All About Steve 2009

A.O. Scott, At the Movies: It's dreadful. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: There's nothing wrong with All About Steve that a rewrite couldn't fix, as long as the rewrite involved a different writer, a different character and a different story. Read more

Amy Nicholson, I.E. Weekly: Not just dumb, it's dopey, moronic, doltish, obtuse and thick. Read more

Mary F. Pols, MSN Movies: He's the thing that lets Mary -- and the movie -- off the crazy hook. It quickly devolves into one of those 'what's normal anyway?' stories, and Bullock's dedication to the role is ultimately undermined. Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: It seems incredible, but the grimly unfunny comedy All About Steve might just be the worst movie on Sandra Bullock's resume. Read more

Joanne Kaufman, Wall Street Journal: A head-banging excuse for a comedy. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: Just the latest entry on a long list of movies that aren't even close to the great screwball comedy Bullock is capable of making. May it be the last. Read more

Nathan Rabin, AV Club: It's a celebration of brazen nonconformity centered on an insufferable flibbertigibbet who makes the worst case for nonconformity imaginable. Read more

Kerry Lengel, Arizona Republic: The results aren't quite Anchorman, but they're worth a chuckle. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: Easily the worst movie of the week, month, year, and Bullock's entire career. It is to comedy what leprosy once was to the island of Molokai: a plague best contemplated from many miles away. Read more

Cliff Doerksen, Chicago Reader: Packaged as a romantic comedy but devoid of comedy or romance, this baffling train wreck stars Sandra Bullock as a tediously kooky constructor of crossword puzzles for a Sacramento newspaper. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: Despite her downward-tilted head and her nattering ways, Mary really does want to connect. Watching her realize this isn't deep but it is sweet. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: A screwball comedy missing more than a few crucial screws. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: Oops, sorry, we're not supposed to think of Mary as mentally ill, psychologically unbalanced, or any of those painful things, just full of gumption and sunny determination. Read more

Eric D. Snider, Film.com: My biggest surprise is scanning the credits and not seeing the name Wayans or Prinze Jr. anywhere. Read more

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: Just when it seems All About Steve couldn't grow any more insufferable, it turns strangely sentimental. Read more

Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times: If you ever wanted to know what kind of movie plays deaf children falling into a sinkhole for laughs, look no further. Read more

Chuck Wilson, L.A. Weekly: [A] refreshingly quirky comedy. Read more

Connie Ogle, Miami Herald: One is tempted to feel bad for the usually likable Bullock -- who looks fantastic here, we must note -- but she's one of the film's producers, so she can't be too ashamed of herself. I am embarrassed for her, however. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: The film isn't merely unfunny and stupefyingly inane but a depressing waste of money, energy and time, yours included. Read more

Ella Taylor, NPR: All About Steve is a messy assemblage of clumsy sight gags, winking reaction shots and disingenuous populist genuflection to the idea that there's no such thing as normal. We all see a little bit of Mary in ourselves, don't we? Don't we? Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: Since Bullock coproduced this masochistic venture, it seems she buys into the idea that fluffer-nut ditziness is what she does best. Except it isn't. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy review. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: All About Steve, an unfunny, annoying, badly written, badly acted comic fiasco, may be the worst movie in Bullock's career. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: All About Steve struggles mightily to find its loony essence. But Bullock's apple-cheeked larkishness is all flailing limbs and bug-eyed reaction shots -- there's no there there. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: An actress should never, ever, be asked to run beside a van in red disco boots for more than about half a block, and then only if her child is being kidnapped. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: [An] unwatchable, unbearably unfunny farce in which Sandra Bullock hits the lowest point of her career... Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com: A romantic comedy so lunkheaded and ill-conceived that it makes your average, idiotic Kate Hudson-Matthew McConaughey outing look like the reincarnation of Hepburn and Grant. Read more

Amy Biancolli, San Francisco Chronicle: There's no footing in reality. Nothing about it feels authentic: not the blathering Mary, not the lifeless secondary characters, not the bromide-happy dialogue or the plot that twists less often than it spasms. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: While Bullock is often cast as the kook you want to hug, here she is a nut you want to run away from. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: With its commercial imperatives and subversive ambitions working at cross purposes, this puzzling movie doesn't have a clue what it's all about. Read more

Globe and Mail: Bullock, easing into her mid-40s with box-office mojo intact, remains the star attraction as the annoyingly endearing Mary. You simply can't imagine another actor of her stature pulling it off. Read more

Hank Sartin, Time Out: A talented director might have made Bullock seem like a comic genius, but Phil Traill has no control over tone, leaving the audience unsure whether to laugh or cry. Read more

Tom Huddleston, Time Out: Mary is a memorable comic creation for all the wrong reasons: glibly written, offensively characterised and bizarrely dressed, she's the classic screwball ditz taken to grotesque and at times unwatchable extremes. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Why would such talented actors as Bullock, Cooper, Thomas Haden Church and Ken Jeong sign on for something so dreadful? Read more

Brian Lowry, Variety: Misfiring on every conceivable front, it's that rarest of comedies -- one whose stabs at humor fall painfully flat, while eliciting unintentional giggles every time the film seeks to be serious or deliver a message... Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: If Bullock in her comfort zone is a thing of real, if modest pleasure, watching as she contorts herself into a role that's all wrong for her is singularly excruciating. Read more