No Reservations: Critic Reviews

A familiar dish doesn't have to be a bland one, but No Reservations doesn't allow for the slightest grain of salt.

No Reservations is a factory-sealed romantic comedy. But the emotional details of its characters' journeys are surprising, honest and life-size.

Here is a romcom that has been developed on a Petri dish in some unspeakable secret department at the Porton Down biological warfare unit, designed to release a gaseous vapour into cinemas, rendering the civilian population immobile.

No Reservations is worth penciling in to your schedule, though it's more guilty diversion than memorable feast.

There's already a crazy behind-the-scenes restaurant movie out this summer, and it's got a better story, and it's a cartoon, and it stars a rat.

No Reservations, starring Catherine Zeta-Jones as a persnickety New York chef, makes a corned beef hash out of Mostly Martha, the much-loved 2001 German film from which it has been Hollywoodized.

The thing's so charming and frothy and delightful and sentimental and beautifully shot and well-acted and sincere that it takes a good couple of hours before you start craving real nourishment.

The first lesson we learn in Scott Hicks' contrived romance No Reservations is that 'there's no greater sin than to overcook a quail.' The second is that a blandly seasoned comedy is nearly as unappetizing.

It would have been nice to have some heat in the kitchen.

It has the smooth, caramelized sheen of a confection that goes down easy -- but won't be too hard to forget.

No Reservations may not be grand eats, but it is tasty.

The movie is a remake of Mostly Martha (2001), a German film very much liked by many. No Reservations doesn't seem to reinvent it so much as recycle it.

The salacious close-ups of saucepans and gnocchi and quail guarantee it: After seeing No Reservations you'll be hungry for a really top-flight meal. And, to go with it, a better film.

Carol Fuchs's silly, mushy script has her character swerve without warning between obtuse rigidity and sweet normality.

Alas, not even Eckhart and Breslin can get Zeta-Jones to simmer.

On paper, it had to look like a guaranteed chick flick for the Food Network generation. On film, though, it's too tepid to work.

No amount of chemistry or comedy could make what's always bound to happen next seem any less predictable.

An unnecessary but somewhat charming remake of Mostly Martha, the delicious 2001 German film about food, love and family values that enchanted a lot of skeptics, including me.

Agreeably prepared and attractively presented.

A souffle of a romantic and family comedy that stubbornly refuses to rise.

It's the blandness of the characters, the staleness of the settings and Zeta Jones' struggle with reserve that hobbles No Reservations.

A shamelessly microwaved American rewarming of the 2002 German romantic comedy Mostly Martha.

Though it loses something in the American homogenization, No Reservations is still a passable romantic dish.

Sometimes movies make sense in a logical way; sometimes they make only emotional sense. No Reservations makes no damned sense at all.

Five years from now, this bland and forgettable throwaway will be remembered only for Breslin, who will by then be a poised and gifted 16-year-old actress (as long as she keeps out of Lohan-like trouble -- please, Abby!).