Pleasant little diversion with some sweet moments.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 22, 2010

Balsmeyer may remind you of the guy at the party who, after one too many shots, puts a lampshade on his head. It's funny for maybe a moment -- until you realize, to your horror, that he doesn't know when to stop.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 17, 2004

As for the charm factor, I can't think of any screen couple this year with more of such an elusive quality than Ms. Otto and Mr. Ifans.

| Sep 9, 2004

Unlike its main character, it never quite achives lift-off, but it is a pleasant little diversion with some very sweet moments.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Sep 5, 2004

Such sentiments are fine, of course, but they're not the ingredients of groundbreaking filmmaking. We've been over this territory ad nauseum.

| Original Score: C- | Sep 2, 2004

An entertaining flight of fancy.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 2, 2004

Simply too frothy for its own good, and the feel-good comedy on tap here might as well be the swiftly settling head on the world's blandest beer.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 29, 2004

A delightful, well-acted illustration of an unhappy person's breakout from his mundane existence.

| Aug 27, 2004

You'll probably forget Danny Deckchair a few minutes after leaving the theater, but it passes the time well enough while you're there.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 27, 2004

What finally prevents Danny Deckchair from floating away completely is Balsmeyer's seemingly sincere admiration for those Trudy dismisses as 'the little people,' rendered here with as much respect as eccentricity.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 27, 2004

Like its hero, the film has nary a mean-spirited bone. Only like Danny, it's a rather slight body.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 27, 2004

A splendid movie while its hero is preparing for his flight and actually experiencing it, but it's not nearly as interesting once he descends to earth.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 27, 2004

What you might call conditional whimsy, predicated on the audience overlooking so many plot implausibilities that it might get tuckered out from all the charity.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 27, 2004

A (literally) lighter-than-air story, full of goofs and creeps and fools and silliness, it manages to delight without simpering, make points without lecturing and break hearts and mend them again without turning you weepy.

| Aug 27, 2004

Despite the soaring novelty of Danny's getaway, and despite the unfailing, scruffy sweetness Ifans brings to every scene, writer-director Jeff Balsmeyer borrows too heavily from other films.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 26, 2004

Danny's a nice enough guy and it's a nice enough movie, if your standards aren't too strict and your tastes not too elitist -- and you don't get overly miffed about huge gaping plot holes all over a movie.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 26, 2004

In Balsmeyer's hands, Danny's story comes to seem every bit as awkward as the character himself, and the movie, like the balloon ride that inspired it, ultimately falls flat.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Aug 17, 2004

A soothing antidote to some of the summer's high-priced Hollywood clunkers.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 12, 2004

Balsmeyer can't seem to make up his mind whether he's making a gentle romantic comedy with heartfelt trimmings, or a full-court Aussie farce.

Full Review | Aug 12, 2004

Hail globalism: Sweet, dumb American movies can now be made anywhere in the world.

| Original Score: C | Aug 11, 2004