Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Boston Globe Jay Carr

With Carrey hitting a career peak, this Grinch doesn't steal Christmas; it restores the season by helping energize us enough to make it through the whole thing.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

He's (Carrey) a marvelous Grinch in this spirited, bustling and mostly faithful spin on Seuss.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

Deliriously inventive.

Film.com Robert Horton

Carrey is an actor possessed. He's brilliant.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Opulence almost interferes with the movie, weighing it down when it should seem lighter than air, surrounding the inarguably brilliant Carrey with too much frosting and frou-frou.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Carrey is excellent, making the most of his comic gifts even in a cumbersome Grinch outfit, and the eye-spinning color scheme is dazzling to behold.

Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector

Entrancingly lurid live-action fantasy.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Not likely to become any landmark achievement, yet it's sure to earn a berth among the perennial Christmas film classics.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

If anything, the real surprise here is how affecting he makes the Grinch's ultimate big hearted turnaround, as Carrey the actor sneaks up on Carrey the wild man dervish. In whichever mode, he carreys the movie.

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

By far the best and cutest thing about How the Grinch Stole Christmas is the dog Max.

San Francisco Examiner Wesley Morris

Leave it to Ron Howard to turn a plaintive Dr. Seuss ditty into a C-grade Tim Burton psychodrama.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

One overstuffed movie, but it's by no means a turkey.

TV Guide Steve Simels

A smartly stylized hoot.

Dallas Observer Luke Y. Thompson

The scenes involving just him (Carrey) are funny and full of life. All the other scenes are not.

USA Today Mike Clark

Overproduced and essentially charmless.

San Francisco Chronicle Peter Stack

Overall, the film sparkles. But it's a curiously unaffecting sparkle, an example, almost, of how the special effects stole Christmas.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

The movie rises to another level whenever its star has a chance to cut loose -- leading the ensemble in a conga line, winning a sack race in slow motion, torching the Whos' Christmas tree while screaming, "Burn baby burn."

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

It's a big stuffed turkey of a movie, just in time for the holidays.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Noisy, random and hard on the eyes.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

I am not a mind-reader and cannot be sure, but I think a lot of children are going to look at this movie with perplexity and distaste. It's just not much fun.

Film.com Sean Means

The heart of this movie isn't two sizes too small; it's just slightly misplaced.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

Misfires on nearly every possible level.

LA Weekly Hazel-Dawn Dumpert

This new feature has replaced the original's benevolence, taste and wit with cynicism, armpit humor and manic, desperately unfunny padding.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

The dullest, clunkiest, big-budget fantasy since Steven Spielberg flattened Peter Pan in "Hook."

Washington Post Desson Thomson

It's not Christmas that's being stolen here. It's the spirit of Dr. Seuss.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

You will not like it on the screen, you will not like it -- not one scene!

Slate David Edelstein

Profoundly unnecessary -- cluttered, padded even at 90 minutes, indifferently narrated by Anthony Hopkins, and consistently misdirected by Ron Howard.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Shrill, strenuous and entirely without charm, Ron Howard's attempt at a Christmas classic is an elaborately wrapped empty box that will fool many people into buying it but will not greatly please its recipients.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

So clogged with kooky gadgetry and special effects and glitter and goo that watching it feels like being gridlocked at Toys "R" Us during the Christmas rush.