The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,414 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: 5,571 out of 10414
  2. Mixed: 3,736 out of 10414
  3. Negative: 1,107 out of 10414
10414 movie reviews
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  1. The Omen
    Pretty much everyone in the cast is wildly overqualified, including Pete Postlethwaite and David Thewlis in key supporting roles.
  2. The Break-Up
    A lot of The Break-Up doesn't work. Actually, apart from some funny moments between old Swingers sparring partners Favreau and Vaughn, and a nice scene with Jason Bateman as the couple's realtor, virtually none of it works.
  3. District B13
    Morel tries to keep the energy up for 85 minutes straight, but the film never manages to top itself, and in spite of the political overtones, it doesn't provide much thematic sustenance.
  4. The War Tapes
    The War Tapes falls just short of greatness, because its scope is too limited.
  5. Typhoon
    This may be the biggest production in Korean-film history, but viewers should search elsewhere for a better sampling of what the country has to offer.
  6. Peaceful Warrior
    The "What The Bleep Do We Know?" crowd may well receive the film's wisdom like communion, but the rest of us are free to gag when Salva tries to jam it down our throats.
  7. Coastlines
    That love triangle is Coastlines' center. Trouble is, it plays more like canned heat than blazing inferno.
  8. X-Men: The Last Stand
    Following two superior entries, Ratner's slick placeholder of a sequel lacks that crucial X-factor called inspiration.
  9. Cavite
    The only rational explanation for how an abysmal no-budget film like Cavite could get released theatrically is that its makers, co-writer/directors Ian Gamazon and Neill Dela Llana, have come up with a from-the-headlines hook too big to deny.
  10. An Inconvenient Truth
    Quite apart from its environmental agenda, the film is a reminder that there's no space for substance in political discourse: A 30-second soundbite on global warming could easily be brushed off as tree-hugging rhetoric, but after 100 minutes of level-headed elaboration, it's chillingly undeniable.
  11. La Moustache
    La Moustache recalls the "everyday suspense" films of Roman Polanski and the existential woe of Michelangelo Antonioni, but it isn't as strange or penetrating as the former, or as artfully shot as the latter.
  12. The Da Vinci Code
    The Da Vinci Code isn't terrible. Brown's novel presented its concepts seriously, as food for thought; Howard's glossy version is more of a snack, designed to be taken only slightly more seriously than "National Treasure," and with the much the same sense of a puzzle-based thrill ride.
  13. Over the Hedge
    Over The Hedge stands out as genuinely witty and even a little barbed. Its chipper, sneering outsider's look at suburban sprawl and conformity isn't going to change the world, but it's still self-aware enough to be reasonably smart.
  14. See No Evil
    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."
  15. The King
    The King's perception of religion is hardly friendly, but it's only one aspect of a terrific drama, one that ultimately admits that people can be as much of a terrifying mystery as their creator.
  16. Lemming
    The film is much more intriguing in its dread-inducing opening half, when Moll's assured direction keeps suggesting that something horrible will be happening soon, then, when it does, that something even more horrifying may follow.
  17. Twelve and Holding
    The drama feels factory-cut and shrink-wrapped, with each of three kids' stories following predictably twisty paths to ironically hopeful conclusions.
  18. Poseidon
    "Titanic" without the metaphors, the class-consciousness, the love story, or anything resembling a theme, Poseidon invests so little in its screenplay that it might as well be an episode of "The Love Boat" gone horribly awry.
  19. Just My Luck
    Just My Luck, a lazy spitballing session of karmic humor, hinged on the sort of generic rom-com contrivances that keep movies like these from ending at a reasonable time.
  20. Goal! The Dream Begins
    How much viewers care about what happens in Goal! is directly proportionate to how much they care about soccer, because decent execution aside, there's an underdog fantasy movie just like this one for every sport.
  21. Dead Man's Shoes
    For all Dead Man's Shoes' well-paced, well-observed boondocks melodrama, its premise seems simultaneously slender and overheated.
  22. Keeping Up with the Steins
    What begins as a scathing but loving satire of materialism loses its way once it turns into a warmhearted after-school special about a nice young Jewish boy discovering the true meaning of the bar mitzvah.
  23. Wah-Wah
    Wah-Wah can't sustain the mastery of its superior first hour, but it maintains a core of truth that sets it apart from less-convincing depictions of boys becoming men.
  24. Sketches of Frank Gehry
    Gehry is a fascinating subject, a strangely magnetic combination of rumpled, aw-shucks humility and Herculean ambition and hubris, but every time Pollack stumbles onto a fascinating topic like Gehry's battles with anti-Semitism, he pulls away instead of delving deeper.
  25. Russian Dolls
    These characters are still rich, and their potential growth still compelling. Here's hoping we meet them again in another five years.
  26. Mission: Impossible III
    Yes, it's fundamentally business as usual, but it's the best kind of business as usual, and it finds everyone working in top form. Abrams imports and enlarges "Alias'" smooth, stylish, yet remarkably visceral approach to action, and the actors pack a satisfying amount of drama into the moments between action scenes.
  27. Art School Confidential
    Zwigoff has a rich comic gallery of pretentious boobs to lampoon. But his satirical target just seems too easy this time around: It's hard to spoof institutions that already veer so close to self-parody.
  28. An American Haunting
    Never remotely frightening.
  29. Hoot
    The kids Hoot is aimed at weren't around to see all the previous films it echoes, particularly the toothless Disney live-action films of the '70s. They'll probably like Hoot fine. Everyone else in the audience is likely to nod off and have genial, bland, easygoing dreams.
  30. Down in the Valley
    It's mysterious and bold at every turn, and refreshingly removed from the commonplace.
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