The Nines 2007

Carina Chocano, Los Angeles Times: Bright and vicious, desperate and cruel, the characters of the first two stories pop with a kind of nihilistic joie de vivre that makes you want to hug them and kill them at once. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: You'll go ''Huh?'' but you won't feel cheated. Read more

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: Confusing? Yes, and intentionally so. But it's never boring. Read more

Scott Foundas, L.A. Weekly: In each segment, Reynolds (who gives the movie his all but gets little in return) finds himself haunted in some way by the titular numeral -- a feeling likely to be shared by anyone who spends about that many dollars on a ticket. Read more

Gene Seymour, Newsday: The cosmic "resolution" that ties the stories together proves less interesting than the stories themselves. Read more

Bob Mondello, NPR.org: Read more

Jack Mathews, New York Daily News: The dialogue snaps, crackles and pops. And confusing as they may be, the stories are never boring. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: The Nines, which in real life began as a TV project, wavers uncomfortably between satire and dime-store existentialism on the big screen. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: The movie never fails to be crisply written and cannily delivered, but it's way too steeped in TV-culture inside jokes for its own good, and August's attempts to suffuse the whole thing with ontological or theological meaning are ultimately pretty dumb. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: Read more

David Jenkins, Time Out: This overreaching, Lynch-lite comic drama is the mediocre directorial debut of screenwriter John August ('Charlie's Angels', 'Big Fish') and, if nothing else, demonstrates why some writers should stick to their laptops. Read more

Dennis Harvey, Variety: There's more than enough intelligence, intrigue and performance dazzle to make this an adventuresome gizmo for grownups. Read more