84%
59%
95%
Average Rating: 5/10
Reviews Counted: 183
Fresh: 62 | Rotten: 121
Despite the relaxed, easy chemistry of stars Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts, Larry Crowne is surprisingly bland and conventional.
Average Rating: 5/10
Critic Reviews: 38
Fresh: 8 | Rotten: 30
Despite the relaxed, easy chemistry of stars Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts, Larry Crowne is surprisingly bland and conventional.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.1/5
User Ratings: 27,525
Until he was downsized, affable, amiable Larry Crowne (Tom Hanks) was a superstar team leader at the big-box company where he's worked since his time in the Navy. Underwater on his mortgage and unclear on what to do with his suddenly free days, Larry heads to his local college to start over. There he becomes part of a colorful community of outcasts, also-rans and the overlooked all trying to find a better future for themselves...often moving around town in a herd of scooters. In his
Jul 1, 2011 Wide
Nov 15, 2011
$35.6M
Universal Pictures
All Critics (184) | Top Critics (38) | Fresh (63) | Rotten (121) | DVD (3)
To pluck romantic comedy from the jaws of a social crisis is a laudable project, worthy of Preston Sturges, and it's a pity that this featherlight drama-written by Tom Hanks and Nia Vardalos, and directed by Hanks himself-should falter in its task.
Larry Crowne is more than a missed opportunity. It's alarmingly, depressingly out of touch.
Even if you wander into this congealed mess with nothing more demanding in mind than to spend a little time with two charming favorites, do not expect Forrest Gump or Pretty Woman.
Neither fish nor fowl, Larry Crowne skitters between pathos and shtick, wasting abundant acting talent as it goes.
When it comes to unemployment-themed cinema, I'll take the greater realism of last year's The Company Men or this year's Everything Must Go over Hanks's too rosy vision of life after the pink slip.
The film is sometimes gentle to the point of blandness, but it's never flimsy.
Could have been a solid, straightforward rom com coasting on likable leads; half-hearted additions trying to link the movie to economic crisis just detract.
... lacks any sense of gravity. Hanks has too much moxie to let little things like unemployment and an underwater mortgage get him down...
Only hints at the comedy and poignancy that its two powerhouse leads could deliver if given better material.
An exceedingly minor entry on already impressive resum�s.
Even Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts can't sell this lightweight rom-com fantasy.
Tasty around the edges but disappointing in the center, Larry Crowne will meet the summer rom-com needs of many, but will not serve as a memorable addition to Hanks' legacy.
Low-key charmer saved by star power
It felt like I was being smothered with "feel good" moments. Everything about the story and its characters is too far detached from reality.
full of a counter-intuitive sunny optimism that is at odds with the tale itself
Larry Crowne, Hanks' second effort behind the camera, makes It's a Wonderful Life look like Enter the Void. It's a cute movie that never meant to hurt no one, and that's the best thing I can say about it.
I can't begin to tell you how bland this movie is.
There are some endearing scenes and some fun moments, but the screenplay doesn't feel developed; we are never really engaged
An immensely likeable film, this uplifting rom com about turning life around has a whole lot of things going for it
As well-meaning as it is, (it) is a two-dimensional bit of fluff, an untidy string of cutesy scenes and cutesy characters -- few of them as cute as they are intended to be.
With little to distract us from its half-hearted plotting and flimsy characterizations, Larry Crowne quickly turns into an abject failure, propped up only by its fading stars' fading charisma.
...it's an old-fashioned star vehicle, fashioned for the particular screen personas of Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts by Hanks himself, who directed the film and wrote the screenplay with Nia Vardalos. You may recall that he produced her breakthrough film...
"I was downsized, I'm here to make sure that never happens again."After losing his job, a middle-aged man reinvents himself by going back to college. REVIEWThis feel good movie captures the emotional stress of the maturing working population and economic doldrums. The authentic everyman and everywoman
December 21, 2011
Super Reviewer
What happens when a hard-working guy gets laid off? If you are in a movie, you go back to school to get your college degree and totally change your life around! The movie feels like fluff even though it was co-written by someone from my home town.
December 21, 2011Super Reviewer
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