Be Kind Rewind

Be Kind Rewind is resoundingly a movie for people who are in love with movies -- and which is also why it will probably endure as a great work of art.

Who's to say Michel Gondry is wrong in believing movies that look messy, hand-made and lovingly assembled are better than big-budget Hollywood crap?

Be Kind Rewind is a raucous humoresque, another glorious Gondry goof that balances its hilarious remake material with the heartfelt story among the characters.

The movie was full of celebrities, but amazingly Michel Gondry made no distinction between the kids in the marching band and Kanye West, Erykah Badu, or Mos Def, who stole his scenes from behind a drum kit.

Be Kind Rewind isn't for everyone, but those yearning for a whimsical fantasy set in the real world will be kind to Gondry's vision.

Jack Black feels at once outrageously fictional and a natural component of the film's run-down milieu.

The characters don't grow so much as hang around, and his script frays into a bunch of loose strands.

Be Kind Rewind is a charming picture about filmmaking all dressed up as a comedy.

There's an undeniable sense of wonder to Be Kind Rewind, a belief in both the beauty of the creative process and the magic within all men.

The whole feel of the film is like an amateur filmmaker making a movie about amateur filmmakers. It's weird yet silly, banking mostly on physical comedy reminiscent of old Charlie Chaplin shorts.

Moviemaking is rooted in make-believe, and few directors are as attuned to their inner puppet show as Michel Gondry.

People who like their movies neat and orderly are going to have a hard time with Be Kind Rewind.

Many movies that speak to a love of cinema drip nostalgia and ooze sentimentality. But Be Kind Rewind slimes film fans in true Ghostbusters fashion.

A surprisingly sweet comedy showcasing a manic Jack Black, Be Kind Rewind is a love letter to the technology and movies of the 1980s as well as celebrating the DIY ethos of the YouTube generation.

A celebration of the DIY aesthetic, and of the universal appeal of movies, Be Kind Rewind is a charmingly off-the-wall little tale.

When a movie is in love with movies -- from the fan's and the filmmaker's standpoint -- the way Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind is, you're willing to forgive a lot.

There's a genuine feel for the thrill of homemade art, however crude or patched together. No one who ever shot a horror movie in his own backyard can help but share the exhilaration of these two goof-offs.

From time to time as I watched this imaginative, scattershot comedy, I wished that it were funnier, yet I was continually impressed by how very nice it is. I had only a handful of loud laughs, but my smile never wavered.

In other hands, this scruffy little comedy about a pair of video store clerks who shoot their own digest versions of Hollywood hits would be just another crazy skit-comedy.

Be Kind Rewind has enough heart in the end to make up for the fact that it isn't nearly as funny as its premise might suggest.

Michel Gondry is one of the most inventive filmmakers working today. If only his skills translated to a fully satisfying narrative.

Def doesn't do much new, walking a familiar character line between earnest and simple; Black does even less new, running the same crazy-jerk-hipster machinery that was in peak operating condition five years ago in School of Rock.

Thirty minutes into Be Kind Rewind, you may wonder what you're doing in the theater. Sixty minutes into it, if you have stayed, you will know.

Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind is whimsy with a capital W. No, it's WHIMSY in all caps. Make that all-caps italic boldface. Oh, never mind. I'm getting too whimsical. Maybe Gondry does, too.

The whimsy gets sticky in Be Kind Rewind, writer-director Michel Gondry's latest. But it'd be wrong to dismiss the film outright. Gondry's misses are more interesting than most filmmakers' successes.

Michel Gondry’s first stab at broad-ish comedy is hit-or-miss, but his stroke of mediocrity is almost any other director’s stroke of genius.

Be Kind Rewind almost has to force its way into comedic grace and, perhaps by design, comes across as hokey and amateurish.

Be Kind Rewind is like an ocean wave that takes a long -- long -- time to reach the shore. When it finally arrives, it does so with a gentle splash instead of a thundering crash.

A would-be heart-tugging, inspiring paean to the do-it-yourself ethic/aesthetic and its concomitant community-building powers, the latest film from visual lo-fi innovator Michel Gondry is slight and finally unconvincing, alas.

Hate on Michel Gondry's whimsical comedy all you want. Be Kind Rewind would have to get juiced on killer steroids to even qualify as lightweight.

Be Kind Rewind often feels like the homemade films it depicts: Gondry sometimes appears to be making a quick-and-dirty version of a real movie, with the screenplay wandering all over the place and the actors seemingly given free reign.

It is all briefly amusing, but the comedy runs out before the movie does.

The message that “the best movies are the ones we make ourselves” curdles when you realize that we’re watching characters recycle a lot of Hollywood crap for a film-illiterate

Be Kind Rewind feels improvised, which works when it's Jack Black inventing funny things to say, and doesn't work as well with everybody else.

It's sweet and well-intentioned and certainly not without its charms. If you loved the trailer, you'll probably be disappointed, but not heartbroken.

Be Kind Rewind is a breakthrough of sorts: It is easily the strangest movie in ages.

Michel Gondry, who is something of a visionary, doesn’t make artsy movies; he makes ’em craftsy, full of gadgets and gizmos and claymation curios.

Be Kind Rewind ends with a community get-together that's meant to be as up-with-people and ebullient as an Obama campaign stop. Too bad the movie tries to get there on a ragged wing and a doggerel prayer.

The premise of Be Kind Rewind should be taken not with a grain of salt, but with a ton. And that's only the first of its many problems.

It's not nearly as funny as its premise would suggest, and the movie even becomes a little dull when it tries to make a few points about the differences between commercialism and art.

Gondry apparently intends to tell a story about people’s relationships with movies, but he winds up saying films are impersonal just because they look professional and don’t star you.

It's not that Be Kind Rewind is a terrible movie. It's just an average one -- which is the last thing we expect from an iconoclast like Michel Gondry.

Long before the movie ends, it slips right off the sprockets.

It shifts course and becomes at least three different movies during its relatively brief running time. Depending on when you're watching it, it can fairly be described as funny, painfully stupid, downright annoying and surprisingly sweet.

The whole film has a rag-tag, purposefully shambolic feel -- but this communal commitment to a DIY aesthetic is also his undoing, particularly when he allows an irritatingly manic Jack Black to run wild and virtually hijack the movie.

Be Kind Rewind takes a clever concept and cobbles a weak story around it.

The characters in Be Kind Rewind don't behave according to the logic of real life or even the logic of fairy tales: They just act "quirky."

A movie that's kind of sweet and kind of funny but never reaches the lows of "embarrassingly cheesy" or the highs of "laugh-out-loud funny."

Be Kind Rewind, think we can return to the age of innocence by believing that inner-city, salt-of-the-earth types still watch movies on video instead of DVD.

Be Kind Rewind would be a disappointment by any run-of-the-mill director. But when a director has shown so much potential, this film is not just a failure. It is an insult.

You're kidding me. Michael Gondry, the brilliant screenwriter-director behind Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, wrote and directed this, too?

In Be Kind Rewind, a handful of characters shoot an entire movie in one week. Which, based on the evidence, was probably three or four days more than it took to shoot Be Kind Rewind.

Bad comes in all directions in Be Kind Rewind. There are crosscurrents of bad, scenes that fail in two or three ways simultaneously, as farce, as sentiment and as storytelling.

Be Kind Rewind is the title. Be kinder to yourself and avoid this unfortunate disaster.