The Perfect Man 2005

John Monaghan, Detroit Free Press: Add Heather Locklear to the list of strikingly beautiful actresses who somehow can't get a date on screen. That's the shaky premise of The Perfect Man. Read more

Connie Ogle, Miami Herald: [It] isn't funny or heartwarming or interesting on any level. Read more

Allison Benedikt, Chicago Tribune: We all realize two things: Noth is way too good for this stuff, and blogs are totally over. Read more

Carina Chocano, Los Angeles Times: Seriously, the perfect man would call social services. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: It's shy about addressing anything that requires a moment's thought -- selfish irresponsible parents, selfishly bratty kids, lying, talking others into lying. Read more

Karen Heller, Philadelphia Inquirer: As an actress, Duff has failed to grow, except in acquisition of highlights, showing an emotional range running the gamut from pout to sulk. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: Most of this movie is beyond lame. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: The premise is patently ridiculous, but the target audience of 12-year-old girls will be too charmed by the genre requisites to care. Read more

Emily Russin, Seattle Times: Duff, while a sparkly screen presence, needs to break out of her saccharine rut and head for an indie script. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: [It's] not a searing psychological thriller about a crazy mom and her sadistic daughter. It's a comedy of sorts, but without anything to laugh at. Read more

Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: The Perfect Man has a plot that turns sweet and charming Hillary Duff into a serial liar. She's not just telling little fibs. She's engaging in a prolonged and kind of mean practical joke on her mother. Read more

Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: The script sends one mixed message after another. What are we to feel about a woman who uses a parent-faculty meeting to place a public personals ad for herself as her child cringes, or who, well -- how else do you put this? -- seems pretty, um, easy. Read more

Keith Phipps, AV Club: Every time Duff opens her mouth, she confirms that her natural home is in magazines. Read more

Randy Cordova, Arizona Republic: If you tweaked the movie's giggly tone a little bit, you'd probably have a decent thriller about a maladjusted teen out to emotionally destroy her dim-bulb mother. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: The movie's foolish fantasy comes awfully close to seeming nuts. Read more

Amy Biancolli, Houston Chronicle: The Perfect Man isn't perfect, but it's not bad company for 100 minutes. Read more

Michael Booth, Denver Post: Duff has found a formula that works, on TV or on screen, as a loving, loyal and slightly confused high schooler. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Duff's character has problems too (she's tired of moving from city to city), but no actress this synthetically wholesome should engage in this much whining. Read more

Nancy Churnin, Dallas Morning News: Ms. Duff projects so much appeal that she leaps over lapses in logic like Super Mario over lava pits. Ms. Locklear helps, too, showing vulnerability and a bit of tenderness. Read more

Chuck Wilson, L.A. Weekly: Rosman and Wendkos run dry of ideas in the film's inert, overextended finale, when the 'Believe in yourself' speeches grow so thick that even the Duff-devoted may start rolling their eyes. Read more

Jan Stuart, Newsday: Boys get Batman and Luke Skywalker. Girls get Little Suzy Matchmaker. If I had to subsist on a steady diet of Hilary Duff and Amanda Bynes, I'd be looking into sex-change specialists. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Inoffensive doesn't make movies. And unless she starts improving her projects soon, neither, soon, will Hilary Duff. Read more

David Germain, Associated Press: The movie is a toxic buzz of sweetness that Duff's teen gal fans might lap up, while all others suffer through a prolonged sugar fit. Read more

Jami Bernard, New York Daily News: The story has a definite ick factor that detracts from even the small pleasures the movie might offer its teen audience. Read more

Stephen Holden, New York Times: The flimsy new Hilary Duff comedy toys with the notion of mother-daughter role reversal. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: The Perfect Man takes its idiotic plot and uses it as the excuse for scenes of awesome stupidity. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: The characters' victories never seem hard-won, their losses never seem painful, and the happy ending is guaranteed. Read more

Jennie Punter, Globe and Mail: When Duff finally realizes that she actually has found the perfect man for her mom, the web of mischief and deceit she has created almost seems too thick to destroy. But The Perfect Man is the kind of movie in which such webs become cotton candy. Read more

Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star: In the cautionary dystopian science-fiction parable The Perfect Man, we are offered a terrifying vision of a possible future: a world ruled by Hilary Duff. Read more

Anna Smith, Time Out: None of the leads convince or engage, and supporting characters are either gay stereotypes, routine little sisters or functional best friends. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: So imperfect that it may qualify as one of the summer's worst movies. Read more

Joe Leydon, Variety: [The] situation is mined mostly for mild chuckles and tepid sentiment. Read more

Matt Singer, Village Voice: Like a Nike commercial without a shot of the sneakers. Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: The movie doesn't even seem to know how disturbing, at its heart, its subject matter is, so that it can at least have fun with it. Read more

Stephen Hunter, Washington Post: Mostly the movie produces yawns when it's not producing awe that someone even bothered to make it. Read more