Be Cool

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

It's instantly forgettable, but smooth fun most of the way.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Be Cool is not really cool as "Get Shorty" was, but it's entertaining, a frivolous cocktail rather than a vintage wine.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

John Travolta is nothing if not cool as Chili Palmer.

USA Today Mike Clark

Despite a cast and production that seem to promise one of the year's first movies of any note, Cool never translates its promo-photo flashiness into authenticity on screen.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Even if you enjoyed the mean, funny 1995 John Travolta-Elmore Leonard crime comedy "Get Shorty"-and many of us did-this forced sequel isn't likely to help you repeat the experience.

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

Rock is brave, fully invested in his character, and with a wide-open face and foolish grin, outrageously funny. It's a singular performance achieved without condescension or camp. Who'd a-thunk it?

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Be Cool more often evokes the image of a screenwriter furiously trying draft after draft to accommodate all the stars. Accommodating the audience becomes a distant priority.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

The hell of it is, Be Cool is tepid entertainment that could be cool if it spent less time entertaining us as if we were demanding a definition of rhythm.

The New Yorker David Denby

Considered as a sequel, Be Cool is not an insult, but it’s a lazy, rhythmless, and redundant piece of moviemaking.

Slate David Edelstein

Travolta keeps you grooving even when the movie's motor runs down--although it has never revved too high to begin with.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

It's a messy, overlong film, but it's impossible to take seriously and therefore more than a little entertaining.

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

Easily one of the most lackadaisical movies I've seen. Don't get me wrong, the plot is entertaining enough, and there are some genuine laughs, but almost everyone in the movie is half-a--ing it.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Lacks both a focus and an edge, making it an amorphous mess.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

The author is not to blame. Published in 1999, "Be Cool" is hipper, cooler and better than "Get Shorty," but everything hipper, cooler and better about it is either missing from the film or camped-up beyond recognition.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

A fairly painless, if not particularly stimulating, experience, Gray has no idea how to capitalize on the reunion of "Pulp Fiction" co-stars Travolta and Thurman.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

To reduce Leonard to shtick makes about as much sense as using a scalpel for a butter knife — even when the job gets done, it's just such a dull waste of a sharp implement.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

In Be Cool, a wonderful cast essays a lively script and manages to make a decent film out of it.

New York Magazine Ken Tucker

A hapless comedy that already seems about ten years out of date, Be Cool is a curious failure.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Isn't assaultive or dumb, just slack and de-energized, as if its batteries start running down in the first frame.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

It's kind of -- hmmmm, less than good, a little better than not bad, almost all right, mediocre without being grating, sort of in the C-minus-to-C-minus-minus range.

Empire Olly Richards

A poorly written, directed and acted imitation of the first. Not funny, not clever and, crucially, not cool.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

Like the characters, the scenes pile up but go nowhere; the story seems fragmented, the actors unmotivated, unmoored. Mr. Gray has a feel for pulp, but is seriously off his game here.

Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky

Redundant to the point of being absolutely pointless, a sequel that's almost a note-for-note, beat-for-beat redo of its predecessor, only with all the entertaining stuff left out.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Recycling is a good idea in principle, but certain products should be sent directly to a landfill without re-use. Be Cool, the feeble film follow-up to "Get Shorty," is one of them.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

A forced and wholly unnecessary sequel.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

How to count the ways that Be Cool isn't? For one thing, it looks terrible: grainy, ill-lit, edited with blunt, rusty shears.

Premiere Aaron Hillis

Blunderingly out-of-touch, star-studded embarrassment of a sequel.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

A classic species of bore: a self-referential movie with no self to refer to. One character after another, one scene after another, one cute line of dialogue after another, refers to another movie, a similar character, a contrasting image, or whatever.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Where there was effortless cool in the first movie, there is nothing but manufactured posing here.

Variety David Rooney

A staggeringly flat sequel that trades filmdom for the music bizbiz and could hardly be less cool.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Director F. Gary Gray doesn't have a clue about how to film this couple dancing, and Peter Steinfeld's crude script confuses character with shtick while racing us through a story where loyalties and motivations turn on a dime.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

Although Travolta is as smooth as ever, the picture is a bust, a grimly unfunny comedy with no connection to reality, and worst of all, running on and on for two dismal hours.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

The sweet nostalgia of Travolta and Thurman's reprise of their "Pulp FIiction" dance-floor flirtation cuts through a lot of rubbish, including the Black Eyed Peas' smutty "Sexy."

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

The overlong comedy has few laughs and flirts far too much with racist, homophobic humor. A waste of a fine cast.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

You know a sequel isn't working when, ten minutes into the movie, a voice inside your head starts screaming, "Please make it stop!"

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Barely any of it is funny, and if a minute of it is meant in mockery, few of the darts ever find the board.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Manages the dubious trick of being both execrable and boring.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Be Cool proves that when "cool" evaporates all it leaves are embarrassing little puddles.