Fast Track 2006

Connie Ogle, Miami Herald: As it is, The Ex doesn't test your funny bone, only your patience. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: Jesse Peretz directs, and note how he treats the script (by David Guion and Michael Handelman) in its broadest slapstick elements. Not too well, that's how. Read more

Andrea Gronvall, Chicago Reader: Even likable star Zach Braff can't salvage this clunker. Read more

Ted Fry, Seattle Times: Depending upon your perspective, The Ex is either too offensive to be funny or too stupid to be offensive. Read more

Hap Erstein, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Braff has a natural likability, but the screenplay gives him so many stupid, far-fetched and annoying things to do that The Ex loses credibility quickly. Read more

Nathan Rabin, AV Club: It's good to have Grodin back onscreen after an extended absence; it's just a shame it has to be in this dreary graveyard of wasted opportunities. Read more

Bill Muller, Arizona Republic: If you're looking for Braff's most average movie to date, The Ex marks the spot. Read more

Janice Page, Boston Globe: The next time Grodin attempts a comeback, it would be so great if he avoids movies where he might be upstaged by a sandwich stunt. Read more

Kevin Crust, Los Angeles Times: A completely forgettable comedy starring Zach Braff and Amanda Peet, The Ex takes a mix of tired scenarios and combines them in a way that makes the nearly 90 minutes feel much longer. Read more

Amy Biancolli, Houston Chronicle: Nothing is more of a downer than a movie that trots out a great cast and stumbles; that tries to be cutesy and fails. Read more

Michael Booth, Denver Post: So much of comedy is in the timing, though, and The Ex doesn't quite know when to quit. Or at least move on. Read more

Gregory Kirschling, Entertainment Weekly: What if Zach Braff acted in one more quarter-life-crisis movie, and instead of Sundance it went straight to video? If only that's what had happened to The Ex. Read more

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: It's a comedy with a few good gags, a completely wasted cast and all the signs of a project that has undergone unnecessary emergency surgery. Read more

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: It simultaneously feels truncated and interminable, and it grossly wastes the comic talents of Amy Poehler, Paul Rudd, Donal Logue and Charles Grodin, making his first movie in 13 years. Read more

Scott Foundas, L.A. Weekly: When it works (which is at least half of the time), this antic romp has the off-the-wall, go-for-broke zaniness of that other great modern screwball comedy, David O. Russell's Flirting with Disaster. Read more

Jan Stuart, Newsday: As it is, we are left to wonder why neither Tom's wife nor anyone working at Chip's office are not able to see through his machinations. Read more

Lisa Rose, Newark Star-Ledger: The Ex is shrill when it means to be irreverent. It's frustrating to see the lead performers squandering their collective talent in a movie that fails to match the fun and pathos of their TV work. Read more

Jack Mathews, New York Daily News: Though there are giggles here and there, the film is inexcusably unfunny. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: Like many woeful major studio releases that run under 90 minutes, The Ex seems arbitrarily edited to squeeze in extra screenings before it's killed by word-of-mouth. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: Braff and Bateman make this patchwork just funny enough to be worth our trouble. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: After The Last Kiss and Garden State, not to mention Scrubs (second only to Law and Order when it comes to TV ubiquity), Braff's shtick, his bug-eyed, hangdog, goofy-grin thing, is getting tired. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: There's a prescription for making an effective dark comedy: the film must generate equal parts discomfort and laughter. The Ex offers plenty of the former but precious little of the latter. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: It's really pitiful. Read more

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Read more

Bill Zwecker, Chicago Sun-Times: Braff and Bateman engage in a beautiful comedic, verbal ballet that made me laugh much more than I would have thought I would, given what I knew about the story before watching the film. Both actors display on-target timing. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: The Ex is extremely, exceptionally, extraordinarily forgettable, just like that stuff on the small screen. Read more

Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star: Delayed, re-titled and presumably at least partially re-shot, Jesse Peretz's troubled office-bound romantic comedy The Ex is as half-baked as you'd expect it to be, but the better half -- the office half -- really does cook. Read more

Tom Beer, Time Out: Though Bateman rolls through the film with sly comic skill, the whole exercise seems half-baked -- a high concept and some funny gags that do not a great comedy make. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: It's a pretty twisted concept, bordering on offensive. But mostly it's just not funny. Read more

Peter Debruge, Variety: A half-baked comedy torn between sincere emotion and over-the-top outrageousness. Read more

Desson Thomson, Washington Post: A stunningly insipid romance, marks an all-time low for actor Zach Braff -- his Gigli, if you will. Read more