| 83 |
Portland Oregonian
Shawn Levy
Both deeply weird and charmingly dear.
|
| 80 |
Newsweek
Devin Gordon
Kaufman's new script isn't as inspired as "Malkovich." It's a precious little concoction -- the B-plus work of a madcap genius.
|
| 80 |
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
A hoot, or at least a collection of delightful hootlets hung on a short, frayed line.
|
| 80 |
Slate
David Edelstein
The characters are much less finely tuned and the climax is a botch, but the French-financed film is often a riot, and the sensibility is all there.
|
| 78 |
Austin Chronicle
Marc Savlov
Pure unadulterated animal fun.
|
| 75 |
New York Daily News
Jack Mathews
Fresh and often very funny, and it makes its point that when our native urges conflict with social norms, the former shall give in to the latter, or else.
|
| 75 |
New York Post
Lou Lumenick
A treat for aficionados of oddball movies.
|
| 75 |
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
The movie has nowhere much to go and nothing much to prove, except that Stephen King is correct and if you can devise the right characters and the right situation, the plot will take care of itself -- or not, as the case may be.
|
| 75 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
The result is a satisfying and original picture.
|
| 70 |
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Keith Phipps
Nature lacks a little of Malkovich's freshness, but that's just about all it lacks.
|
| 70 |
New Times (L.A.)
Gregory Weinkauf
You'll laugh a lot, but not without a sense of animal desperation.
|
| 63 |
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Liam Lacey
Human Nature's zigzag ingenuity wears out some time before the farce bounces slowly to an uneven conclusion. For all its highfalutin title and corkscrew narrative, the movie turns out to be not much more than a shaggy human tale.
|
| 63 |
Boston Globe
Renee Graham
It's just weirdness for the sake of weirdness, and where ''Human Nature'' should be ingratiating, it's just grating.
|
| 60 |
Washington Post
Stephen Hunter
In truth, I didn't care much for it, while respecting it a great deal. It's self-consciously childish and "innocent," and everything is overdrawn to cartoon dimension.
|
| 60 |
Film Threat
Ron Wells
What was needed was either a Stanley Kubrick, or, well, the Farrelly Brothers. Instead we get warmed over Spike Jonze. Still, a little watered down Spike Jonze has to be entertaining some of the time, so this isn't a total loss.
|
| 60 |
Salon.com
Andrew O'Hehir
The second movie by "Being John Malkovich" writer Charlie Kaufman is even weirder than his first.
|
| 58 |
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
The movie is too cute to take itself too seriously, but it still feels like it was made by some very stoned college students.
|
| 50 |
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
After some promising leaps, bounds and swings through a fascinating jungle of possibility, Charlie Kaufman's movie misses an all-important creeper.
|
| 50 |
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
The best stuff in Human Nature comes early, while the movie is still spry and daring --Then the film runs out of ideas, repetition sets in and so does boredom.
|
| 50 |
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
Feels forced and awkward, as though it's trying too hard to be weird, culty and profound.
|
| 50 |
Christian Science Monitor
David Sterritt
Every single frame of this film is as cute, slick, and snappy as the adorable little mice who end the movie with a gag right out of "Babe: Pig in the City."
|
| 50 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
William Arnold
The movie never gets off the ground. Kaufman's script is never especially clever and often is rather pretentious.
|
| 50 |
Chicago Tribune
Michael Wilmington
Tries for both civilized wit and primitive joy -- and mostly misses both.
|
| 50 |
Variety
Todd McCarthy
Charlie Kaufman's clever screenplay bears many traces of the same brand of originality and eccentric imagination that graced his work on "Being John Malkovich," although even at an hour-and-a-half the conceit is stretched almost too thin for audience sustenance.
|
| 50 |
The New York Times
Dana Stevens
Should have been more polished, and less tame.
|
| 40 |
Village Voice
J. Hoberman
An overemphatic, would-be wacky, ultimately tedious sex farce.
|
| 40 |
Chicago Reader
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Characters remain stuck in their cliche profiles, and the direction -- by music video specialist Michel Gondry -- doesn't improve matters.
|
| 40 |
LA Weekly
John Powers
Although a few moments are hilarious, this would-be romp remains laboriously earthbound when it should be swinging gaily through the trees.
|
| 40 |
Los Angeles Times
John Anderson
A goofball movie, in the way "Malkovich" was, but it tries too hard.
|
| 38 |
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
Feeble, vapid picture.
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