Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?: Critic Reviews

In his first film since Super Size Me, Spurlock tells you virtually nothing you didn't already know -- and, what's more, he does it with catchy videogame graphics and faux-naive man-on-the-street interviews that make Michael Moore look like Chet Huntley.

It's impossible to disagree with much of what he [Spurlock] says...but it's also impossible to learn anything about war, terrorism, religion, oil, democracy or any of the other topics a less glib, less self-absorbed filmmaker might want to tackle.

There is room for a tough, journalistic documentary presented by someone who really did want to know the answer. But this isn't it.

Given the fraught nature of U.S.-Middle East relations and the war on terrorism, Spurlock is understandably in over his head. Still, he is a genial host whose message urges cultural understanding.

Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden? is so infantile you expect the answer to be, 'Not at my house!'

Spurlock and his team of collaborators never find the movie amid all their material. If he's a questionable journalist and a poor detective, he's an even more woeful filmmaker.

A cynic might view Spurlock's seven-month exploration of civilization's cradle as a form of conjugal competition.

Armed with little more than a great title and limitless confidence, documentarian Morgan Spurlock sets off in search of the world's biggest bad guy. He comes up empty in more ways than one.

The aim of Spurlock's mission is less a matter of actually finding the man than exploring the everyday beliefs and attitudes of Muslims around the globe.

At its most illuminating, Morgan Spurlock's compelling if self-indulgent travelogue investigation Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden? reminds us that a livelihood isn't just 'America's No. 1 issue' as CNN reminds us.

The film is a hodgepodge, and it closes with a whimper. But along the way some lucid voices slip through.

A superficial primer for people who aren't likely to go see it in the first place.

Morgan Spurlock is a living, breathing cautionary tale. Take a good, long look, kids: This is what happens when society validates really annoying people.

It's a little insulting to all the real reporters who've died in the field looking for hard information, not weak indie comedy.

Genial Spurlock is the Ryan Seacrest of reality filmmaking, vamping for the camera while ducking the crossfire.

Documentary humorist Morgan Spurlock explores the lighter side of international terrorism in Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden?

Although Osama wraps up a bit too quickly, and ends a bit too obviously, the thing Spurlock finds is, for the most part, these people resemble us.

With about as much documentary credibility as Borat, Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden? combines low comedy, high production values and the Middle East for what will surely be a hit, even as it delivers nothing new.

Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden? jokes about Spurlock capturing the bounty on Osama's head, or making the world safe for his child-to-be, but it's really about the narcissistic filmmaker and his enablers the Weinsteins making a few bucks.

The director of Super Size Me shows something else -- guts -- in his sober-minded but comical, skeptical but never cynical documentary, Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?

The film does offer a glimmer of hope that behind all the bellowing by politicians and thugs, there are millions of people in the Middle East who simply yearn for peace.

Where in the world is Morgan Spurlock's head? Occasionally, during this exasperating and goofy documentary, it seems squarely on his shoulders. Most of the time, however, it's firmly lodged up another part of his anatomy.

Insofar as Spurlock draws any political conclusions at all, they don't go much further than the title of the Elvis Costello song that plays under the final credits, (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding?

A supersized problem gets the superficial treatment.

As he jets from place to place, he provides glib, oversimplified tidbits about Mideast history along the way.