They Came Together 2014

Sara Stewart, New York Post: Much of [the movie] will make you smile gently because it's familiar and taken to an extreme. Actual laughs may be harder to come by ... Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: A ponderous spoof of movie rom-coms that plummets stupidity to a new low even by Hollywood standards. Read more

Scott Foundas, Variety: A lively comic jamboree that's sometimes smarter than it is funny and hits about as often as it misses, but is, on balance, a good deal of fun. Read more

A.A. Dowd, AV Club: An enthusiastically zany comedy, made in the reality-bending tradition of a Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker production. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: "They Came Together" is occasionally very funny, and moderately funny the rest of the time. In mathematical terms that adds up to pretty funny or "funny enough." Read more

Stephan Lee, Entertainment Weekly: Rom-com tropes like the ''meet-cute'' are so tired that you can't just spoof them -- you have to spoof the spoofs, which this winking David Wain-Michael Showalter parody mostly succeeds at doing. Read more

William Goss, Film.com: A very fast, often very funny riff on a very tired Hollywood formula. Read more

John DeFore, Hollywood Reporter: The film fails to do what those rare, immortal rom-coms get right: take all of its individually pleasing ingredients and make a satisfying movie out of them. Read more

Amy Nicholson, L.A. Weekly: A formulaic romantic comedy cranked up to 11, loud enough to make the audience hear the distortion. Read more

Richard Brody, New Yorker: The leering title is the wittiest thing in this amiable comic misfire. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: I never stopped smirking as I watched the movie. But I would have traded all of it for half-a-dozen genuine smiles. Read more

Linda Holmes, NPR: The problem with They Came Together is that what it settles on as the parody-able thing about romantic comedy is how generic it can feel. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: Rudd and Poehler are a delight together; she hits the broader gags with endearing enthusiasm, and he tweaks his own experience as a romantic leading man with deadpan irony. Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: A series of hit-and-miss sketch-comedy bits rather than a fully realized movie that might have gutted contemporary rom-com cliches rather than just weakly aping them. Read more

Jake Coyle, Associated Press: Without a baseline for the comedy, the layers of spoof in "They Came Together" don't have the foundation to carry even a short movie. Read more

Christy Lemire, RogerEbert.com: Simply recreating what we know to be hackneyed and safe doesn't suddenly make it hilarious and surprising. There has to be a spin to it; there has to be some innovation. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: This rough-edged parody feels both distinctive and handmade, and for those reasons alone it's a hard movie to hate, even when it temporarily loses its comic footing. Read more

Courtney Shea, Globe and Mail: At times laugh out loud-inducing, but ultimately feels more like a promising Saturday Night Live skit (the romcom couple?) than a standalone piece of entertainment. Read more

Linda Barnard, Toronto Star: It's amusing enough summer entertainment with a winning cast ... and some genuine laughs thanks to its puppy-dog enthusiasm. And who doesn't like a dressing-to-impress montage? Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: They're not just making fun of rom-coms but of the idea of satire itself, or of the idea of jokes have to have meaning or logic or resonance. Fans will no doubt be amused; for everyone else, the results are so post-modern that they're post-funny. Read more

Keith Uhlich, Time Out: Everyone involved seems above the rom-com conventions they're satirizing, so anxious to get to each punch line that they let the connective tissue languish. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: They Came Together will likely appeal to rom-com fans as much as to those who find such films annoyingly cliched. Read more

Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine/Vulture: Wain's film is both a takedown and a tribute: As with his summer-camp-movie spoof Wet Hot American Summer, you walk away with a renewed love for the genre. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: Rudd and Poehler keep "They Came Together" floating along on a cloud of barely winking humor and their characters' shared love of "fiction books," Q-tips and coffee. Read more