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100The most accurate movie about campus life that I can remember.
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100A sweet screenful of quirky chaos.
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100One of the most joyous, diverting and original mainstream American movies in years.
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100A giddy delight, with Michael Douglas delivering what may be the most relaxed and inventive performance of his career, and Tobey Maguire and Robert Downey Jr. trailing not far behind.
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90Downey, who radiates more energy doing nothing discernible than most other actors do when they let it all hang out, takes the film to another level.
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90Well-crafted scenes that carry a bracingly grown-up tang: unhurried, played in a low key, with plenty of time to savor the details of character and place.
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90A handsomely mounted, graceful production that is well-played across the board.
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90Massively inventive, Wonder Boys is spiked with fresh, perverse humor that flows naturally from the straight-faced playing.
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88An often-wondrous comedy, just as rich and surprising as "L.A. Confidential" but considerably less dark.
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88The first more-than-halfway-decent movie of a new millennium.
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83A terrific movie about middle-age malaise and a comedy of unusual wit and drollness.
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82This is certainly the best studio movie of the new year to date, and Douglas might even be remembered at next year's Oscars.
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80Maguire and Douglas are extraordinary (though Douglas feels a little old for his role, which seems to have been written for a man in his early 40s); even Downey Jr. delivers a sharp, understated performance.
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80With a cast this terrific and a story this rich and wry, Wonder Boys really can't miss, even if it thumps to an underwhelming and moralistic ending that undoes a fair amount of its goodwill.
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80Michael Douglas digs deep and delivers one of his best performances in Wonder Boys -- a comic dazzler of roguish wit and touching gravity that is driven by characters, not jokes.
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80(Douglas) is a superb (and underused) comic actor, one who knows that the secret of being funny is never begging for a laugh.
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80The casting of Michael Douglas against type as an over-the-hill novelist and writing professor is the sort of clever move that wins undeserved Oscars.
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75A wonderfully rumpled, loose comedy about the paralyzing fear of failure.
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75Among the movie's oddball treats are Robert Downey Jr. as Grady's flamboyant editor and Rip Torn as a pedantic author and sermonizer known only as Q.
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75The smartest movie to come out this year, and it could hardly be better cast.
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75Lovely performances from McDormand, Downey and Richard Knox, who looks uncommonly like Little Richard, as a bar owner named Vernon Hardapple.
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75Droll mild amusement.
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75With a wistful look at the wages of ambition and the failure of promise, Wonder Boys finally celebrates self-awareness, ending on a muted, quietly moving note of triumph.
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75Except for moments of labored symbolism and a too cozy ending, the movie stays sharply focused on its well-chosen targets.
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75See Wonder Boys for the acting, particularly McDormand and Maguire, but use the goofy moments to get popcorn refills.
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70It's striking on several counts.
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70Quite pleasant.
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67Plenty of fun while it lasts, but its aftereffects are mighty fleeting.
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60For those seeking even a little adventurousness in their filmgoing experiences, the movie will wear thin very quickly.
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58Sweet, flaky, and more than a little aimless.
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50While the story takes some clever turns, its psychology is far from convincing and its momentum flags long before the finale.
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50The sentimentality overtakes Wonder Boys when, in the last half hour, it tries to make nice with its characters and fashion a deep message from a trivial story.
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50As detached and unfocused as a college pothead. And about as much fun.
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50The pulse of Curtis Hanson's direction is lethargic; the comic bits are so slack and deadpan you could mistake the film for an earnest drama--an Afterschool Special for troubled kids and their pooped parents.
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40With so much going for it, how could the movie be such a dud?
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40The sad truth is that Wonder Boys is little more than a sentimentalized encomium to the disheveled, childish life it ascribes to writers.
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