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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    • 64 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Clockwatchers
    The film's message, that it's impossible to trust in an environment that does not reward loyalty, is as dark as the message sent by the far more acidic In The Company Of Men. Though Clockwatchers doesn't feature the flashy language of that brutal film, it still reveals a similarly astute assessment of modern inter-office politics and workplace alienation.
  2. Quest for Camelot
    While moments indicate that not everybody working on the project was asleep at the switch, Quest For Camelot is strictly for bored toddlers and those breathlessly anticipating the completion of the Ferngully trilogy.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Deep Impact
    If director Mimi Leder is really guilty of anything, it's of wasting three first-rate actors (Morgan Freeman, Vanessa Redgrave, and Robert Duvall) in underdeveloped roles while allowing Leoni's shell-shocked, unconvincing turn to become an embarrassment.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Shooting Fish
    As a cute diversion, it's a pleasant, painless, wonderfully forgettable surprise.
  5. He Got Game
    There's not a relationship in He Got Game that feels right, especially the one between Washington and Allen, and if that doesn't work, neither does the film.
  6. Wilde
    There are many fine works by and about Wilde, and if you haven't read them, you should. Nearly all are preferable to this one.
  7. Les Misérables
    August's Les Misérables is the sort of film for which such faint-praise terms as "handsome" and "not bad" were invented. It's all of the above, and at times a bit better, but ultimately an experience akin to flipping through Cliffs Notes and a book of French paintings at the same time.
  8. The Big Hit
    The Big Hit goes beyond the call of duty in terms of hateful, crass exploitation.
  9. Two Girls and a Guy
    Some of the points seem too easy, some of the revelations practically announce themselves in advance, and there's never any sense of excitement or suspense as to where the whole thing is heading. But it still works, most of the time.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Object of My Affection
    The film is being marketed as a romantic comedy, but it's neither romantic nor funny.
  11. Suicide Kings
    The only redeeming moments come from Walken, whose assured, effortless screen presence stands out from his faceless co-stars. Taped to a leather chair and bleeding profusely from a severed finger, he's still the most powerful person in the room.
  12. Species II
    Though it never really taps into the whole JFK-as-alien-sex-fiend plot as a source of satire, Species 2 is still the superior piece of trash its predecessor should have been.
  13. City of Angels
    At least Dennis Franz, as a former angel, livens up his scenes, and Ryan is less intolerable than usual. Meanwhile, the always-interesting Cage does a good job pretending he's in a better movie. But he's not.
  14. 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain
    The incredible silliness doesn’t quite erase the bad taste of this kid’s movie featuring an implied dozen civilian casualties, but it helps.
  15. Sonatine
    Like the character he plays, Kitano directs the film in a style that alternates between tenderness and brutality, making it a relentlessly tense suspense film one minute and a gentle character study the next. Either half would make Sonatine worth seeing. But taken together as the story of a man who regains his soul but whose face remains permeated with the knowledge of its inevitable loss, it becomes an artful gangster film, Yakuza poetry, and essential viewing.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 10 Critic Score
    Lost in Space
    Dream up a plot incorporating time travel, genetic mutation, cyberjargon, and saving the Earth -- all the worst and most boring elements of science fiction. Finally, type up a list of bad jokes, space-talk, and semi-tough tag lines; label it "script."
  17. Barney's Great Adventure
    Barney's Great Adventure will bore adults to tears.
  18. The Newton Boys
    The Newton Boys is Linklater's most conventional film and, despite its numerous flaws, it's not bad.
  19. Wild Things
    The film almost redeems itself with what may be the longest, most elaborate post-film/pre-credits sequence in film history, but it will still disappoint anyone expecting more than watchable trash.
  20. Primary Colors
    One the truest-feeling political portraits in years, as well as a fine piece of drama.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Wide Awake
    The interest-generating theme of a boy coping with loss is made top-heavy with cuteness, causing it to collapse a quarter of the way through Wide Awake, never to recover.
  22. Fireworks
    Kitano infects the lyrical, meditative beauty of classical Japanese cinema with the jarring, low-down savagery of Western genre pictures. What emerges is more than the sum of its parts, an original and profound statement on mortality, how rich human life can be, and how quickly it can be taken away.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Man in the Iron Mask
    A mish-mash of accents (buffoonish Depardieu's French, somber Irons' British, and DiCaprio and Malkovich carrying the same voices they use for every project) are vaguely unsettling, and there seems to be too little swashbuckling for characters who are synonymous with the term.
  24. Funny Games
    The audience is indicted for its bloodlust. There's perversity in paying admission to get harshly scolded, and Funny Games is not for the squeamish, but this may be one time to step up and take the licking you deserve.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    U.S. Marshals
    It isn't so much a bad action movie as a symptom of the greater problem with most action movies: Audiences tire of sitting through the same fitful, unfulfilling formula, no matter how much terse language and gunfire is tossed in.
  26. Love and Death on Long Island
    An unpredictable, often funny, always winning film, Love And Death On Long Island is filled with low-key humor and sharp observations about the state of art at the close of the millennium.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Real Blonde
    Unfortunately, this slight, dull film would have benefited from a bit more style, as well as substance, as its lame characters and obvious observations never rise too far above the soap operas DiCillo parodies.
  28. Dangerous Beauty
    Taken on a camp level, there's a lot of fun to be had here, even if the movie may actually take itself seriously.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Wedding Singer
    Sandler is endearing as a sensitive nice guy, and Barrymore is a cute love interest, but The Wedding Singer fails to deliver the anticipated laughs.
  30. Sphere
    If you've ever wanted to see Queen Latifah fatally attacked by jellyfish at the bottom of the ocean, Sphere is the movie for you. If you're looking for more, you're not going to find it here.
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