Horton Enormously Entertaining

Animated feature is strong, if generic, hyper: critics

(NEWSER) - Critics agree that French studio Illumination Entertainment has made a strong first entry into feature animation with Despicable Me, featuring Steve Carrell voicing a cartoon baddy who adopts three little girls. But it has the misfortune to premiere within weeks of Pixar's beloved Toy Story 3.

• Despicable Me "cannot be faulted for lack of trying," AO Scott writes in the New York Times . "If anything, it tries much too hard, stuffing great gobs of second-rate action, secondhand humor and warmed-over sentiment into every nook and cranny of its relentlessly busy 3-D frames. It tries so hard to be likable that you may hate yourself for hating it."

'Project X' takes second, beating 'Act of Valor' and 'Safe House'

(NEWSER) - The tree-loving furry thing in Dr. Seuss' The Lorax helped set a 2012 box office record by opening with $70.7 million this weekend, trouncing The Vow's $41 million open last month, the Los Angeles Times reports. Raunchy party flick Project X took second place with a solid $20.8 million debut. Filling out the top five were holdovers Act of Valor ($13.7 million), Safe House ($7.2 million), and Tyler Perry's Good Deeds ($7 million). Also, The Artist made its best showing so far with $3.9 million after winning the Best Picture Oscar last Sunday. More»

Another Dr. Seuss film disaster

(NEWSER) - The Lorax may have a sound environmental message, but it's lost in a subpar movie that warps Dr. Seuss' original sentiment. One critic found the movie so vile he was inspired to write a Seuss-esque poem of his own:

• "There’s no fun in The Lorax, no joy in its theme / It’s as boring as sales tax / I’m ready to ream," writes Kyle Smith in the New York Post . "The Lorax stands small as a hectoring runt / Even Al Gore’s ax was never so blunt." As for the songs: "You’ll forget them before this young March hits the ides / I have heard better tunes on Clay Aiken’s B-sides."

Steve Carell, Julianne Moore star in winning romantic comedy

(NEWSER) - Critics largely enjoyed Crazy, Stupid, Love—and some have fallen head over heels for the romantic comedy with an all-star cast.

• In the Los Angeles Times , Betsy Sharkey gushes that the film “may well restore your faith in the very possibility of love, to say nothing of romantic comedies.” The “grand romantic gesture about grand romantic gestures conjures up the bittersweet magic of first loves, lasting loves, lost loves and all the loves in between.”
• "It’s the mild exception that makes, if not for a great movie, then at least for a pleasant surprise," writes Rick Groen in the Globe and Mail .

True story of gay con-man highly divisive

(NEWSER) - Some critics are head-over-heels for I Love You Phillip Morris; others feel quite the opposite about the film, in which Jim Carrey plays a gay conman. (It's currently favored by 76% of critics on Rotten Tomatoes, though audiences give it a lesser 55%.)

• At the New York Times , Stephen Holden loves the picture: “With his manic glare, ferociously eager smile, hyperkinetic body language and talent for instant self-transformation, Mr. Carrey has rarely been more charismatic on the screen.”