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100This one's so much fun, it's worth taking the whole family.
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Unfolds with such unforced inevitability that absurdity never condescends to sticky adorableness.
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90Waking Ned Devine works up enough feel-good momentum that in the end it's irresistible.
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90A roguish and delightful comedy of duplicity that's as entertaining as it is sly.
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90Kirk Jones, who wrote and directed this blithe comedy, has been a prize-winning director of television commercials. And he has the knack of finding rubbery, expressive faces and letting each villager's quirks emerge on cue.
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90A surpassingly sweet, funny and picturesque movie.
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90The plot is far from intricate, but Waking Ned Devine more than makes up for its narrative simplicity with a uniformly engaging cast of Hibernian oddballs.
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80Bannen and the gawky Kelly, whose screen chemistry is vital to the film's success, make a delightful pair of stumbling shysters, and Jones' script weaves a sizable tapestry of other characters to flesh out the village.
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80Writer-director Kirk Jones III keeps the movie resolutely brisk and light, twisting mildly this way and that but never detouring for long.
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75One of the joys of Waking Ned Devine is in the richness of the local eccentric population.
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75There's not a whole lot to Waking Ned Devine, but it may be enough for those who like their quirky comedies from the British Isles - a burgeoning genre now - both atmospheric and gentle.
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75An unabashed excursion into feel good territory.
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This slight movie gets by on its grungy charm, if not its class.
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70The movie is a passable entertainment -- call it The Half Monty.
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63The wonder is that the cast -- a terrific ensemble with talents honed on such hallowed stages as the Abbey Theatre -- brings it off with far more verve than the slight tale deserves.
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60Writer-director Kirk Jones has the movie roll over, fetch and chase its own tail in order to make you love it.
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60Though it strives for broad humor, pushing cuteness and light irony, this bland 1998 movie isn't exactly a comedy.
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50Destined to be a crowd-pleaser though it may be, this collection of Irish quirks and "charm" tied together by a slender plot also leans heavily in the direction of predigested commercial claptrap.
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50Predicated on the slimmest of notions, this debut by Jones is so cuddly-cute in its desire to be pleasing that it's all but transparent.
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50It's instructive that Waking Ned Devine is being so aggressively sold as a feel-good comedy; the "good" feeling in question is called condescension.
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40While one can detect a genuinely amusing screenplay somewhere under the flat direction and mysteriously stiff performances, the film is tediously slow.