American Dreamz 2006

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: Most of American Dreamz has a curiously dated, been-there feel: It's a redundant comedy, like hearing the same tired joke for the 100th time. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: American Dreamz is often a lot of fun, thanks to Weitz's cast. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: [Director Paul Weitz's] best work comes with plenty of breathing room. But American Dreamz is too busy and plotty to afford much of that. The characters end up competing for screen time. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: Its shallow cynicism combined with its faith that everything will turn out okay can even be said to breed complacency -- the opposite of what satire needs to do in these increasingly dark days. Read more

Stanley Kauffmann, The New Republic: A moderately engaging satire, some of it amusing and some of it strained, but in considerable measure it reflects a strange circumstance in all our lives. Read more

Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: In the words of Simon, it's a complete and utter disaster. Read more

Phil Kloer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: 20 years from now, Dreamz will be a fine time capsule of who we are, and of everything that we think is 'so cool.' Read more

Nathan Rabin, AV Club: Great satires draw blood. American Dreamz barely nicks the surface. Read more

Bill Muller, Arizona Republic: The movie is a spirited exercise in caricature rather than a cohesive comedy. Everybody's playing somebody real, but the movie never approaches reality. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: American Dreamz is a political satire that's eerily emblematic of the moment we're living in: smart, spring-loaded with pop culture references, and far too good-natured to do any lasting damage. Read more

Carina Chocano, Los Angeles Times: American Dreamz, Paul Weitz's good-natured satire of pop, politics and our bloated sense of entitlement (arguably our biggest export) lampoons the great American disconnect from reality by locating the place where all these things intersect. Read more

Amy Biancolli, Houston Chronicle: In American Dreamz, the people are stereotypes, and the context is fake: It's broad, it's thin, it's a big easy target. And ultimately, its dreamz are hollow. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: The time is certainly ripe for a scathing black comedy about our current political life -- something on the order of, say, Dr. Strangelove. Alas, American Dreamz is not that film. Not even close. Read more

Michael Booth, Denver Post: American Dreamz pulls off that rare feat of shooting at dozens of big targets, and hitting so many of them that we want to stand up and cheer because someone even tried. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: American Dreamz is an often uproarious, always ambitious gutting of modern America that cuts painfully close to the truth from beginning to almost-end. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: [Paul Weitz] has made the shrewd move of staging the film on a human scale, in the homespun wackadoo spirit of a '40s screwball comedy. Read more

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: American Dreamz is as forgettable and lacking in insight as the great majority of dreams that trespass on our subconscious. Read more

Philip Wuntch, Dallas Morning News: As satire, American Dreamz is heavy-handed. As comedy, American Dreamz is hilarious. Read more

Scott Foundas, L.A. Weekly: The sort of satire so 'affectionate' that all of its would-be poison-tipped arrows seem to be coated in sugar. Read more

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: American Dreamz, writer-director Paul Weitz's parody of both American Idol and the American presidency, is filled with dead-on detail, sharp dialogue and reasons to laugh out loud. Read more

Gene Seymour, Newsday: Everybody's so good, you find yourself wondering why the movie isn't funnier -- or riskier. Read more

Lisa Rose, Newark Star-Ledger: It's a disappointing effort from witty writer-director Paul Weitz (American Pie, In Good Company). He tries to weave a subversive tapestry a la Nashville but only tells a story full of holes. Read more

Jack Mathews, New York Daily News: The devilishness of satire is in the details, and [Paul] Weitz's script just isn't as funny or as consistently sharp as it should be. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: American Dreamz isn't mean enough or funny enough. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Is it possible to satirize something that, in and of itself, often crosses the line into self-parody? Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: American Dreamz looks like a sitcom, plays like a sitcom and is a sitcom -- and also the riskiest political satire since Wag the Dog. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com: The jokes in American Dreamz whiz by with speed and grace, and Weitz maintains control of the material every minute. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: American Dreamz is the rare case of a movie that gets better as it goes along. Read more

Michael Agger, Slate: Many of us have an American Dream: to go to the movies and laugh. The new comedy American Dreamz will fulfill that fantasy for some people. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Although Dreamz doesn't hold together as a seamless whole, most of its components are worth the price of admission on their own. Read more

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Read more

Stephen Cole, Globe and Mail: A random episode of American Idol offers more comedy and drama, not to mention more disturbing insights into contemporary popular culture, than American Dreamz. Read more

Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star: Like a commander-in-chief who's too good-naturedly dumb to be dangerous, the writer-director is ultimately too forgiving to do much bruising. (Or maybe too calculating, which kind of blurs into the same thing.) Read more

Anna Smith, Time Out: ...Opting for a broad, light mood that's at complete odds with the darker potential of its political premise. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: American Dreamz lampoons the public's appetite for mindless entertainment and easy distraction from serious concerns. Read more

Robert Koehler, Variety: Pic and its ambitions are undermined by insistent cartoonishness and comic ineptitude. Read more

J. Hoberman, Village Voice: American Dreamz should really have been funnier. But it's not boring. Read more

Desson Thomson, Washington Post: [Paul] Weitz co-directed the wonderful About a Boy in 2002, but in Dreamz -- a tediously facile satire -- his comic instincts fail him. Read more