The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,412 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: 5,570 out of 10412
  2. Mixed: 3,735 out of 10412
  3. Negative: 1,107 out of 10412
10412 movie reviews
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  1. Marjorie Prime
    The most stylish thing about it is the eerie original music by Mica Levi, the art-damaged noise-popster-turned-composer who previously scored "Under The Skin" and "Jackie."
  2. Patti Cake$
    There’s no cliché so corny that Patti Cake$ won’t exploit it for our approval.
  3. The Hitman's Bodyguard
    The Hitman’s Bodyguard, which bears the tagline “Get triggered” and is essentially a dumber, tackier "Midnight Run," was destined to be one of those Neanderthalic, faux-merican EuropaCorp action movies, like "The Transporter" or "From Paris With Love" ­­— except fate fumbled, and the film ended up as a coasting-on-star-power Hollywood programmer directed by The Expendables 3’s Patrick Hughes.
  4. Lemon
    Gelman and Bravo, who wrote the script together, are married in real life, a fact that somehow makes Lemon’s mix of broad caricature and broader relationship metaphors even clumsier.
  5. The Wound
    The Wound excels so long as it hangs back a bit, watching Xolani struggle to project the authority that his role demands, despite being acutely aware of his own vulnerability.
  6. Logan Lucky
    Soderbergh isn’t exactly hiding a secret drama inside his barrel of laughs and twists. But his comeback project keeps quiet about being one of the sweetest, most affirming movies he’s ever made.
  7. The Trip to Spain
    Thing is, this third movie plays less like some bookend chapter of a complete saga than a floundering middle season of a television show that’s settled into a formulaic groove—which makes sense, given that each Trip is actually a condensed version of an episodic miniseries that aired on British television first.
  8. The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature
    Surly and Andie’s second adventure...is less ambitious than the original.... But it’s also more propulsive, which is to say antic.
  9. Good Time
    Stripping away almost all traces of movie-star glamour to reveal the naked, nervy talent underneath, Pattinson finally bursts out of the chrysalis of his pin-up boy celebrity. The metamorphosis from YA heartthrob into electrifying character actor is complete.
  10. Nocturama
    The film is a masterstroke of synthesis; whatever it borrows, it makes its own.
  11. The Only Living Boy in New York
    Marc Webb’s new movie, in contrast, uses the song for its title, the name of an in-movie manuscript, and as a late-breaking song cue that doesn’t drop the needle so much as clunk it down with turgid inevitability.
  12. Naked
    Let’s place the blame where it squarely belongs: on the moronic premise. Groundhog Day but he’s naked? Why?
  13. Annabelle: Creation
    Like the "Conjuring" films, Annabelle: Creation is a symphony of cheap tricks; its scares are strictly of the funhouse variety, not the keep-you-up-for-days kind, but they’re executed with precision and panache.
  14. The Glass Castle
    While it’s understandable that Walls might not want to linger on the more grim aspects of her childhood, Cretton’s decision to pull punches on those exact moments takes what could be a powerful tale of resilience and forgiveness and spins it into just another piece of Hollywood feel-good fluff.
  15. Ingrid Goes West
    The biggest selling point of Ingrid Goes West is its screenplay, which is full of deadpan comic flourishes.
  16. Planetarium
    Numerous potentially interesting ideas orbit one another in Planetarium, but none boasts sufficient gravity to merit a landing, it seems.
  17. Whose Streets?
    What this film is not, in any way, is comprehensive. Very intentionally, Folayan and company don’t concern themselves with the bigger picture. This is ground-level journalism.
  18. The Dark Tower
    It would be a waste of everyone’s time to go on about how this 95-minute movie deviates from the source. Let’s just say it turns The Dark Tower into something generic, and leave it at that.
  19. Columbus
    Come for the breathtaking architectural scenery, stay for the likable pair staring up at it.
  20. Fun Mom Dinner
    While there is plenty of drinking and a fair amount of drugs (just pot though, let’s not go crazy), the overall effect is more akin to passing out on the couch at 9 p.m. than partying until dawn.
  21. Kidnap
    Kidnap is an asinine child-abduction thriller spliced with a touch of the early Steven Spielberg TV movie "Duel," and the most likable thing about it is that it is utter, unabashed garbage.
  22. Icarus
    Bryan Fogel’s Netflix documentary Icarus tells such an eye-opening story that it almost doesn’t matter when the storytelling itself gets a little sloppy.
  23. Wind River
    Driven by another of Nick Cave and Warren Ellis’ murmuring folk soundtracks, Wind River turns out to be the weakest of Sheridan’s loose trilogy — the one with the thinnest characterizations and the toughest time disguising its subtext as plainspoken townsfolk rapport.
  24. Step
    Over and over, it pitches us reasons to care about these young women—an all-too-perfect example of a documentary that exists to make people feel good for watching it.
  25. 4 Days in France
    What makes 4 Days In France special, though, is that it’s far more expansive than its basic premise would suggest.
  26. The Emoji Movie
    There was probably never going to be a version of this film that would prove even remotely plausible as a movie someone felt passionately about making for artistic reasons; as far as expanding on smartphone-related IP, this is an even weaker starting point than Sony Animation’s recent The Angry Birds Movie.
  27. The Incredible Jessica James
    To be fair, it’s difficult not to be outshone by Jessica Williams, whose star has been continually on the rise since her debut on The Daily Show in 2012. It’s interesting, then, that this irrepressible personality would have her first starring film role project be as low-key as The Incredible Jessica James, especially since it seems to have been written just for her.
  28. Brigsby Bear
    The big finale never reaches "Chuck & Buck" levels of therapeutic catharsis, because Mooney hasn’t really let us see James’ pain, only his gushy wide-eyed innocence, his lovability.
  29. Menashe
    Menashe Lustig brings warmth and a lumpen charisma to Menashe’s lead role, giving life to a film based in part on his own experiences.
  30. Atomic Blonde
    This can be pretty fun, but also tiring in stretches; Leitch’s fetishistic interest in clothes, scar tissue, furniture, and different shades of mood lighting and lens flare gives some of the action-less portions of Atomic Blonde a glazed-over, narcotic pace.
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