The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, starring Steve Carell, Jim Carrey, Olivia Wilde, and Steve Buscemi as goofy magicians, hits theaters today, and it's one of the first big mainstream comedies of the year. Wonderstone isn't faring so well with critics, though, with every other movie reviewer making it a point to mention that the movie is "not incredible."
Wonderstone earned a 41% and a 44/100 on review aggregators Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, respectively. Critics generally felt that Carell was miscast and that the film was somewhat amusing but not funny enough, with Boston Globe calling it "a lazy, underwritten imitation Will Ferrell movie." Many critics praised [...]
Regardless of the fact that Bachelorette was an off-Broadway play and a hot script well before Bridesmaids came out, the comparison is unfortunately unavoidable. Every single review seemed to be primarily hoping to contrast the two. Bachelorette is a good or bad movie insomuch that it's funnier or darker or more genuine or less genuine or grosser than Bridesmaids. Overall the reviews are split on the subject, resulting in a 49 on Metacritic and 50 on Rotten Tomatoes.
There were a lot of publicity stunts used to promote The Dictator, which made it apparent very early that people just didn't care that much about this movie. General Aladeen is not going to be the 2012's omnipresent Borat. And the lousy box office projections reflect this. The only thing that might have saved it was if it was so good that overwhelming critical fawning overshadowed all the negative opinion. So what did the critics have to say?
Just for some context, Borat was as much of critical smash as it was a box office one, garnering a 91% on Rotten Tomatoes and 89 on Metacritic. Bruno faired much [...]
ABC premieres Work It tonight, a show about two dudes dressing up as women in order to get jobs during a "mancession," and it's gotten some of the absolutely worst reviews of any new show this season. The premise is offensive! The fact that anyone would think that these two huge dudes look like ladies is ridiculous! The set design is terrible and cheap! The very first joke in the pilot references Jodie Foster's gang rape in The Accused! You know, normal bad sitcom stuff.
So whether you were considering watching this for some reason and need to be dissuaded, or you're a comedy writer who didn't get [...]
Tower Heist might be kind of plot-heavy and toothless, but it sure is stylish! The Hollywood Reporter's Todd McCarthy called it "snappy, well cast and streetwise in a well-upholstered New York sort of way." Plus, "Murphy hasn't been this funny since Beverly Hills Cop, the first edition," according to Betsey Sharkey of the LA Times.
If you're hoping for some Occupy Wall Street-type political or economic statement, though, you're probably in the wrong theater. The New Yorker's Anthony Lane says the film "passes the buck" on any real issues, and its unrealistic plot demonstrates a "refusal of all known logic." A.O. Scott from The New [...]
