Did You Hear About the Morgans?: Critic Reviews

Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker ply their cute trademarks (his befuddled British grimace, her la-di-da New York sass) like grim, incompatible partners in a Hollywood business deal.

A comedy with mostly likable, broadly drawn characters; tart, nonthreatening social satire with sharp enough teeth to leave an impression while not breaking the skin; and well-timed, modestly sophisticated repartee.

In a silly way, it is entertaining, the mismatch is actually weirdly plausible, and try as I might, I couldn't be grumpy about it.

An exercise in foregone conclusions so dreary as to hardly qualify as comedy.

Most bad comedies plod from scene to scene. This one plods from sentence to sentence. Grant and Parker stand around as if they're waiting for someone to yell, "Cut."

You know the line about what a bear does in the woods? Not only is that wittier than all of Did You Hear About the Morgans?, it describes the movie as well.

Yes, comedies thrive on broad strokes. But selling Americans lame images of one another as if we haven't traversed the country (if not in actuality, via television and film) is dispiriting.

Mostly it's an invitation to spend an easy 108 minutes with some very likable folks (Grant, Sam Elliott, and Mary Steenburgen) as they amble through a laid-back fish-out-of-water comedy.

I grant you Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker evoke charm in the right screenplay. This is the wrong screenplay.

It's not just the sound of crickets you hear watching this movie. It's the sound of dead crickets.

Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker are assigned to a witness protection program, flown to Wyoming, and installed in a one-horse town where there are no bistros, art galleries, department stores, or funny jokes.

Did you hear about Did You Hear About the Morgans? Really, you don't want to.

A painful failure, lumpish and crude.

Cliche-ridden, stereotype-stuffed and clunky at every inevitably false turn, it's so bad that star Hugh Grant, usually the most relaxed of actors, actually seems to be in pain throughout the film.

A fish-out-of-water story with a bit of a freshness issue.

The cast is in such fine form that everything seems funny.

Lawrence's recycled observations of the virtues of rural life, his struggles to find something funny about local "types" (an unworldly doctor and his naive-nitwit nurse), his "grizzly encounter" scene, are painful to watch.

It's a pity there's no witness protection program for movies that commit crimes against audiences.

If you are expecting a pleasant evening of escapism, you will be cruelly fooled. The editor responsible for the trailer is clearly a genius.

While it fails on nearly every conceivable level, as a textbook case in everything contemptible in the studio system, Did You Hear About the Morgans? is as good as it gets.

There's no sense of affection. No passion, even when they fight. Their dialogue rings hollow. These two aren't believable and their relationship is a black hole. Who cares?

Not even the estimable comic chops of Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker can lift it above the level of ordinary.

Did you hear about the Morgans? If so, you might wish you hadn't.

The movie is like a car wreck in which no one is injured but the onlookers.

Grant has never been less charming and Parker never less fashionable or more grating than they are as Paul and Meryl Morgan.