New This Week
Critics & Publications
Archives: A-Z Index
Advanced Search

Upcoming Release Calendar
Awards & Bests By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

sort by name

sort by score

38 12 Rounds
xx Baby on Board
xx Bob Funk
62 Cherry Blossoms
38 Confessions of a Shopaholic
38 Crossing Over
38 Dark Streets
58 Defiance
45 Fanboys
31 Fired Up
37 Forever Strong
34 Friday the 13th
72 Gran Torino
47 He's Just Not That Into You
47 Inkheart
52 International, The
45 Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience
50 Madea Goes to Jail
51 Morning Light
51 My Bloody Valentine 3-D
29 New in Town
28 Nobel Son
40 Outlander
39 Paul Blart: Mall Cop
56 Phoebe in Wonderland
36 Pink Panther 2
xx Powder Blue
69 Revolutionary Road
20 Spinning Into Butter
17 Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li
64 Thousand Years of Good Prayers, A
63 Tokyo!
74 Two Lovers
56 Valkyrie
91 Waltz with Bashir
22 What Goes Up

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Serving Sara
Paramount Pictures


4.1

based on 26 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 11 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

FILM:

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for crude humor, sexual content and language

Starring Matthew Perry, Elizabeth Hurley, Bruce Campbell, Vincent Pastore, Cedric the Entertainer, and Jerry Stiller

When Sara (Hurley) is served divorce papers while vacationing in New York, she concocts a scheme with her process server (Perry) that sets them off on a wild cross-country trip.

GENRE(S):	Comedy
WRITTEN BY:	Jay Scherick David Ronn
DIRECTED BY:	Reginald Hudlin
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: January 28, 2003 Video: January 28, 2003 Theatrical: August 23, 2002
RUNNING TIME:	100 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	Germany / USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

Folks, I think I'm speaking for all of us when I say this is pretty darn fine American entertainment

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Perry isn't the only thing wrong with Serving Sara, but he's the thing that takes a pleasantly mediocre movie and turns it into an unpleasantly mediocre one.

Chicago Tribune Robert K. Elder

When Serving Sara reaches beyond its grasp and dreams big, Perry and Hurley float the movie on aplomb and wit. When the film gears down for slower-paced set pieces and disposable villains, its stars find themselves knee-deep in a giant comedy cow pie.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

For all the hot air expended, this film ends up all smoke and no heat.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

Serving Sara, which often feels more like serving time, is one of those tortured Hollywood romantic comedies that starts with a passable premise and turns into an inventory of flat gags and weak lines set against a travelogue backdrop.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Even dumber than Perry's "Three to Tango," this latest sitcommy exercise is sporadically funny in spite of itself -- and not quite as dreadful as you would suspect.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Romantic screwball comedies are supposed to be at least a little romantic, but there's no chemistry between Perry and Hurley.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

The few jaunty, ''Friends''-inflected lines Perry does get off are lost among the cow pies.

Variety Robert Koehler

Little more than a mall movie designed to kill time.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

Serving Sara is D.O.A., with nary a laugh to be found.

Miami Herald Connie Ogle

Downright terrible: impossible to enjoy, impossible to believe.

Portland Oregonian Kim Morgan

A lazy, trite comedy that's made by people who don't care either.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Perry and Hurley don't have much chemistry, and the story is so dumb you might want to sue it for stupidity.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

How inept is Serving Sara? It makes even Elizabeth Hurley seem graceless and ugly.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Let me say, in my desire always to be positive, that Serving Sara is the funniest film I know where a man sticks his arm up a bull's rectum to massage its prostate.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Defined by three characteristics. It is as stupid as a decapitated worm. It is as irritating as a mosquito buzzing around one's head. And it is as funny as "Schindler's List."

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

This movie doesn't play; it just lies there, waiting to be kicked around by anyone unfortunate enough to have shelled out good money to see it.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Long before Serving Sara drags its butt to the finish line, you wish you were watching a different race.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

With the dog days of August upon us, think of this dog of a movie as the cinematic equivalent of high humidity.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Surprisingly, Hurley comes off better than either of her demonstrably more versatile co-stars; she's not much of an actress, but she has an engagingly saucy swagger and her open-mouthed expression of outraged disbelief is priceless.

Los Angeles Times Manohla Dargis

Crushingly unfunny.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Misbegotten late-summer special.

New Times (L.A.) Jean Oppenheimer

Numbingly feeble -- The dialogue is witless, the situations are lame, the humor juvenile and the chemistry between the stars nonexistent.

LA Weekly John Patterson

All Serving Sara can offer is Perry with his arm shoulder-deep up a longhorn steer's backside, a wasted supporting cast that includes Vincent Pastore and Cedric the Entertainer, and a huge, comedian-shaped hole where Hurley's performance should be.

Austin Chronicle Steve Davis

It's the kind of bad movie that gives bad movies a bad name.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

As a child, I thought pure hell meant eternal agony in the flames of Satan. Now I know it's looking down at your watch and realizing Serving Sara isn't even halfway through.

The average user rating for this movie is 4.1 (out of 10) based on 11 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Sang Hee J. gave it a1:
A strange film that wanted to make me cry...for loss of a good $6. It can entertain you for about thirty seconds at a time..a shoddy and stupid film.

Pat C. gave it a 3:
Your basic disposable dumb-ass movie. The bull-milking scene could have been hilarious if it hadn't been so shoddily designed. As a divorce-premised story in the vein of Intolerable Cruelty, it would have been a catastrophe if children had been involved.

raVen gave it a 2:
If ever there was proof that movie makers choose the best 60 seconds to show on commercials, this movie is it. The thing is, Elzabeth Hurley's jeans can be eaten by airport machinery only once, and the rest of the movie is just a swirling mess of jokes not worthy of being scratched into locker room walls.

The Cult Of Gilbert Mulroneycakes gave it a 1:
Hmm...no. Sorry, doesn't work. I'd say try again, but, er, just don't. Except Matthew Perry, who I still INSIST is capable of better. Better than this, than Three to Tango, than Story of Us, of...well, everything. PICK A GOOD SCRIPT, MATTHEW! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! Hurley: just go away.

Alan S. gave it a 1:
Would have been a 0 except for a brief shot of Hurley's panties. Awful, awful movie.

Jeff L. gave it a 3:
You have already seen this movie, it just had a different title the last time around.

Yareth B. gave it a 10:
The best thing i have ever seen.

Serving Sara Paramount Pictures

Serving Sara
Paramount Pictures