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63Sweet, light entertainment, but could have been more.
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58Schlock weeper.
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70A surprisingly charming fable.
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50Beyond the cliched diaper-changing scenes and the oh-so-predictable romantic complications, the film inadvertently insults its presumed target audience.
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40Starting to feel sick? Just you wait.
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20Nothing more, or less, than a cheap, dirty grab at our Christmas spirit.
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20At first I thought I was watching yet another version of "A Christmas Carol"; then I wondered if it was a remake of "It's a Wonderful Life"; finally I gave up trying to find anything at all in it that was unfamiliar.
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40Not even a sincere and heroic effort by Nicolas Cage can redeem the film's essential phoniness.
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75Cage is a wonderful light comedian; were someone to remake "It's a Wonderful Life," he'd be on the short list for the role of George Bailey. And Leoni is Donna Reed, reborn.
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63A holiday fable that's not destined for immortality but goes down more easily than most of the pap Hollywood tries to feed us every Christmas.
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30A piece of moldy wax fruit if ever there was one.
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75Cage and Leoni make it offbeat.
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40But in the end conventional sentiment, rather than any actual morality, is all that the script for The Family Man (by David Diamond and David Weissman) has to offer.
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50A film that's fun to argue with.
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50Has the airiness of a well-made souffle, springing delicate small surprises at calibrated intervals.
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38Sitting through it is like waking up on Christmas morning to find a stockingful of styrofoam.
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60What charm, quirkiness and warmth the movie possesses is due largely to them (Cage and Leoni).
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40It's an easier movie to tolerate than it should be if, like me, you're in love with Téa Leoni, who, as a lithe, lusty, strangely patient firecracker Superwife in a shag, rescues the movie from the tar pit of irrelevance. With some decent lines, she could be the new Myrna Loy.
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40A slickly produced slice of sentimental hokum that borrows freely from a half-dozen or so other, better feel-good fantasies.
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40It's a plot more worn out than the tinsel boxed up in the attic. In the end, they've given us a Christmas gift barely worth returning.
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50You can't just rework a beloved Christmas classic, set it in reverse and expect it to run smoothly.
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63Despite solid acting, it's a fantasy for those who don't know jack about what really makes for a wonderful life.
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40A holiday film Joe Lieberman could love, unembarrassed by its wholesome, sugary pro-family message.
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50I didn't believe it, and I don't think the people who made The Family Man did either.
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75Cage gives a performance that invites audiences to lay cynicism aside in a romantic fable.
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70A warm, glossy holiday fable that hits some surprisingly sweet notes.
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50Sidesteps from the premise of "It's a Wonderful Life" far enough to avoid copyright charges, but not far enough to avoid unfavorable comparisons
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0What were they thinking?
User score distribution:
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Positive: 8 out of 15
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Mixed: 1 out of 15
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Negative: 6 out of 15
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EconomistBR9