 Joel Siegel on Good Morning America noted in his review of Must Love Dogs that his dictionary offers two definitions for "dog." One, he says, is "a domesticated mammal of the canine family. Two: the unredeemingly dreadful movies that Hollywood studios open in August. The first is the kind we must love. And I do. The second is the kind this movie is." Other critics are not so harsh. Joe Morgenstern in the Wall Street Journal says that in another era, the film would simply ended up as the bottom of a double bill. "It's simply not a must-see movie," he notes. Actually, some critics apparently like it quite a bit. Eleanor Ringel Gillespie in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution calls it "lightweight but quite likable." Claudia Puig in USA Today remarks that the movie "is a breath of fresh air amid the superheroes, aliens and bombastic explosions of summer." She adds: "It's a bona fide chick flick." But other "chick" critics don't agree. Carina Chocano in the Los Angeles Times remarks that the stars appear to be reenacting "the entire unabridged Encyclopedia of Treasured Romantic Comedy Clichés and Chestnuts, Revised Second Edition." Most critics give Diane Lane and John Cusack high marks for their performances and on-screen chemistry. But Stephen Holden in the New York Times comments that the film proves "once again that skillful performances can't create something out of almost nothing -- the best they can do is make it palatable. |
