The A.V. Club's Scores

For 4,815 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 48% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 49% 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: 59
Highest review score:
Critic Score 100
Lowest review score:
Critic Score 0
Score distribution:
4,815 movie reviews
  1. Final score: Book 1, Movie 0.
  2. The emotions at play in Bella are no doubt heartfelt--and must have resonated with a few hundred people, anyway--but they're so cut-and-dried that the mawkish script virtually writes itself.
  3. So instead of history and drama, we get images, many of them striking but none of them memorable, and noise that deafens until no sense can escape. The events beg for Shakespearean gravity, but the only tragedy here is that so little could be made of so much.
  4. No doubt the list of talent involved in this remake sounded great, but the project hasn't been thought through as anything more than an arch exercise in style. And even in that trifling end, it fails utterly.
  5. The result is either one of the most self-indulgent vanity projects in the history of the Hollywood star system, or a rare revealing look at a distinguished actor who usually keeps his real self out of the spotlight.
  6. Simultaneously swooningly romantic and transcendently idiotic.
  7. By the time Olyphant leaves an enemy in the most ridiculous deathtrap since the '60s "Batman," just because it looks kinda neat, the whole project has started to feel like "Ultraviolet 2: The Further Stupidening."
  8. It's neither conceptually bold nor slyly satirical when Billy dresses up as a Southern evangelical and sings made-up hymns about "the shopacalypse."
  9. Only the so-bad-it's-good crowd need apply.
  10. It's a measure of the film's lack of imagination that Morris Chestnut, as an aspiring songwriter logging time as a mall Santa, can't even think of a good fake occupation.
  11. The characters Lehmann and company use as generational mouthpieces bear no relation to any people who have ever existed, and they barely work as parody.
  12. West is heavy on Vaughn, at least initially, but woefully short on comedy.
  13. Browns is ultimately a victim of its creator's success: What once felt novel now feels well-worn, following the success of Perry's films and imitators like "First Sunday."
  14. This isn't really a movie made for audiences; it's for casting agents and studio execs, to show off one man's acting chops and his skill at writing dialogue.
  15. Perelman's follow-up, The Life Before Her Eyes, finds him clumsily trying to outdo M. Night Shyamalan.
  16. Shyamalan still has an abundance of personality and ambition, and there are scattered moments of craft throughout, but the gulf between his lofty aspirations and feeble accomplishments has seldom been wider or more chuckle-inducing.
  17. Myers combines his love of references, silly names, and mindless repetition by having his guru use "Mariska Hargitay" as a greeting/mantra. The first time it's employed, it's merely unfunny; by the 13th or 40th time, it's almost hypnotic in its awfulness.
  18. Taken together, these stories are a symphony of inconsequentiality, drained of tension and purpose until all that remains is a vague sense of collective ennui.
  19. Maher's too smart to make a movie this dumb.
  20. As long it sticks to that chase, Babylon A.D. remains a sub-passable lead-footed action film with neat scenery.
  21. Dane Cook plays a smug jerk in the dismal comedy My Best Friend's Girl. Strike that: He's only ACTING like a smug jerk.
  22. The original was a tart dipped in acid; this one's a biscuit sprinkled in Splenda.
  23. The film looks to do for reflective surfaces what "Amityville 4" did for killer lamps.
  24. Mainly, Good Dick just proves that TV actors like Ritter make good indie-film hires, because they'll go along with whatever ridiculous nonsense a novice filmmaker concocts.
  25. It's a horror film better suited for skittish cats than humans.
  26. It takes guts to remake what many believe to be Hitchcock's first masterpiece, but what Ondaatje's done with The Lodger could not be mistaken for ambition.
  27. Clumsy, ephemeral, and wholly unnecessary.
  28. It's now a straight-up crime and retribution flick, capped off by the dumbest wolf-feeding coda a 13-year-old ever dreamed up.
  29. As a piece of storytelling, The Haunting In Connecticut is pretty lazy. As a horror movie, it’s lazier still, bringing out every annoying shock-cut and disorienting sound-design trick of the last decade.
  30. Even the movie's rubber monsters look tired.