Larry Crowne 2011

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: It's perfectly pleasant big screen comfort food -- meatloaf, potatoes and apple cobbler served as bubbly Tom Petty and ELO tunes waft from the soundtrack. Read more

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: "Larry Crowne" serves as a reminder that you can have two of the most likable, bankable stars on the planet together, but strong writing is crucial to making them shine. Read more

Glenn Kenny, MSN Movies: You'd have to be in a really bad mood to be put off by this picture's admittedly kind of unabashed eagerness to please. Read more

Stephen Holden, New York Times: A rom-com fairy tale so tepid and well behaved that watching it feels like being stuck in traffic as giddy joy-riders in the opposite lane break the speed limit. Read more

Keith Uhlich, Time Out: Though both lead actors are able to coast for a while on their natural charm, it's evident by the soppy finale that their Sleepless in Seattle and Pretty Woman salad days are long past. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: The film is sometimes gentle to the point of blandness, but it's never flimsy. Read more

John Anderson, Wall Street Journal: You wonder who thought any of this was funny. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: The movie has just enough funny lines and amusing casting choices to make it all go down pleasantly, and Hanks' sweetly brash charisma could fill an entire multiplex of movies and then some. Read more

Keith Phipps, AV Club: It's as if Hanks and co-writer Nia Vardalos assumed that getting everyone in one place would be enough, and didn't think much further. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: With Tom Hanks in front of and behind the camera and Julia Roberts his co-star, you'd think "Larry Crowne" would have some A-list Hollywood charm. You're incorrect. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: "Larry Crowne'' isn't a movie for adults. It's a movie for adults who don't like things with screens and keyboards. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: There's some cute stuff involving Hanks and some teenagers who tool around campus on scooters, but an utter lack of chemistry between him and Roberts dooms the movie. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: It's the neediest movie of 2011, and one of the phoniest. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: It's enough that these two castaways are friends, but I guess friendship doesn't cut it when you're trying to create a star-driven hit. It should, though. Better a believable friendship than an unbelievable love affair. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: Larry Crowne doesn't come close to providing the rom-com satisfactions of films attached to the names Hanks and Roberts, or writer Nia Vardalos for that matter. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: This is film as comfort food, and even if it has very little nutritional value, its pleasantly bland texture will help keep you occupied until your next job interview or layoff notice. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: It's easy enough to accept the romantic-comedy luck of the two finding each another. It's much tougher, and ultimately useless, to buy everything else about this fairy tale of self-reinvention in a stalled economy. Read more

Kirk Honeycutt, Hollywood Reporter: A romantic comedy whose obsession with easy laughs undermines the dramatic opportunities in a story about a suddenly jobless man. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: "Larry Crowne" is an inside-out movie, acceptable around the edges but hollow and shockingly unconvincing at its core. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: The real reason to watch this modestly charming, featherweight bauble is the chemistry between Hanks and Roberts, beloved superstars who make a beautiful pair. Read more

Anthony Lane, New Yorker: To pluck romantic comedy from the jaws of a social crisis is a laudable project, worthy of Preston Sturges, and it's a pity that this featherlight drama-written by Tom Hanks and Nia Vardalos, and directed by Hanks himself-should falter in its task. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: It's about as close to real comedy as a cup of milky tea is to a real meal. Read more

Ella Taylor, NPR: Neither fish nor fowl, Larry Crowne skitters between pathos and shtick, wasting abundant acting talent as it goes. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: It put-puts along like a moped in busy traffic, content to amble around but not go anywhere. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: If you're looking for a movie you can take your parents or young children to without fear of embarrassment or the need for endless explanations, this is the one. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: Even if you wander into this congealed mess with nothing more demanding in mind than to spend a little time with two charming favorites, do not expect Forrest Gump or Pretty Woman. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: Too cute for its own good, Larry Crowne is nonetheless hard to dislike. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: As obvious and predictable as this story might be, it still works - in large part because we care about the human beings inhabiting this motion picture. Read more

Richard Roeper, Richard Roeper.com: Corny beyond belief, but a welcome relief from a summer filled with CGI, 3-D and sequels. The two leads are enormously charming. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: "Larry Crowne" has Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts and a good premise and a colorful supporting cast, but what it doesn't have is a reason for existing. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: Larry Crowne is more than a missed opportunity. It's alarmingly, depressingly out of touch. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: At this point in their careers, Hanks and Roberts know a lot about how to make movies and how to reach audiences; these are relaxed and professional star performance, long on charm and short on theatrics. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Hanks, as a writer-director, is talking about real things, even if he isn't depicting them with complete honesty. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: Neither the relationship of the two leads, nor any encounter between any of the film's other humans, seems to proceed according to the emotional or sociological customs of our culture. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Tom Hanks is killing time in "Larry Crowne," an adult romance that is heartwarming, uplifting and monumentally dull. Read more

Calvin Wilson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "Larry Crowne" proves that it's possible to be funny without being crude. But more than that, it's as easygoing as the character for which it's named. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: Next semester, the stars should drop Speech 217 and enroll in Chemistry 101 -- they dearly need some. Read more

Leah Rozen, TheWrap: An exceedingly minor entry on already impressive resumes. Read more

Mary F. Pols, TIME Magazine: When it comes to unemployment-themed cinema, I'll take the greater realism of last year's The Company Men or this year's Everything Must Go over Hanks's too rosy vision of life after the pink slip. Read more

Nigel Floyd, Time Out: This is like a well-worn vintage dress: comfortable but a little threadbare. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Soulless Hollywood product doesn't provide a better textbook example than this Tom Hanks/Julia Roberts vehicle. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Hanks directs with assurance. Perhaps if he had teamed with a more agile writer, less given to cheesy yuck-fests, Larry Crowne would be the nuanced adult love story it aims to be. Read more

Justin Chang, Variety: Movie stars may be less valued than they used to be, but it's still puzzling to see Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts stuck in a romantic comedy as flat-footed and tone deaf as Larry Crowne. Read more

Mark Olsen, Village Voice: With its eager-to-please congeniality, it almost works, but with a pacing that is at once comfortably assured and frustratingly slack, like holding exactly to the speed limit on a stretch of open road, Larry Crowne never quite comes to life. Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: As romantic comedies go, "Larry Crowne" is neither swooningly romantic nor howlingly funny. Read more