worlds": He fails to stick the landing. And for an entertainment with nothing much on its mind, that hurts.
  30. The Edge of Heaven
    Akin divides The Edge Of Heaven into thirds, and ends the first two sections with emotionally devastating scenes of violence, before easing into a third section that deals with the repercussions and lessons learned.
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