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1 article from 2002

11 January 2002 | From Studio Briefing | See recent Studio Briefing news

Lots of thumbs up and as many thumbs down are greeting the opening of Orange County. Leading the thumbs-up contingent (naturally) is Roger Ebert, who writes in the Chicago Sun-Times, "Orange County has the form of a teenage movie, the spirit of an independent comedy, and the subversive zeal of Jack Black, whose grin is the least reassuring since Jack Nicholson. It's one of those movies like Ghost World and Legally Blonde where the description can't do justice to the experience. It will sound like the kind of movie that, if you are over 17, you don't usually go to see. But it isn't." Jane Sumner in the Dallas Morning News chimes in: ""At last! A teen comedy that doesn't require an emetic. A refreshing change from the usual whoopee-cushion effort aimed at the youth market, Paramount Pictures' Orange County has a lot going for it." On the other hand, Rita Kempley comments in the Washington Post that the film would probably never have been made if it didn't have Colin Hanks, the son of Tom, and Schuyler Fisk, the daughter of Sissy Spacek, as stars and Jake Kasdan, the son of Lawrence, as director. "Orange County," she writes, "is strictly a vanity vehicle with a mess of star babies on board. That would be just fine if it didn't take us down the same old cul-de-sac. But it does, and with a vengeance." Rick Groen in the Toronto Globe & Mail writes similarly: "Here's [Hollywood's] latest innovation: Cast a derivative movie with derivative actors. Literally." Then there are the reviewers with thumbs skewed sidewise, like Kevin Thomas in the Los Angeles Times, who comments: "Orange County starts out deliriously funny but allows sentimentality to squeeze it to a pulp by the time it's over."

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1 article from 2002