Alex & Emma 2003

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: You'll leave Alex and Emma feeling as if you've spent a couple of decades interned in a gulag. Read more

Connie Ogle, Miami Herald: Watching Wilson and Hudson toil thanklessly through this mess is more laborious than writing the Great American Novel. And a lot less lucrative. Read more

Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: It's paint by numbers. Read more

Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune: Frankly, this screenplay plays like something slapped together in 30 days to settle a gambling debt, except that it lacks the manic tension or focus you'd expect from anything written by a man facing execution. Read more

Elvis Mitchell, New York Times: The picture is desperate to be a Date Night event, but it feels more like a Last Date movie. Read more

Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Hudson and Wilson's chemistry wouldn't light a cigarette. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: Alex and Emma is a film for people who haven't been to the movies since the silent era. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Wasting the talents of Kate Hudson, Luke Wilson and Sophie Marceau, this Rob Reiner-directed film is unconvincing in its core idea -- said to be inspired by Dostoevsky but likely to have the poor man weeping in his grave -- and in its execution. Read more

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: The actors make this fun if you can overlook the ludicrous view of Jeremy Leven's screenplay concerning how novels are written and what publishers generally pay for them. Read more

Bruce Westbrook, Houston Chronicle: Imitating that life, Alex & Emma is more artifice than art. But chemistry is the key to a romantic comedy, and this one has enough to unlock guarded hearts. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: Alex & Emma has trouble overcoming the badness of the novel at the center of its story. It doesn't help that the movie declares it a literary success. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Could almost be a Mad TV parody of a god-awful modern romantic comedy. Read more

Philip Wuntch, Dallas Morning News: Staleness smothers virtually every scene of Alex & Emma. Read more

Scott Foundas, L.A. Weekly: Though it is arguably Reiner's least grotesque film of the last decade, it seems the work of a director in absentia. Read more

Jan Stuart, Newsday: Alex & Emma is an amalgam of cliches about writers and burlesque stereotypes of foreigners. Read more

Bob Campbell, Newark Star-Ledger: The book-within -the-film is a bad light comedy inside another bad light comedy. Read more

Jami Bernard, New York Daily News: Wan humor, no spark. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: It has no tempo, energy or pulse. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: This is a warmed-over, low-end recycling of director Rob Reiner's own When Harry Met Sally. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: A movie they'll want to hurry past during the AFI tribute. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com: Dull and listless from the start, partly because the leads fail to connect and partly because both the script and the direction let them down. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Alex & Emma is lighter than helium, but it's just sturdy enough to be pleasing. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: It's a little like Adaptation, but with the contemporary fashion for romantic comedies with a deadline. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: A movie within a movie that proves two halves don't always make a whole. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Meant to be a funny, feel-good love story. Instead, it feels wan and uninspired, despite its likable cast. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Variety: A desperately slight romantic comedy marked by contrived romance and little comedy. Read more

Laura Sinagra, Village Voice: This isn't one for the time capsule -- just bury it. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: An essentially derivative, static and zing-free endeavor. Read more