Malibu's Most Wanted

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

The comedy is often crass and crude, but it makes telling points about how much of "race" is more about the words and gestures we use than the actual colors of our skins.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Kennedy doesn't take the character any deeper than a caricature of rich, nonblack fans of hip-hop culture. But as a caricature, he's fantastic.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

Malibu's Most Wanted mines a well-worn comedic vein, but does so with a consistent good humor and surprisingly deft touch.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

The racial satire is about as subtle as a sledgehammer, but there's something exhilarating about so blunt a weapon being swung with such wild abandon.

USA Today Mike Clark

Think of a B-grade "Bulworth" with lesser talents than A-listers Warren Beatty and Halle Berry.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Flashes of inspiration illuminate stretches of routine sitcom material; it's the kind of movie where the audience laughs loudly and then falls silent for the next five minutes.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

An unerring sign of the awfulness of Malibu's Most Wanted is a series of the least funny outtakes ever appended to a movie's closing credits.

Variety Robert Koehler

Ultimately implodes, letting down the 'hood, hip-hoppers and Jamie Kennedy fans looking forward to his first major starring role.

Village Voice Mark Holcomb

Most Wanted isn't aiming for social commentary, but it isn't too difficult to enjoy its good-natured humor.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

After an hour, or two-thirds of the film, they run out of gas. This is the kind of material that's easier to set up than it is to bring together in a satisfying fashion.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Think Jerry Lewis doing Eminem, or maybe it's Eminem doing Jerry Lewis (or maybe it's Pauly Shore doing Vanilla Ice), and you've got B-Rad.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

Too bad the film, which Kennedy spun from a stand-up skit, remains as blissfully unaware of its possibilities as B-Rad is of his absurdity.

Chicago Tribune Loren King

Doesn't aim for more than padding a plot around Kennedy so he can do his Brad "B-Rad" Gluckman character full-force. And the joke soon wears thin.

San Francisco Chronicle C.W. Nevius

A small triumph for lowered expectations.

Dallas Observer Luke Y. Thompson

Kennedy is funny, but too cartoonish to ever identify with -- Diggs and Anderson are the real stars of the show, and need more screen time.

TV Guide Steve Simels

The film delivers some genuine laughs — Diggs and Anderson are a hoot throughout — and real rapper Snoop Dogg all but steals the picture with his brief voice turn as Ronnie Rizzat.

Washington Post Jen Chaney

Wanted isn't quite the real Slim Shady of hip-hop comedies. But you might lose yourself in a few of its amusing moments.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

Any movie that lumps Mr. O'Neal, Ms. Derek and Snoop Dogg (as the voice of a gangsta-rap answer to Stuart Little) under the same title can't be all bad.

New York Post Megan Lehmann

Has laugh-out-loud moments of inspired idiocy. The problem is that this one-joke skit (done first and better by Britain's Ali G) has been given the Hamburger Helper treatment and stretched to feature length.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

A send-up of rap personality in which no one actually has a personality. The joke, alas, is on the movie.

LA Weekly Chuck Wilson

Amiable but not especially funny film.

Salon.com Charles Taylor

If only Malibu's Most Wanted had been a little more daring, it might have managed to satirize the playacting ludicrousness of gangsta style.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

Malibu's screenplay inexplicably required the creative efforts of four screenwriters (including Kennedy), which works out to about half a funny gag apiece.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Victor Dwyer

So far as I can remember, no such film has ever asked its audience to experience the level of excruciating discomfort an actual fish must feel when it is gored by a sharp hook, yanked into the air, and left to flail in desperation before succumbing to an agonizing death... Until now.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

The film feels like a truly awful "Saturday Night Live" sketch padded out to such unholy lengths as to make "It's Pat" seems like a comic masterstroke.