Ugly Truth, The

Washington Post Ruth McCann

Pleasingly glossy, refreshingly snarky and startlingly sexy.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

The only thing that differentiates it from far too many other uninspired rom-coms is that some of the material is funny and there is an occasional edge to the repartee. Beyond that, however, it's a cookie-cutter movie, and the cookies are pretty stale.

Variety Todd McCarthy

The Ugly Truth is an arch, contrived, entirely predictable romantic comedy assembled with sufficient audience-friendly elements to put it over as both a good girls' night attraction and a date-night lure raunchy enough to leave couples in the right mood afterward.

Dallas Observer Chuck Wilson

Heigl and Butler have genuine chemistry, and the writers have given the duo some bitchy, snappy dialogue. They probably had in mind such workplace comedies as "Desk Set," starring Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, but in this day and age, witty banter and stars with chemistry aren't enough to catch an audience's attention.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The Ugly Truth isn't fizzy and fun -- it's vacuously snappy.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The comedy bogs down in relentless predictability and the puzzling overuse of naughty words.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

The movie has embarrassingly limited ideas about both the sexes and sex. Like Sandra Bullock’s career woman in “The Proposal,’’ Abby appears to have never heard of intercourse, much less experienced it.

The Hollywood Reporter Stephen Farber

A romantic comedy depends, of course, on the chemistry between the leads, and here the film is more successful. Both Heigl and Butler find the appeal in very flawed characters.

San Francisco Chronicle Amy Biancolli

Funny though it is - is it could have been a whole lot funnier.

TV Guide Alaina O'Connor

At the end of the day, people who want to see this movie aren't looking for something original. There's a certain familiarity that makes the romantic comedy a perennial favorite among audiences.

New Orleans Times-Picayune Mike Scott

It feels like a desperate attempt at edginess -- and desperation is never becoming, whether in real-life romance or in a romantic comedy.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

A highly calculated attempt to recalibrate with raunch the family entertainment template and cash in.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch Joe Williams

Mired in phoniness up to its neck. And above that, there's nothing.

Empire Helen O'Hara

It's not as risqué as it wishes it were, nor as likable as it should be. Butler's rarely been better-cast, but the material's too patchy to support him .

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

But The Ugly Truth can't escape its own ugly truth, that the central characters are written to extremes both ludicrous and tiring.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

Feels about 150 years out of date.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Screenwriters Nicole Eastman and the "Blonde" team of Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith provide dialogue that has the propriety of the locker room.

NPR Ella Taylor

The Ugly Truth serves up yet another tightly wound career woman, ripe for chopping up, tenderizing and ravishing by an alpha male who knows what's good for her.

Chicago Reader Cliff Doerksen

Director Robert Luketic telegraphs every dismal comic beat from Venus and Mars, then reinforces them with a twinkling, leering score.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

The sort of rom-com apparatus that no relationship can overcome.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Despite its appealing stars, The Ugly Truth is a charmless romantic comedy.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

Veers between crude and cloying.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

A cynical, clumsy, aptly titled attempt to cross the female-oriented romantic comedy with the male-oriented gross-out comedy that is interesting on several levels, none having to do with cinema.

Time Richard Corliss

In its wan attempt to be raunchy, the picture fails where Judd Apatow has usually succeeded; written by three women, this is a girl's mistaken idea of an R-rated comedy.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Taken as a whole, The Ugly Truth is much like its orgasms: phony and unsatisfying.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

A movie without a moment of truth to be found.

Wall Street Journal Joanne Kaufman

If the movie had even a moment of freshness or wit, one honest laugh. It doesn't--and that's the ugly truth.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Toss this ugly-ass crap to the curb, along with the other multiplex garbage, and see a romance that gets it right. I'm talking "(500) Days of Summer."

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Until that final, inevitable kiss, we have to listen to them, and the clatter of their crude, brainless exchanges is unbearable.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

The Ugly Truth is insulting to women, men and even goldfish.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

This is the sort of comedy that requires you not only to suspend disbelief, but your sanity as well.