| 83 |
Portland Oregonian
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
A hoot, or at least a collection of delightful hootlets hung on a short, frayed line.
|
| 80 |
Slate
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
Pure unadulterated animal fun.
|
| 75 |
New York Daily News
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
A treat for aficionados of oddball movies.
|
| 75 |
Chicago Sun-Times
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
The result is a satisfying and original picture.
|
| 70 |
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Nature lacks a little of Malkovich's freshness, but that's just about all it lacks.
|
| 70 |
New Times (L.A.)
You'll laugh a lot, but not without a sense of animal desperation.
|
| 63 |
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
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
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
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
The second movie by "Being John Malkovich" writer Charlie Kaufman is even weirder than his first.
|
| 58 |
Entertainment Weekly
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
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
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
Feels forced and awkward, as though it's trying too hard to be weird, culty and profound.
|
| 50 |
Christian Science Monitor
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
The movie never gets off the ground. Kaufman's script is never especially clever and often is rather pretentious.
|
| 50 |
Chicago Tribune
Tries for both civilized wit and primitive joy -- and mostly misses both.
|
| 50 |
Variety
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
Should have been more polished, and less tame.
|
| 40 |
Village Voice
An overemphatic, would-be wacky, ultimately tedious sex farce.
|
| 40 |
Chicago Reader
Characters remain stuck in their cliche profiles, and the direction -- by music video specialist Michel Gondry -- doesn't improve matters.
|
| 40 |
LA Weekly
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
A goofball movie, in the way "Malkovich" was, but it tries too hard.
|
| 38 |
Charlotte Observer
Feeble, vapid picture.
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