The Year One 2009

Amy Nicholson, Boxoffice Magazine: Harold Ramis' comedy is more evolved than the trailers let on, but after a solid hit to the popcorn audience's vestigial funny bone, the humor retreats into a lazy, generic swamp. Read more

Ben Lyons, At the Movies: This is a significant notch below the great Monty Python films that tackled religion with intelligence and wit. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: Ramis' challenge in Year One, which he wrote with Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg, is to keep the vibe loose while delivering the laughs. They come in fits and starts. Read more

James Rocchi, MSN Movies: "Year One" is the kind of stuff Mel Brooks would have whipped up back in the day -- and, frankly, whipped through in about a half-hour. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: Mostly Year One moves along ploddingly, stepping frequently into bathroom humor and never quite funny enough to justify its high concept; when it's over, it quickly slips away. Read more

Josh Modell, AV Club: It's a potentially funny, tricky premise, and in the hands of someone as talented and slightly skewed as writer-director Harold Ramis and a pair of writers from The Office, it should have worked. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: Any good will the movie generates is grated right back off by Black, whose obnoxiousness has lost whatever charm it once possessed. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: There is plenty of lowbrow, knuckle-dragging humor; coupled with all the gay jokes, poop jokes, Jewish jokes and you're-stupider-than-I-am jokes, the arrested-development crowd will no doubt be thoroughly entertained. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: Creatively it's a giant step backwards, with Jack Black and Michael Cera playing to the kids as inept hunter-gatherers who stumble across various Old Testament characters. Read more

Mick LaSalle, Houston Chronicle: Year One has one joke, but it's a good one, played for many variations over the course of an often very funny comedy. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: The people who made Year One seem to think that all you have to do to make a hit comedy is get a bunch of jokesters together. But where are the jokes? Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: Year One is a good short skit drawn out far, far too long, another big, dumb offering to the summer movie gods that is unlikely to appease or please anyone. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Platt, more than anyone, is the soul of the movie, because he makes even the most
 primitive perversity sound...well, civilized. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: <emYear One is destined to become one of those movies you always stop to watch a little of while channel surfing late-night TV, but there's too much dead air to warrant its survival past next week, when Transformers 2 arrives to clean house. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Has neither wit nor wisdom nor charm nor beauty. Read more

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: Somehow, despite the presence of those reliable actors and the highly advanced skills of comic veterans Harold Ramis and Judd Apatow behind the scenes, Year One manages to be a dud. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: Talk about a disaster of Biblical proportions. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: Year One is nowhere near as funny as the ancient-civilization movies I saw in high school: Life of Brian, History of the World Part I, Caligula. Its script isn't worth the papyrus it's inscribed on. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: Year One is this summer's The Love Guru, this weekend's Land of the Lost. Read more

David Hiltbrand, Philadelphia Inquirer: The actors make a surprisingly effective comic team, with Black's manic energy trampolining off Cera's deflated passivity. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: An inexplicably unfunny comedy made by two people who have proven they can do much better: director/co-writer Harold Ramis and co-producer Judd Apatow. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Year One is a dreary experience, and all the ending accomplishes is to bring it to a close. Even in the credit cookies, you don't sense the actors having much fun. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com: It ambles along uncertainly, hobbled by the lack of chemistry between its two lead actors, and by gags that either try too hard or suffer from being barely there. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: Year One is a slapdash concoction with an overreliance on scatological gags and a long lag time between laughs. I freely admit that. Yet I have a certain affection for this movie, if only because of its conceptual simplicity. Read more

Tom Horgen, Minneapolis Star Tribune: On paper, Ramis and producer Apatow set themselves up for success: The cast is a who's who of funnymen. Unfortunately, the script doesn't give them a whole lot to work with. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: On the surface, it resembles Monty Python's Life of Brian. Yet underneath, there's cheap material. Sometimes, it briefly gleams; but in the final reckoning, it's dull. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: Black and Cera posed in cave-man outfits for an amusing poster. Then the movie was brought forth and things went downhill. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: The jokes are so laden with groaners you almost expect to hear rim shots after every line. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: Read more

Tom Huddlestone, Time Out: 'Year One' wants to be seen as a freeform, knockabout trawl through Biblical history, perfect for an undemanding Saturday night. There are only two problems: it's kind of dull and just isn't funny. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Year One is scattershot and silly, squandering its potential by relying on juvenile bawdy humor. Read more

Ronnie Scheib, Variety: An amiable stroll through biblical times featuring Jack Black and Michael Cera as exiled Neanderthals, Year One lacks seismic guffaws but elicits many mild smiles. Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: A lowbrow, only fitfully amusing comedy. Read more