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Mar 28, 201380There are certain plot points in Starbuck, it's true, that either don't make much sense or are simply underexplained. But the picture is so breezily warm, without being too insistently ingratiating, that those flaws don't matter much.
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Mar 8, 201380A French comedy that pitches for wit over broad comedy, it's successful in salting what could be a over-sugary confection with healthy dose of wryness. The result is always entertaining and rarely mawkish.
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75Scott keeps the story from becoming cloying and sentimental. He is aided by smart, low-key work from his cast, especially Huard, who easily embodies the persona of an adult slacker, instilling him with a warm charm.
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75It’s a smidge too cute and a bit too long, but Huard and Scott make this comical journey (in French and “Franglish” with English subtitles), a trip from indifference to kindness, incompetence to responsibility, a most rewarding reinvention of what “family” can mean.
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75Starbuck is unapologetic genre filmmaking with a winning performance from its lead, Huard ( Bon Cop, Bad Cop), a shambling, likeable comedian who can flip, flop and fly off a diving board while maintaining his sex appeal.
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Mar 15, 201370A potent comedy of genetic chaos, Starbuck is pointedly contemporary and occasionally cloying, but guaranteed to draw attention for its premise and central character.
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70A lovable underachiever unwittingly spawns his own village in Starbuck, Ken Scott's crowd-pleasing comedy exploring various meanings of fatherhood in the modern age.
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63A high-concept comedy that peddles some slapstick laughs and life lessons but little insight.
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63It’s silly and a bit sappy, but it works, in a crowd-pleasing way.
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Mar 19, 201360What could have been one long, smutty joke ends up turning into a moving slice of midlife.
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Mar 8, 201360Huard’s charm offsets the plots contrivances, while Ken Scott’s finely balanced direction humanises the high concept.
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50By showing up and not embarrassing itself too much, the film far exceeds the standards established by the likes of the Shelley Long/Corbin Bernsen team-up "Frozen Assets" and 2012’s dire sperm-heist comedy "The Babymakers."
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50You do have to give Starbuck credit for engineering perhaps the largest group hug ever put on film.
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Mar 21, 201350As amiable art-house fluff, it's a passable way to kill time.
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50Five or 10 children might have led to comedy; 533 of them make for farce. All the same, Mr. Huard is endearing in the role of a perpetual adolescent who finally wants to stand up to his responsibilities, which include the one baby he has fathered the traditional way, and in his own name.
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40A high-concept goof that’s hard-pressed to surmount its twee preposterousness.
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40Almost all the charm of the real story is lost through the contrivances and overacting.
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38Bertrand does his jelly-belly best to keep Starbuck a comedy. But even the broadest shtick can’t prevent a movie that features a Busby Berkeley-style group hug from becoming a male weepie. Or a testimonial to Planned Parenthood.
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Mar 16, 201338Yet another example of modern-family predicaments getting stuffed into the traditional-family-values message of conventional comedies.
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30What begins as a cute idea grows annoyingly sentimental before it is through.
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30Starbuck is up to its eyeballs in mush.
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Mar 19, 201330The humor here is sitcom broad, and Scott displays little sense of rhythm; the film runs under two hours, but feels considerably longer.
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One of the best films of 2013 so far which is not saying a ton But this is a heartwarming film that will make you smile. The lead actor is great.