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The Original Kings of Comedy
Metascore
76 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 31 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 28 out of 31
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 31
  3. Negative: 1 out of 31
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  1. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Jay Carr
    100
    Not only exhilarating and cathartic. It's too funny to be ignored.
  2. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Andrew O'Hehir
    90
    Turns a hysterical night of African-American humor into the hottest little picture of the summer.
  3. Rolling Stone
    Reviewed by: Peter Travers
    90
    A tornado of laughs based on the black experience as lived by these four insightful jokers, instead of as filtered through the Hollywood formula.
    All this critic's reviews
  4. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kevin Thomas
    90
    A dynamite concert film.
  5. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: A.O. Scott
    90
    Their comedy gives audiences that have never seen anything like it a hilarious window on a new world.
  6. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Lisa Alspector
    90
    Lee performs magic. He's preserved and expanded the experience of an adrenaline-pumping, uproarious night of racism-, classism-, and sexism-subverting humor.
  7. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Elizabeth Weitzman
    88
    It's not so much good material as divinely inspired delivery.
  8. USA Today
    Reviewed by: Mike Clark
    88
    Both the material and the way it's delivered by the movie's comic quartet are so funny.
  9. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Paul Malcolm
    80
    Both funny and furious -- on why black people are different from white people.
  10. Dallas Observer
    Reviewed by: Bill Gallo
    80
    A fresh, intimate, gloriously unpolished performance film that measures up to the classics of the genre.
  11. Film.com
    Reviewed by: Ernest Hardy
    80
    It's a very funny film, one of the most enjoyable of the summer.
  12. Variety
    Reviewed by: Scott Foundas
    80
    Consistently hilarious.
  13. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Michael O'Sullivan
    80
    A decidedly grown-up affair.
  14. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marjorie Baumgarten
    78
    The most articulate and entertaining commentary on racial differences to have come down the pike in quite a while.
  15. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    75
    Doesn't have the theatrical subtext or, let it be said, the genius of Richard Pryor.
  16. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Rene Rodriguez
    75
    Exuberant, often hilarious.
  17. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Carrie Rickey
    75
    Side-splitting concert film.
  18. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Peter Stack
    75
    Can make a person sick in two ways at once -- through its lowdown raunch and through the spasms of laughter that use stomach muscles one might not have known existed.
  19. San Francisco Examiner
    Reviewed by: Wesley Morris
    75
    Crassly funny passages.
  20. Baltimore Sun
    Reviewed by: Ann Hornaday
    75
    These guys are funny.
  21. Charlotte Observer
    Reviewed by: Lawrence Toppman
    75
    This picture won't attract white audiences. I doubt that blacks would flock to a Jerry Seinfeld concert film. But we'd all get along better if we realized we had the right to laugh at each other's foibles
  22. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Shawn Levy
    75
    Racy, obscene, spirited and infectious.
  23. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Gary Dauphin
    70
    Simultaneously hilarious and reprehensible.
  24. Film.com
    Reviewed by: Gemma Files
    70
    A two-hour slice --of comedy pie.
  25. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    67
    The routines are charged, even between jokes, with anticipatory hilarity.
  26. Mr. Showbiz
    Reviewed by: Kevin Maynard
    65
    Gets to the funny bone, but it could've cut deeper.
  27. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Michael Wilmington
    63
    One funny movie - for at least half the time.
  28. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Foreman
    63
    Unashamedly vulgar and exuberantly politically incorrect.
  29. TNT RoughCut
    Reviewed by: Susannah Breslin
    55
    Solidly entertaining if not remarkably innovative.
  30. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: David Sterritt
    50
    Sometimes they're truly hilarious; sometimes they're lazy enough to milk laughs from scattershot vulgarity.
  31. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Steve Simels
    30
    The relentlessly self-congratulatory tone is oppressive.
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