Hoot: Critic Reviews

Don't let the Carl Hiaasen pedigree fool you: Hoot is an Afterschool Special too crummy to give a hoot about.

This sweet-natured but plodding adaptation of a young-adult novel by Carl Hiaasen could have used a little less broad satire of corporate greed and a few more, well, owls. The critters peep from their burrows for only a few brief moments.

There is nothing objectionable in this family film, but it doesn't seem to appreciate the intelligence and savvy of its youthful audience. Kids can spot a silly stereotypical character as fast as the rest of us.

Hoot may be warm and fuzzy with its adorable owls, triumphant kids and inviting Florida groves. But its forced, innocuous humor is unlikely to amuse anyone but the very young -- and the extremely forgiving.

Hoot tells kids they can make a difference in this world, and that's worth a hundred Ice Age 2's.

I question the message of Hoot, a family movie that tacitly encourages kids to vandalize property and behave like little ecoterrorists.

The movie is unessential at best. But the Everglades -- and the owls that live nearby -- are irresistible.

This is a story about kids and nature, with strong messages about standing up to bullies, facing conflicts and why it is important to stand up for both the people and creatures that need protection.

While Hoot has heart -- subtlety turns out to be endangered.

Hoot has its heart in the right place, but I have been unable to locate its brain.

One more reminder that kids are better off with a book than a middling movie adaptation of a book.

Leaden direction sinks this adaptation of Carl Hiaasen's award-winning novel for young adults.

One wishes that a film about the fight against a bland restaurant chain were more piquant. But movies for tweens, like burrowing owls, are an endangered species that need preservation.

A modest, lightly comic film that succeeds on sheer good faith.

Hoot is safe enough to take your kids to, but you might want to have a talk with them afterward about continuing to go to school and shying away from major felonies.

The movie treats us as if we're all 3 years old, and it belies its supposedly positive message by filling the story with dysfunctional families and a teenager left alone to forage in the wilderness.

Long stretches between comic set pieces are almost soporifically mild.

The movie pretends to take a kids' point of view, but it treats kids like idiots.

This little caper yarn's as breezy as a Buffett song (he peppers the soundtrack) and as simple.

Endangered as they are, burrowing owls will be disappointed to learn that their cause has been hitched to a movie with little entertainment value, let alone credible strategies to save their environment.

The goal is apparently a double exercise in heartfelt lessons and deep hilarity, but it's hard to tell because the pace feels so lethargic.

A blandly generic family film.

Trying to be lighthearted, it turns lightweight and bland.

A safe, slight film that doesn't possess the chaotic hilarity I associate with Carl Hiaasen's best writing.

The only highlight is a sequence of outstanding cinematography in Florida's Everglades. Oh, and there's one funny joke. But that doesn't make this film a hoot at all.