New Guy, The

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

If physical appearance creates its own class system (in high school and beyond), then Qualls is perfect for this proselytizing role. He has that rarest of movie-star faces -- one that over comes the tyranny of beauty.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

The New Guy doesn't have a new idea in its head, but it trods over the old ground with such wit and heart that its lack of originality can be overlooked, if not entirely forgiven.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

A Jekyll-and-Hyde teen comedy that sounds like a Pauly Shore reject, but Qualls moves his marionette body around with a true clown's effervescence, and he does rubber-faced parodies of youth cool that are just what youth cool deserves.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

It makes little sense, fails as often as it succeeds, and yet is not hateful and is sometimes quite cheerfully original.

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

Uneven but occasionally hilarious teen comedy.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

A bad-taste comedy with a heart.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

A comedy just funny enough to make viewers wish it were far funnier.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

It isn't very good, but it doesn’t seem to care, which turns out to be rather refreshing.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

Tries everything possible to win you over -- satire, gross-out comedy, even earnest romance. But as any high-schooler can tell you, the harder you try, the bigger you fall.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

The slapdash comic flailing of screenwriter and TV scribe-turned-director Ed Decter is only compounded by a script so disconnected you have to wonder if pages were lost on the way to the set.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

You have to have faith that kids will recognize a bad movie when it's foisted on them -- and they don't get much worse than The New Guy.

San Francisco Chronicle Carla Meyer

Lame, haphazard teen comedy.

Miami Herald Charles Savage

Anyone who wants to enjoy himself at a good movie about a high school geek who undergoes a transformation should go see "'Spider-Man" again instead.

Boston Globe Renee Graham

Probably would have worked better as a slamming soundtrack than as a muddle-headed movie.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Lame, derivative comedy.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

In an inspired bit of casting, Lyle Lovett plays the dad of the goofy-looking Diz/Gil. That these two could be related might be the only believable touch in this whole misfired thing.

LA Weekly Mark Olsen

Various actors deserving of better (including Zooey Deschanel, Eddie Griffin and Lyle Lovett) suffer through the undercooked material, while love interest Eliza Dushku gamely gets through both a bikini-modeling montage and a mechanical bull ride, but none of their efforts can save this film.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Reaches breathtaking lows of incoherence, sexism, racial stereotyping, and -- did I say incoherence?

Los Angeles Times Gene Seymour

An unintentional parody of every teen movie made in the last five years. Which can be the only rational explanation for making such a mess all over the screen.

Variety Robert Koehler

Overall aroma of movie junk food.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Feckless and crude without any particularly funny redeeming value. If there's anything more to this poor excuse of a movie than immediately meets the eye, I'll get back to you.

New Times (L.A.) Robert Wilonsky

An ugly-duckling tale so hideously and clumsily told it feels accidental. Surely, no one PLANNED something this disastrously unfunny.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

A particularly loathsome piece of cultural detritus, a trashy, crass piece of work that panders to the anxieties and desires of adolescents without a scintilla of sympathy or coherence.