North 1994

Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune: It's a prime example of what can happen when hip, slightly cynical establishment filmmakers try to make a deeply sentimental movie. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: How could director Rob Reiner, whose touch for what pleases a mass audience is usually unfailing, have strayed this far? Read more

Janet Maslin, New York Times: North, a playful modern fable about a boy in search of new parents, doesn't always work, but much of it is clever in amusingly unpredictable ways. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: It's depressing enough to see a director turn into a button pusher. But what can you say about a director who just keeps hitting the same button? Read more

Michael Sragow, New Yorker: The amalgams of TV stereotypes that satirize foreign and regional cultures are embarrassing. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: The premise of North sounds flat, the previews look insipid, and, while the movie doesn't turn out nearly as bad as either would lead you to believe, North is still a lackluster production. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: It's strange and oddly distasteful, at its best managing to be bad in some original and unexpected ways. Read more

Geoff Andrew, Time Out: Reiner is undecided just how fantastically he should treat this ludicrous plotline. Added to which there's a dire musical number, a silly thriller subplot, and much maudlin didacticism from narrator Willis in various guardian angel (dis)guises. Misery. Read more

Leonard Klady, Variety: The intrinsic failure of Alan Zweibel and Andrew Scheinman's script is that it tips its hand from the start. Read more

Joe Brown, Washington Post: North seldom raises more than a chuckle. Read more

Rita Kempley, Washington Post: This movie is aimed at neither kids nor adults; it simply isn't aimed. Read more