Original Kings of Comedy, The

Boston Globe Jay Carr

Not only exhilarating and cathartic. It's too funny to be ignored.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

Their comedy gives audiences that have never seen anything like it a hilarious window on a new world.

Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector

Lee performs magic. He's preserved and expanded the experience of an adrenaline-pumping, uproarious night of racism-, classism-, and sexism-subverting humor.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

Turns a hysterical night of African-American humor into the hottest little picture of the summer.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

A dynamite concert film.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

A tornado of laughs based on the black experience as lived by these four insightful jokers, instead of as filtered through the Hollywood formula.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

It's not so much good material as divinely inspired delivery.

USA Today Mike Clark

Both the material and the way it's delivered by the movie's comic quartet are so funny.

Dallas Observer Bill Gallo

A fresh, intimate, gloriously unpolished performance film that measures up to the classics of the genre.

Film.com Ernest Hardy

It's a very funny film, one of the most enjoyable of the summer.

Variety Scott Foundas

Consistently hilarious.

LA Weekly Paul Malcolm

Both funny and furious -- on why black people are different from white people.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

A decidedly grown-up affair.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

The most articulate and entertaining commentary on racial differences to have come down the pike in quite a while.

San Francisco Chronicle Peter Stack

Can make a person sick in two ways at once -- through its lowdown raunch and through the spasms of laughter that use stomach muscles one might not have known existed.

San Francisco Examiner Wesley Morris

Crassly funny passages.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Side-splitting concert film.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Exuberant, often hilarious.

Baltimore Sun Ann Hornaday

These guys are funny.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Doesn't have the theatrical subtext or, let it be said, the genius of Richard Pryor.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

This picture won't attract white audiences. I doubt that blacks would flock to a Jerry Seinfeld concert film. But we'd all get along better if we realized we had the right to laugh at each other's foibles

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Racy, obscene, spirited and infectious.

Film.com Gemma Files

A two-hour slice --of comedy pie.

Village Voice Gary Dauphin

Simultaneously hilarious and reprehensible.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The routines are charged, even between jokes, with anticipatory hilarity.

Mr. Showbiz Kevin Maynard

Gets to the funny bone, but it could've cut deeper.

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

Unashamedly vulgar and exuberantly politically incorrect.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

One funny movie - for at least half the time.

TNT RoughCut Susannah Breslin

Solidly entertaining if not remarkably innovative.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Sometimes they're truly hilarious; sometimes they're lazy enough to milk laughs from scattershot vulgarity.

TV Guide Steve Simels

The relentlessly self-congratulatory tone is oppressive.