The Ten 2007

Tasha Robinson, Chicago Tribune: Where Kieslowski's work always had a goal and a sense for how real people think, nothing about The Ten suggests that the filmmakers ever thought any further than the next meager, uncomfortable titter. Read more

Gene Seymour, Newsday: You really have to be in the mood to get into The Ten's forced goofiness. Read more

Andrea Gronvall, Chicago Reader: Darkly satiric. Read more

Tom Keogh, Seattle Times: A lame and irritating comedy that is an endurance test to sit through. Read more

Nathan Rabin, AV Club: Like the comic masterpieces of [Woody] Allen's '70s heyday, the first five short films represent a brilliant, laugh-out-loud combination of grad-school braininess and vaudeville goofiness, highbrow absurdity and lowbrow shtick. Read more

Scott Craven, Arizona Republic: Those worried about incurring God's wrath by seeing The Ten, don't concern yourselves -- by watching the film, you've suffered enough. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: One problem: The movie's just not funny. Read more

Carina Chocano, Los Angeles Times: Despite many giddy moments, the conceit becomes gradually more exhausting, until somewhere around the seventh commandment you're ready to choose God's wrath over any more overproduced, A-list-acted throwaway TV sketches. Read more

Bruce Westbrook, Houston Chronicle: Perhaps the Bible needs an 11th Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Bore. That might stem misfires such as The Ten. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: The Ten is nowhere near a 10. Let's call it a six. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: The Ten is devious and inspired enough to juice you past any weak spots. Thou shalt be amused. Read more

Mark Bourne, Film.com: ...brings to mind the fondly remembered Kentucky Fried Movie/Amazon Women on the Moon anthos from the '70s and '80s. Read more

John Monaghan, Detroit Free Press: If there were Ten Commandments for filmmaking, one would certainly be: Thou shalt not pass off sketch comedy as a feature film, especially when charging $9 a ticket. Read more

Lisa Rose, Newark Star-Ledger: It's more a frivolous spoof than a pointed satire. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: The Ten is so proud of its own wit and irreverence that when you fail to be equally impressed, you are likely to wonder if your own sense of humor is, in some way, deficient. Rest assured it is not. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: Multi-segment movies tend to be notoriously uneven, and this definitely proves to be the case with The Ten. Read more

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: Anytime you compile a series of vignettes and call it a feature film, you're going to have hits and misses. It's the nature of the structure. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: Thou shalt be funny. Thou, in this case, isn't. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: The Ten, admittedly, is not Krzysztof Kieslowski's Decalogue. [Director] Wain's pieces are just jumping-off points for screwball improv and inspired throwaways. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: This is one of those films where the humor is of the hit-and-miss variety, and it misses more often than it hits. The jokes are transparent. It's not difficult to divine what's supposed to be funny. Read more

Pam Grady, San Francisco Chronicle: Not so much blasphemous as it is very silly, and it lives up to the one unbendable commandment of comedy: It's funny. Read more

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Read more

Dennis Harvey, Variety: Uneven but often hilarious. Bad-taste quotient is cranked up here, ditto the overall conceptual giddiness. Read more

Robert Wilonsky, Village Voice: The Ten's biggest letdown are the interstitial sequences featuring Paul Rudd, [who is] usually the best thing about some of the worst movies. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: The Ten never breaks out of jejune noodling and into something truly provocative. Read more