Hoot

Boston Globe Ty Burr

The movie balances cardboard comic bad-guys with believable teenagers, has the courage to avoid romance, and unlike most Hollywood films suggests parents can be helpful and loving as well as clueless.

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

Fun to watch although falling short of a real hoot, this latest in a barrage of family movies largely succeeds at keeping the kiddies entertained and their parents from nodding off.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Based on the charming young-adult novel by Florida bard Carl Hiaasen, Hoot is a pleasant diversion on the order of a gloriously photographed after-school special.

USA Today Claudia Puig

There is nothing objectionable in this family film, but it doesn't seem to appreciate the intelligence and savvy of its youthful audience. Kids can spot a silly stereotypical character as fast as the rest of us.

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

Hoot is flatly directed by talk-show-host-turned-sitcom-director Wil Shriner, but the young actors are spirited and appealing, and the movie's low-key anti-establishment posture is vastly preferable to the knee-jerk fulminations of a Michael Moore.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Shriner's direction has an Afterschool Special blandness, but those mechanical owls are quite realistic. While the film was in production Hiaasen said that he had "nightmare visions of the gopher in 'Caddyshack.' " He needn't have worried.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

The kids have good chemistry, there's some fun oddball humor stuck in around the slapstick, and the gorgeous photography of the Gulf Coast beaches, waterways and wildlife brings their mission to life.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Hoot may be warm and fuzzy with its adorable owls, triumphant kids and inviting Florida groves. But its forced, innocuous humor is unlikely to amuse anyone but the very young -- and the extremely forgiving.

The New York Times Lawrence Van Gelder

This sweet-natured but plodding adaptation of a young-adult novel by Carl Hiaasen could have used a little less broad satire of corporate greed and a few more, well, owls.

Los Angeles Times Jan Stuart

Any charm and character ascribed to Carl Hiaasen's bestselling book have been homogenized in Wil Shriner's flat screenplay and direction.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

The child actors are bland, the adult characters are forced to act like dunderheads to keep the paper-thin plot going, and the generic-sounding Jimmy Buffett songs are just a LITTLE out of sync with the film's target age group.

The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen

A blandly generic family film.

Variety Joe Leydon

Squeaky-clean, family-friendly opus.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson

The kids Hoot is aimed at weren't around to see all the previous films it echoes, particularly the toothless Disney live-action films of the '70s. They'll probably like Hoot fine. Everyone else in the audience is likely to nod off and have genial, bland, easygoing dreams.

Dallas Observer Luke Y. Thompson

Your individual tolerance for Jimmy Buffett music will determine how well all the scenes set to his music go down.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

The songs take some of the sting out of the numerous scenes involving alligators, snakes, attack dogs and bullies. Yet in their lazy way, they're one more reminder that kids are better off with a book than a middling movie adaptation of a book.

Miami Herald Peter Debruge

A filmmaker like John Sayles ("Sunshine State") who shares Hiaasen's issue-conscious outlook might have framed the lesson a bit more eloquently. But Shriner blows it.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

What's subversive about the movie is that it comes off as squeaky-clean, when in fact it's irresponsible. Worse, it's not that interesting.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

The goal is apparently a double exercise in heartfelt lessons and deep hilarity, but it's hard to tell because the pace feels so lethargic. Director and screenwriter Wil Shriner is a TV-sitcom veteran (Frasier, Everybody Loves Raymond) whose idea of directing a movie is to make another sitcom, only four times as long.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

As it is, Hoot doesn't accomplish anything a picture book of the Everglades and a few well-chosen Jimmy Buffett tunes wouldn't do better.

Austin Chronicle Toddy Burton

Earnest, playful and eco-friendly, Hoot is a worthwhile visit for the tween set, but parents may role their eyes more than once at this flightless film.

Chicago Reader Andrea Gronvall

Writer-director Wil Shriner tends to sit on almost every shot, killing any comic momentum (sequences with Luke Wilson as a dim-bulb cop are particularly witless), and ominous scenes involving cottonmouths and Rottweilers are glibly resolved.

New York Post Kyle Smith

Hoot peaks during its wordless opening credits sequence, which swoops delightfully around Florida scenery. That, the cute owls and the easygoing songs by Jimmy Buffett, who also plays one of Roy's teachers, are the only things worth your trouble.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Hoot has its heart in the right place, but I have been unable to locate its brain.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Don't let the Carl Hiaasen pedigree fool you: Hoot is an Afterschool Special too crummy to give a hoot about.

Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell

It's meant to be funny, but I couldn't help thinking they were figuring out where to plant the pipe bombs.