Drop Dead Gorgeous

Salon.com Mary Elizabeth Williams

So genuinely, viciously funny you can't help laughing -- even when you feel really bad about yourself for doing so.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

Occasionally heavy-handed and overdone -- and scarcely free from a self-congratulatory tone -- this latest spoof is nonetheless lots of fun, clever and fearless, and loaded with wicked lines and touches.

San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann

One of the year's funniest acts of malice.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Although the satire is biting and the tone is irreverent, Drop Dead Gorgeous lacks the killer script and top notch performances necessary to make this a wholly successful production.

USA Today Susan Wloszczyna

Allison Janney is tacky incarnate as Barkin's good-time gal pal. When she shows up, Drop Dead Gorgeous comes most to life. [23 July 1999, Life, p.12E]

Film Threat Anthony Miele

The film sets a quirky tone and sustains it until a very bizarre and contrived ending.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

The script starts repeating its best gags about halfway through, and the direction gets ever broader as it goes along until the film finally loses all effectiveness as satire.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The script must have been a funny read. It's the movie that somehow never achieves takeoff speed.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Deirdre Kelly

It's not a winner and not quite a loser either. Like many a beauty contestant, it's glib instead of serious, stylish instead of substantial. Miss Universe, it could never be. Homecoming queen, maybe.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

An intermittently enjoyable bad movie that never knows when to stop.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Screenwriter Lona Williams doesn't seem to have gotten much beyond the petty absurdity of theme headdresses and ludicrous talent competitions.

Mr. Showbiz Kevin Maynard

A mockumentary about small-town beauty pageants that's so confidently unfunny it's DOA.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Drop Dead Ugly is more like it.

LA Weekly Manohla Dargis

The film means to be a darkly funny look at the perils of winning at all costs, but there's nothing dark and searching about its take.

Washington Post Rita Kempley

Ironically, the filmmakers don't seem to realize that their movie is even shallower and sillier than its targets.

Film.com Robert Horton

Oddly enough, I'm enjoying the memory of these jokes more than I actually enjoyed watching the film.

Chicago Tribune Barbara Shulgasser

There may be better ways to waste your time than seeing this movie.

San Francisco Examiner Wesley Morris

It should be renamed "Drop Dead Ghetto" and hauled off to the "Jerry Springer" hall of shame.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

A cheap cut-glass tiara of a booby prize goes to Drop Dead Gorgeous for messing up so utterly.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

It's like a cross between "Heathers" and "Waiting For Guffman," had those movies been made by morons, for morons, and the cinematic equivalent of cow-tipping, only less graceful.

Variety Dennis Harvey

A relatively pain-free, if brain-free, diversion.

Film.com John Hartl

Broad, obvious and thuddingly unfunny, Drop Dead Gorgeous makes almost every previous "mockumentary" look like a work of genius.

New Times (L.A.) Bill Gallo

With malice for all, Drop Dead Gorgeous isn't likely to win any popularity contests.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Screenwriter Lona Williams and director Michael Patrick Jann spare no attempt to show characters at their zaniest, wackiest or most grotesque. The effect is disconcerting. Is this light comedy or dark satire? It ends up being neither.

Newsweek Ted Gideonse

The crude humor in Drop Dead Gorgeous does not have a moral point to it. It's just crude.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Even sillier than it is cynical, Drop Dead Gorgeous is a tiresome tale.

Film.com Sean Means

Drop Dead Gorgeous eventually shows that it doesn't like anybody -- in the movie or in the audience.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

This biting parody of flyover-state beauty contests feels like a bad made-for-TV movie of the week.