The House Bunny

Who would have thought that Anna Faris as Shelley, a Playboy bunny bumped from the mansion to become a sorority’s housemother, would manage to do it so comically?

There a number of few truly funny, eminently quotable lines, but the plot really isn't anything you haven't seen before: It's kinda Clueless, sorta Legally Blonde and awfully similar to Sydney White.

The best you can say about The House Bunny is it gives Faris a character and a framework and gets out of her way. In this case, that nearly qualifies as high praise.

The House Bunny has some surprises as well as Faris’s very funny performance to boost it to a much higher plane than one might have thought.

Anna Faris is a gifted and fearless screen comedian, and her radiant performance in The House Bunny raises the film above its sub-Legally Blonde trappings.

Faris is a hoot. Only smart actors make dumb look so effortless and dawning cognition so adorably credible.

No one in the movies manages a look of stupefaction and bliss the way Anna Faris does. I've seen Johnny Depp and Cameron Diaz attempt it, but Faris seems possessed by the shock of anticipation.

The comedy is superficial and predictable, and yet the handicaps wilt every time Faris appears in a close-up to say something such as: "My heart is pounding like a nail!"

This farce from the writing team behind Legally Blonde could be the vehicle that finally gives Anna Faris the Hollywood career she deserves.

A somewhat harmless hop through just about every dumb blonde joke and campus comedy cliché known to humankind.

Faris is endearing as the innocently ditzy Shelley Darlingson. She is a talented comedian and has some funny moments here, but her comic skills are blunted by the trite story.

A mess of mixed messages and sexual stereotypes, not to mention clumsy scripting: misfits triumphant, thanks to hooker wardrobes and water-bras.

The House Bunny is a sweet and silly underdog story that, for all its groan-inducing bad lines or poorly executed gags, has enough brilliantly subversive moments to make it a fun piece of fluff.

The House Bunny is a rare female-driven light entertainment that emphasizes comedy over romance.

Can someone please fire Anna Faris' agent? How much longer does one of this generation's most gifted comediennes have to be the best thing about a terrible movie?

A decent cast is wasted on the retread of material that seems to lose more steam every time it's recycled -- like making a copy of a copy.

Anna Faris, you're a funny person. Or at least you can be funny in the right material, which is why you deserve better than The House Bunny.

Perhaps one day Anna Faris will appear in a movie as funny as she is. Until then we have The House Bunny, a not-unlikable bundle of clichés that might be described as Revenge of the Nerds with cleavage.

The House Bunny is an extreme exaggeration of feminine wiles and sorority life, but it offers a lot of laughs and, with Faris, a good heart.

This is pretty much a one-woman show for Faris, and she doesn't get much help from director Fred Wolf.

Despite a winning performance by Anna Faris, the cutest thing in platform shoes since Goldie Hawn, the film falls on its keister so many times that before long the perky pinkness turns bruising black-and-blue.

It's the question of the zebra's stripes -- is the comedy The House Bunny a bad movie with a handful of good parts, or is it a good movie with a whole lot of boring stuff?

It's practically a scene-by-scene rip-off of Revenge of the Nerds and Legally Blonde, which is only half OK, because the screenwriters of The House Bunny also wrote the latter movie.

Although The House Bunny is supposedly about empowerment, it's mostly about how to live and look like a porn star.

I laughed about a dozen times during The House Bunny, always because of Anna Faris. I cringed at The House Bunny about 50 times, always because of everything else.

The House Bunny may be what some boys like, but there are doubtless moviegoers out there of both sexes who would like to see Faris hop into some decent onscreen material.

If you actually enjoyed The Hottie & the Nottie and/or Sorority Boys, you might find harebrained Bunny funny, with Anna Faris as a Playboy Playmate who makes over a loser sorority.

It’s an ideal role for Faris, who has always managed to be sexy and funny at the same time (often in spite of unflattering roles).

The latest lowbrow comedy has its few moments, but it is mostly a wasteful, wearily predictable comedy.

The House Bunny is not a good comedy. But there's no airbrushing out the funny surrounding its star.

This film from the Adam Sandler fun factory starts with a series of obnoxious, dated stereotypes, and never quite flips them into something positive.

The House Bunny is a vehicle for Anna Faris to play the same ditzy character she did in the Scary Movie series.

Lutz and Smith's leaden, mechanical script stuffs its winning leading lady into one lifeless scenario after another.

By the last half hour, it seems that The House Bunny has burned through every stereotype imaginable, including several cameos from Hef and his real live-in girlfriends.

In The House Bunny, nearly all the characters are cardboard cutouts. It's too bad, because some interesting folks are cast.

A game cast of young actresses -- particularly Emma Stone and Kat Dennings -- is left high and dry. The House Bunny manages the near impossible: to undercut the dignity of the Playboy brand.

If another dumb-blonde joke is something you've hoped never to suffer again, make every effort to avoid the protracted punch line that constitutes the bulk of The House Bunny.

A wasteland of humor where sickly jokes go to die. This dumb Bunny should have stayed in its hole.

As idiotic as anything ever put out by Happy Madison films, The House Bunny wastes two killer talents -- Faris and Superbad scene-stealer Emma Stone.