Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby: Critic Reviews

This one scores laughs right down to its gloriously gaga climactic smooch.

As a cultural artifact, Talladega Nights is both completely phony and, therefore, utterly authentic. Or, to put it differently: this movie is the real thing.

An inane parody of a triumphalist celebration of all-American sporting heroism.

Though the movie about a moronic NASCAR racer overall is uneven and Ricky Bobby's saga lacks focus, the stupid-comical banter and the lampooning of this particular brand of car racing proves entertaining.

Talladega Nights doesn't do much more than go for the quick guffaw, and frequently the guffaw comes from stereotypical slights along the redneck vein.

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby is the sort of cheerfully asinine comedy that twists your arm until you submit. So, to Will Ferrell -- clown, freak, bully -- I scream, 'Uncle!'

There's no difference between the movie and the end-credit outtakes.

Like a 30-car pileup on the high banks at Daytona, you can't take your eyes off this mess, and it is a rambunctious entertainment.

Talladega Nights may be brash, unbridled, even unhinged, but its cornpone humor is rich in parody, and its craftsmanship is superb.

Talladega is the first comedy this year to make me laugh so hard I snorted.

Talladega Nights is an unapologetic goof fest, light as aluminum and seemingly edited with Scotch tape. But it's smart enough to buy gags in bulk and puts them in the hands of three guys who can improvise until the cars come home.

This mildly crude yet oddly tame tale about a NASCAR hotshot who burns rubber to the top of the pole before having a speedway blowout runs on underinflated tires.

Now and then, the movie allows you to relax into its brand of stupid-smart comedy. The rest of the time your shoulders scrunch up and ask the eternal question: Why is this routine not quite working?

The laugh quotient lags well behind Ferrell and McKay's Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, but unlike many other purveyors of hip comedy, they're consistently clever without being contemptuous of their audience.

The absurdly funny Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby is at once a glorious send-up of NASCAR culture and a goofy celebration of the redneck, red state, red-blooded American culture that spawned it.

While the film spins out from time to time in subplots highlighting the world-class supporting cast, it has enough momentum to finish in the winner's circle.

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby is perfectly stupid chuckleheaded bliss, an achievement of the lowest and highest order. Every week should hold a movie like this.

Whether the engine on Talladega Nights is humming or sputtering, Ferrell stays gamely behind the wheel.

Simultaneously teasing and loving a subject doesn't make for easy comedy, but writer-star Will Ferrell and director/co-writer Adam McKay pull it off with good-ol'-boy good nature in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.

Whoo, mama: Will Ferrell and NASCAR do make a purty pair. They go together like peanut butter and fried bananas in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.

[Director] McKay has made another wildly uneven, PG-13-that-could-be-R comedy that veers from explosively funny, overlong improvs (a Southern-fried dinner prayer to 'Dear Baby Jesus') to black holes from which no laugh can escape.

Ferrell and his writing partner Adam McKay (who also directs, as he did Anchorman) are utterly without shame in their eagerness to recycle old ideas. This pair could make a blue box jealous.

'Talladega Nights': Deliciously Subversive Political Satire

If you can delight in the delight of others, you just may delight in this. Otherwise, prepare to be awfully jealous, because it's the sort of picture where the actors are having a lot more fun than the audience.

Essentially a string of gags loosely looped together, a set of absurd situations for the actors to clown their way through, Talladega Nights is an affable entertainment, both a celebration and a satire of lowbrow pleasures.