August Rush

USA Today Claudia Puig

Will not be for everyone, but it works if you surrender to its lilting and unabashedly sentimental tale of evocative music and visual poetry.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

I'd rather August Rush went the whole way than just be lukewarm about it. Yes, some older viewers will groan, but I think up to a certain age, kids will buy it, and in imagining their response, I enjoyed my own.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

The story is about musicians and how music connects people, so the movie's score and songs, created by composers Mark Mancina and Hans Zimmer, give poetic whimsy to an implausible tale.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

In the end, this could be the year's most sharply defined love-it-or-hate-it movie.

Variety Jay Weissberg

Only auds immune to diabetic rushes should head for August Rush, though tolerant parents wanting wholesome entertainment for the kids will like it for its repetitive encouragement of creativity.

Village Voice Ella Taylor

Acclimate yourself to the frenzied vibe, and you'll feel the movie grow into itself as an urban fairy tale whose rapturous finale stakes a wishful claim on the redemptive power of love and art.

Empire Angie Errigo

Unapologetically preposterous, but it is a (very sweet) fairy tale and Highmore is captivating.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

Feels like the cinematic equivalent of being stuffed with fruitcake and doused with a gallon of egg nog, so if that's the sort of thing you go in for around the holidays . . .

Chicago Tribune Sid Smith

It’s an unabashed feel-good weeper, and those eager for that type of fare might as well settle for this one. But an equal number will be put off by the bad dialogue, transparent manipulation and saccharine overkill.

Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell

The dialogue is dippy. And there's no real suspense: The filmmakers are so deadly earnest about the power of music and love and all that stuff, you just twiddle your thumbs waiting for the inevitable.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

The plot is preposterous. Particularly the part about a kid who has never before played an instrument, but can pick up a guitar and play like Eric Clapton and belly up to a church organ and perform like Mozart.

Premiere Karl Rozemeyer

For those who loved his singing in "Velvet Goldmine," Rhys-Meyers once again proves that he has pipes.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

August Rush is a rather prosaic, oddly anxious, contemporary take on Dickens' Oliver Twist, with Williams – in nasty-man twee mode, a newish one for him – thrown in for bad measure.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

To describe August Rush as a piece of shameless hokum doesn’t quite do justice to the potentially shock-inducing sugar content of this contemporary fairy tale.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

It would be nice to say this predictable fantasy has such a big heart, we can forgive its excesses. But director Kirsten Sheridan overplays nearly every already-corny scene, and there is no chemistry between Russell and Rhys Meyers, who appear to be passing through on their way to better projects.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

This is the sort of movie that requires you not only to suspend disbelief, but to check your sanity at the ticket counter.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Odd, quasi-mystical movie that’s too silly for adults to take seriously and frankly too weird for kids.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

You'll have to swallow this gooey confection whole or spit it out after the first couple of bites.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

The Hollywood version of one of those fawning "60 Minutes" segments about musical prodigies. For most of it, I could hear the congested awe of Morley Safer.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Robin Williams (yes, I'm afraid so) plays a kind of Manhattan-based Fagin with a touch of Midnight Cowboy to his wardrobe. And ants will play havoc in any cynic's pants as this loopy, goopy fairy tale about a kid looking for his parents oozes to its predictable finish.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Poetic conceits only work if they're poetic.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

Simultaneously swooningly romantic and transcendently idiotic.

Chicago Reader Andrea Gronvall

Williams's overacting, Russell's pinched melancholy, and Highmore's unflagging chirpiness would be trying enough on their own, but the convoluted story, with its pileup of obstacles and coincidences, makes this sophomore effort by director Kirsten Sheridan (Disco Pigs) an exercise in dissonance.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Intended as a fuzzy family fable, "August" plays more to the gag reflex than to the heart, especially when our little orphan starts playing the guitar like a virtuoso after what seems like a three-minute tutorial.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

August Rush isn't just a bad movie - it's an aggressively bad movie.

San Francisco Chronicle Pam Grady

An inane musical melodrama.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jennie Punter

A sickly sweet family drama.