| 75 |
Christian Science Monitor
The result is fine fantasy fun.
|
| 75 |
New York Post
It's Willis who delivers the goods in scene after scene, triumphing over a thin script, often bland direction.
|
| 75 |
Chicago Sun-Times
Warm-hearted and effective.
|
| 75 |
Entertainment Weekly
A parable for adults -- particularly men.
|
| 70 |
Time
It's a modest little fantasy. But it's also well made, unpretentious and refreshing.
|
| 63 |
Boston Globe
Too bad The Kid gets bogged down in its sentimental manipulations. It has more going for it than you might suppose.
|
| 63 |
Baltimore Sun
A pleasantly lightweight confection.
|
| 60 |
Dallas Observer
This is quintessential "family entertainment."
|
| 60 |
TNT RoughCut
An utterly competent, systematically entertaining summer movie.
|
| 60 |
Chicago Reader
Vigilant viewers may spend many of the 101 minutes fixating on tiny holes in the plot, but I was busy being moved by the premise and the filmmakers' confidence in the power of their metaphor: a little boy who's disappointed in the man he grew up to be.
|
| 60 |
Newsweek
But if the endpoint is a homiletic given, the journey itself is more charming, and less sentimental, than you might suspect.
|
| 60 |
Film.com
It's solid, if ultimately uninspired, July entertainment.
|
| 50 |
USA Today
This boomer-coddling comic fantasy, in which a callous adult on the brink of 40 has a chance encounter with his pudgy, lisping 8-year-old self, is an iffier what-if.
|
| 50 |
Charlotte Observer
Audrey Wells's script and Turteltaub's presentation ring true just often enough to prevent the comedy from descending forever into Cutesy-Wutesy Hell.
|
| 50 |
Salon.com
Perfectly acceptable entertainment in the Mouse Factory's most familiar vein.
|
| 50 |
LA Weekly
There isn't a moment in the film that isn't overhyped.
|
| 50 |
Los Angeles Times
A movie we might like to buy into if left to our own devices, but that idea is anathema to Turteltaub, intent on pushing us so hard that we end up pushing back.
|
| 50 |
San Francisco Chronicle
This slight, predictable comedy has appealing moments.
|
| 50 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
There's nothing Disneyesque about this bomb except the forced levity of its musical score.
|
| 50 |
The New York Times
Surprisingly enough, it often soars to heights of not bad.
|
| 45 |
Mr. Showbiz
Every time the movie seems poised to veer into watchability, however, Turteltaub is there, like a beat cop for the Fun Police, reminding us to laugh, sigh, or tear up.
|
| 42 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Willis and Breslin are stuck in a charmless, predictable picture they can't escape.
|
| 40 |
TV Guide
Manipulative but fitfully entertaining "Twilight Zone"-ish comedy of redemption.
|
| 40 |
Austin Chronicle
A lightweight, intermittently engaging comedy.
|
| 40 |
Rolling Stone
The comic screenplay...pivots on a toothless premise: Russ needs to get in touch with his inner child.
|
| 38 |
New York Daily News
Neither can I imagine many sane adults wanting to put themselves through this movie.
|
| 38 |
Chicago Tribune
Falls flat on its face.
|
| 30 |
Washington Post
So rich in processed sugar, canned sentiment and schmaltz, I thought I was going to throw up.
|
| 25 |
Miami Herald
Deadly dull.
|
| 25 |
San Francisco Examiner
Wields its Middle America values and moralistic flogging of idiosyncratic lifestyle choices like a flipped bird.
|
| 20 |
Variety
Director Jon Turteltaub's insistence upon hammering every point home with giant closeups and relentless musical underlining makes this insufferably cloying and sickly sweet.
|
| 10 |
Village Voice
The Kid's denouement resembles the nightmare that would have transpired had execs foisted a toupee and a happy ending on "12 Monkeys."
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