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. Runaway Jury
    Though star-packed to the point of absurdity--juror Luis Guzmán has little to do but nod his head every once in a while--The Runaway Jury doesn't know what to do with its players.
  2. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
    Seems to understand its source material, but has no idea how to improve on it.
  3. Returner
    Yamazaki is clearly a science-fiction fan himself, and in Returner, he shows some worthwhile style, if only by stealing the biggest and best possible elements for his serviceably entertaining genre mashup.
  4. Pieces of April
    Though Pieces Of April comes together with improbable grace, Hedges evokes unearned tears from a premise that's already loaded from the start. Like Holmes, he serves up boxed stuffing and canned cranberries, then fishes for compliments to the chef.
  5. Porn Theater
    When Porn Theatre stays in the darkness, its minute observations about grindhouse culture are hypnotic in their accumulating detail.
  6. Dopamine
    The issues Decena raises rarely get treated on any but the most superficial of levels, and the flatly realized characters make it difficult to care what becomes of them.
  7. The Flower of Evil
    For all its aloof indirectness, The Flower Of Evil wants little more than to sling another arrow at the bourgeoisie, something Chabrol has done with greater flair on many other occasions.
  8. Good Boy!
    Includes a few half-hearted ironies about how people are really serving dogs, not the other way around, but even those gags are cribbed from a retired Seinfeld routine.
  9. Intolerable Cruelty
    The Coens engineer a funny, entertaining battle of the sexes here, but the preponderance of indelible male characters and less memorable female roles render it something of a mismatch.
  10. House of the Dead
    Much poorly choreographed gunplay, many lovingly rendered head explosions, and some half-assed exposition about centuries-old, immortality-seeking pirates follow, with nothing to recommend House Of The Dead to anyone but the most undiscriminating zombie-movie fans.
  11. Girls Will Be Girls
    The Independent Film Channel is distributing Girls Will Be Girls; perhaps its executives failed to realize that this kind of mirthless, tacky independent film sends traumatized audiences racing back to the glossy production values on display at the local multiplex.
  12. Kill Bill: Vol. 1
    It remains to be seen whether Kill Bill is merely a skilled slice of juvenilia or a pastiche with real emotional and thematic underpinnings, but based on Tarantino's storytelling command in the first half, it's worth giving him the benefit of the doubt.
  13. Bus 174
    Edited with an impeccable sense of timing and rhythm, with each new revelation and insight planted at just the right moment, Bus 174 examines an already gripping story from a moving and untold perspective.
  14. Mystic River
    In his best film since "Unforgiven," Eastwood ultimately lets observations on character, community, and the tidal patterns of tragedy shoulder a burden an ordinary murder mystery never could.
  15. Baunsu ko gaurusu
    Bounce Ko Gals ultimately devolves into a litany of social ills, with not enough of a proper story, and Harada loses the thread of the film whenever he slips into slapstick comedy, or has his female leads play the role of giggly best friends.
  16. The Event
    A deadly earnest, relentlessly solemn affair.
  17. Out of Time
    The two of them (Washington/Mendez) together, playing police-procedural dodgeball, make for a good movie. Too bad there are other people on the team, and that the pre-game show runs so long.
  18. The Station Agent
    McCarthy's characters make for good company even in their story's awkward patches, and in a film so unabashedly about the value of friendship, good company goes a long way.
  19. Wonderland
    Wonderland is to "Boogie Nights" what "Blow" was to "Goodfellas": an accomplished knockoff with all the tricks and none of the soul.
  20. School of Rock
    Though tagged as the director's bid for commercial success, School Of Rock is as philosophical in its own way as "Slacker" or "Waking Life." It was made by people who not only know the music well enough to create magnificent flowcharts around it, but also understand how a simple, soul-stirring rock song can seem revolutionary.
  21. Bollywood/Hollywood
    It's just mediocrity, further soured by bad intentions.
  22. My Life Without Me
    Asks for sympathy for deplorable behavior.
  23. Prey for Rock & Roll
    An actress of magnetizing screen presence whose inability to land choice roles can only be attributed to her post-TRL age, Gershon easily identifies with her character, giving her performance an edge that this lazy, punked-up melodrama otherwise lacks.
  24. Duplex
    Looks and sounds like a black comedy, but by the time DeVito reaches the cutesy, nonsensical ending, he's lost the will to follow through on it.
  25. The Rundown
    The result rises to the level of mediocrity thanks largely to the magnetic presence of The Rock, who's made a smooth transition from professional wrestling to leading-man status with this and "The Scorpion King."
  26. Under the Tuscan Sun
    Writer-director Audrey Wells never aims higher than postcard filmmaking, and Under The Tuscan Sun at least works on that level, by casting its little operetta of self-realization and remodeling travails against some of the most beautiful scenery in the world.
  27. Bubba Ho-tep
    Playing against rubber-faced type, cult icon Bruce Campbell grounds his Elvis in a wry, understated swagger that holds the film's wacky excesses in orbit and does more honor to the legend himself than a thousand Vegas lounge-show wannabes.
  28. Luther
    The unimposing Fiennes may not suggest the burly Luther's plain-talking peasant background, but he at least captures the charisma.
  29. Yossi & Jagger
    A sprint when it should be a marathon, Yossi & Jagger crackles with promise, but much of it goes unrealized. Without the time or resources to develop its characters and overstuffed plot, the result feels like the Cliffs Notes for a longer, more satisfying film.
  30. Demonlover
    May be Assayas' airiest work to date, an intriguing trifle that leaves its considerable pleasures to lounge around on the surface.
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