| 90 |
Variety
A flat-out hilarious mainstream comedy.
|
| 90 |
Los Angeles Times
This buoyant, giddy comedy of catastrophe is the funniest film of the year so far, possibly the most amusing mainstream live-action comedy since "There's Something About Mary."
|
| 88 |
Baltimore Sun
De Niro and Stiller combine to bring on laughs you don't have to feel guilty about.
|
| 88 |
Christian Science Monitor
Many belly laughs.
|
| 83 |
Mr. Showbiz
It's funny. Really funny.
|
| 83 |
Entertainment Weekly
It's a bouncy, loose limbed, ''families do the darnedest things'' sitcom that elicits ungrudging laughs.
|
| 80 |
Slate
Has a soft windup, but along the way are some of the best-constructed slapstick sequences since "There's Something About Mary."
|
| 80 |
Salon.com
De Niro's performance works because it isn't exactly likable -- he's totally at ease with his own jokes, but he's not out to make us feel relaxed.
|
| 80 |
Washington Post
Roach knows to play to the movie's twin strengths: Stiller and De Niro. Throw these guys together, turn up the intensity.
|
| 80 |
Rolling Stone
A hilarious hodgepodge, in which De Niro gives his best comic performance to date.
|
| 75 |
San Francisco Chronicle
It's a kind of "sex, lies and videotape'' in suburbia.
|
| 75 |
Miami Herald
Calling a comedy old-fashioned nowadays might seem like a backhanded compliment, but that's precisely what this genial, funny movie is.
|
| 75 |
Boston Globe
Distress of Parents is a real pleasure.
|
| 75 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
Blithely funny and on-the-money movie.
|
| 75 |
New York Daily News
What makes it work so well is superb chemistry and a light touch. The spray-painted cat scene doesn't hurt, either.
|
| 75 |
USA Today
With near-Swiss precision, director/producer Jay Roach and his writers make sure familiarity breeds hilarity.
|
| 75 |
Chicago Tribune
These two actors have a kind of genius for dark comedy: Stiller for suffering through crises and De Niro for creating them.
|
| 75 |
New York Post
Part sitcom, part comedy of manners - but it lacks the courage to deal honestly with class and ethnicity.
|
| 75 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Stiller is enjoyably long-suffering, and De Niro convinces us that Attila the Hun would make a preferable father-in-law.
|
| 75 |
Chicago Sun-Times
Directed by Jay Roach, who made the "Austin Powers" movies and here shows he can dial down from farce into a comedy of (bad) manners. His movie is funnier because it never tries too hard.
|
| 70 |
Chicago Reader
Scenes that should have been uproarious are weaker than many of the movie's smaller moments.
|
| 70 |
Film.com
Delivers its humor with clockwork reliability.
|
| 70 |
The New York Times
This is a high-concept comedy, and none of the jokes are forced, which makes Meet the Parents a singular achievement.
|
| 70 |
Film.com
While this movie is no great advance in cinema comedy, it is rewardingly silly.
|
| 70 |
LA Weekly
While Stiller and De Niro can play hilariously off one another, the film -- despite its happy ending -- feels unresolved.
|
| 70 |
Dallas Observer
It has just enough "comedy" to qualify as crowd-pleaser.
|
| 70 |
Newsweek
Director Jay Roach ("Austin Powers") has a keen sense of comic timing, and the script keeps finding clever new ways to mortify our poor hero.
|
| 67 |
Portland Oregonian
A funny and sometimes substantial movie that in real life would never have a happy ending.
|
| 67 |
Austin Chronicle
Ultimately passable movie entertainment, but like most future in-laws leaves a feeling of something still desired.
|
| 63 |
San Francisco Examiner
What begins as unassumingly dull wanders into disarming chaos.
|
| 60 |
TV Guide
The gross-out factor is surprisingly low, and the combination of Stiller and De Niro is inspired.
|
| 50 |
Village Voice
Watching Ben get the girl or be seriously injured trying always has its dry, keening pleasures.
|
| 40 |
TNT RoughCut
Never before have two such skilled actors been so monstrously squandered in a movie so replete with failed gags and pathetic gaffs.
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