The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,411 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: 5,570 out of 10411
  2. Mixed: 3,735 out of 10411
  3. Negative: 1,106 out of 10411
10411 movie reviews
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  1. 13 Going on 30
    Cheers and many happy returns to Garner as she makes her first starring film role. She's the real deal. But jeers to every other aspect of 13 Going On 30.
  2. This So-Called Disaster: Sam Shepard Directs the Late Henry Moss
    The scattered insights in This So-Called Disaster aren't worth the sifting it takes to find them.
  3. Annie Get Your Gun (re-release)
    Though the film suffers from Sidney's point-and-shoot approach to the Robert Alton-staged musical numbers, it's buoyed nicely by the songs themselves, a clever script, crisp Technicolor cinematography, and Hutton's spirited performance.
  4. Kill Bill: Vol. 2
    The film succeeds by expertly melding the two stages of Tarantino's career. The rambling Tarantino of "Jackie Brown" and "Pulp Fiction" is evident in every lovingly crafted and delivered monologue, each leisurely paced scene and long take. The more action-oriented, fight-intensive Tarantino reappears in the viscerally exciting bursts of ultra-violence that punctuate the stretches of dialogue.
  5. The Punisher
    Sadly, The Punisher is about little more than bullets hitting bone, and how good it might feel to be on the right end of a gun.
  6. Gypsy 83
    The outsider road picture Gypsy 83 means well, but writer-director Todd Stephens can't keep his aesthetic out of the way.
  7. Connie and Carla
    Seems as much an imposter in the drag-queen world as its heroines; it fronts the sort of safely asexual gay characters found on network TV.
  8. Young Adam
    In this long, slow fall from grace, unceremonious nudity and half-hearted sex begin to look like a mockery of a paradise lost.
  9. A Thousand Peace Clouds Encircle the Sky
    Ultimately, the film is the kind of neither-fish-nor-fowl work unlikely to satisfy anyone: There's not enough hot-and-heavy action for thrill-seekers, and not enough substance for those looking for above-the-waistline kicks.
  10. The Middle of the World
    When they (the family) arrive at their destination, the story arrives at an ending that's neither obvious nor interesting, kind of like the film leading up to it.
  11. Twentynine Palms
    For most of the way, the film is perceptive about the hot-and-cold volatility of wounded relationships, when couples are struggling to communicate yet familiar enough to exploit each other's weaknesses.
  12. The Girl Next Door
    It sputters whenever it has to move the story along, and it too often forgets to pay attention to Cuthbert; it makes a point about the mistake of treating women as sex objects, but it's perfectly content to use her as a plot device for the second and third acts.
  13. The Whole Ten Yards
    The least necessary sequel since "Agent Cody Banks" embarked on a London mission a few weeks ago.
  14. I'm Not Scared
    Cinematographer Italo Petriccione gives the film a dramatic look, but that never compensates for the lack of actual drama; when so much of the conflict concerns Cristiano's reluctance to betray his father, it might have helped to spend more time on exploring that relationship than on capturing what light looks like when it pours in from a cellar door.
  15. The Alamo
    Turns into an edited-for-TV version of Sam Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch"--flat, bloodless, and utterly bereft of period grit.
  16. Ella Enchanted
    None of it would work without Hathaway, whose self-possession and lack of irony represents a throwback to old-fashioned Hollywood wholesomeness and glamour.
  17. Johnson Family Vacation
    It's a sign of trouble when watching a movie prompts nostalgia for the movie it's ripping off, particularly when that movie wasn't any good. But walking out of Johnson Family Vacation, it's hard not to feel misty-eyed for the urine-soaked-sandwich gags, incest jokes, and other refined comic elements of "National Lampoon's Vacation."
  18. The Blonds
    Grapples with tough subject matter, and earns a little leeway in its approach.
  19. Walking Tall
    To its credit, the new Walking Tall is a good half-hour shorter than its predecessor, but even at 86 minutes, sitting through it is a chore.
  20. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring
    It IS a little obvious, but that's the way it goes with spiritual enlightenment. The film's lessons are plain--spoken aloud, even--and deal with the close relationship between what can be shed in this life and what binds people to the world in spite of their best efforts to purify.
  21. The Prince and Me
    Few actresses exude restless intelligence as effortlessly as Stiles, which is fortunate, since Martha Coolidge's film relies on that forceful charisma to make it past awful dialogue, contrived situations, and hokey use of Disney-style butterflies.
  22. Adored
    Adored stands at the crossroads where Telemundo and beefcake magazines collide, but for strangers to that intersection, the film's camp value is exceeded only by its tedium.
  23. Hellboy
    Pretty much impossible not to like a little, but it's also hard to like a lot. There's a fantastic film to be made from this material, but now, the burden of making it falls to a sequel.
  24. Home on the Range
    A sweet, raucously funny, comic Western that corrects a glaring historical injustice by finally surveying the Old West through the eyes of cows rather than cowboys.
  25. The United States of Leland
    Hoge, who scripted and directed The United States Of Leland, caters to his cast too much. He gives almost every character a way-too-involved subplot, which distracts from the heart of his story.
  26. Tamala 2010: A Punk Cat in Space
    Tamala 2010 feels like either a singularly detail-organized dream, or an exceptionally formal drug trip.
  27. Two Men Went to War
    Cleverly realizing a novel premise, it's a slight but charming look at the lighter side of WWII.
  28. Mayor of the Sunset Strip
    Through Bingenheimer, the film not only gets the last word on the peculiar allure of celebrity, but also captures a fascinating shadow history of West Coast rock, which owes no small part of its livelihood to Bingenheimer's influence as a tastemaker.
  29. Never Die Alone
    Though steeped in both subgenres, Never Die Alone subverts that vicarious enjoyment by showing violence and abuse so unrelentingly ugly that only a sadist could derive the least bit of pleasure from it.
  30. Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed
    Nothing is more dangerous than a sequel to a wildly successful awful movie, because the artisans involved have to preserve the franchise, which means honoring the original formula as if it were a cure for cancer.
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