The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,436 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: 5,578 out of 10436
  2. Mixed: 3,746 out of 10436
  3. Negative: 1,112 out of 10436
10436 movie reviews
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  1. The Damned United
    Meaney’s Flintstone-ian brute makes a terrific foil to Sheen’s prissy arrogance, but the other supporting players don’t make much of an impression. Ditto for this slice of history itself, though mileage may vary for soccer fans.
  2. Couples Retreat
    Features a running gag about a little boy in the midst of potty training who doesn’t always go where it’s appropriate. In a nutshell, that subplot explains everything that’s wrong about the film.
  3. Bronson
    There are two Bronsons on display here: the impossible thug that we don’t dare release into polite society, and the guy we enjoy watching do his terrible thing. The man and the movie are both living, punching contradictions.
  4. Good Hair
    Is it possible to talk about the fascinating and complex universe of black hair without dealing with race and identity? That’s the question posed by Good Hair.
  5. Peter and Vandy
    The movie’s saving grace is Weixler, who manages to seem effortlessly natural without resorting to whiny faux naturalism.
  6. The Yes Men Fix the World
    Given the duo’s withering take on capitalism, it’s ironic that their stumbling second feature feels throughout like an infomercial for a shtick whose expiration date is rapidly approaching.
  7. Araya
    As a piece of documentary filmmaking though, Araya is more noteworthy for what it reveals about a changing artform than for what it has to say about its subjects.
  8. Trick 'r Treat
    The idea of a Halloween-centric anthology is solid, but the subject deserves stronger material than this reheated mush.
  9. A Serious Man
    WQholly a Coen brothers movie, in that it’s full of exaggerated characters and comic cruelty, anchored to a way of looking at the world that seems to posit a fundamental absence of meaning. And yet there’s something sweet and even a little heartening about the movie, too.
  10. Whip It
    It’s virtually impossible to hate the film, but Barrymore’s presence behind the camera suggests more calculation than vision; like a lot of actors who direct, she tends to the performances, but her style never rises above bland proficiency.
  11. Zombieland
    The four protagonists aren’t about to let something as minor as the complete breakdown of society get in the way of having a good time, and their fun proves infectious.
  12. The Invention of Lying
    The film doesn’t traffic in drollery for its own sake. Between laughs, Lying uses its skewed reality to comment on our own need to create useful fictions to wallpaper over the abyss.
  13. More Than a Game
    Belman doesn’t look into the bigger problems of James’ team jet-setting across the country during the school year, or the spectacle allowed to build up around him. He cares most about what happens on the court, which is diverting and fun as far as it goes, but not close to the whole story.
  14. Afterschool
    Afterschool wears its many influences on its sleeve, but it’s very much a movie of the moment. The passing of time and the evolution of technology may give it an expiration date, but more likely, Campos’ film stands to be an essential document of what it was like to be a young person in the late ’00s.
  15. Chelsea on the Rocks
    The movie’s most enjoyable moments are the brief instances when Ferrara himself intrudes on the scene.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Universal Soldier: Regeneration
    It might, in fact, be the best straight-to-DVD action movie ever made. And the fact that there’s any competition for that title should tell you that times have changed.
  17. Surrogates
    Relentlessly plods from one dour moment to the next, coming to life only in a late-film car chase that takes the possibilities of a world filled with robots to an absurd extreme.
  18. Paranormal Activity
    The film loses some of its grimy verisimilitude toward the end, but it’s nevertheless a surprisingly effective low-budget shocker with a sensibility as current as the latest viral videos, yet rooted in the suggestive, less-is-more atmospherics of Val Lewton.
  19. Pandorum
    Throw out the presence of Dennis Quaid, and the new science-fiction/horror snoozer Pandorum could easily pass for a Roger Corman cheapie.
  20. I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
    Tucker Max’s only real strengths are his outrageousness and his uncompromising self-confidence, but neither comes into play in this punch-pulling, frankly boring film.
  21. Coco Before Chanel
    There are indications scattered throughout Coco Before Chanel of a major designer quietly and persistently honing her craft, but most of the film could exist without the Chanel name and still smell like the same perfume.
  22. The Boys Are Back
    Not surprisingly, Boys works much better as an Owen vehicle than a movie--it’s a great, meaty part in a decidedly less-than-great film.
  23. Fame
    A film that’s largely a raw, uplifting love letter to creativity in every possible form.
  24. Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
    Raises the question of whether Krasinski made this movie because he really loves Wallace’s work, or because just he wanted to show Hollywood that the loveable doof from The Office can actually act.
  25. Capitalism: A Love Story
    The tone is so smart-ass that it’s bound to put a lot of viewers into a default defensive posture.
  26. The Informant!
    The Informant! chooses to earn its exclamation point with giggles as well as shock, and the results are thoroughly entertaining.
  27. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
    It’s a brisk, bright, winning effort, even though it already looks sadly out of touch with the times.
  28. Love Happens
    The film contains almost no rough edges; thanks to decades of previous use, just about every shot and sequence is as polished as a riverbed stone.
  29. Jennifer's Body
    Cody’s script fails in the fundamentals.
  30. Paris
    Paris flits from story to story and character to character without doing justice to any of them.
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