Tom Hanks directs himself in this, and also wrote the original script, so if you ever thought you can't have too much Hanks here is something else to blow your mind: you so, so can.

| Aug 31, 2018

| Original Score: B | Feb 18, 2012

An exceedingly minor entry on already impressive resums.

| Oct 7, 2011

To pluck romantic comedy from the jaws of a social crisis is a laudable project, worthy of Preston Sturges, and it's a pity that this featherlight drama-written by Tom Hanks and Nia Vardalos, and directed by Hanks himself-should falter in its task.

| Jul 18, 2011

...it's an old-fashioned star vehicle, fashioned for the particular screen personas of Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts by Hanks himself, who directed the film and wrote the screenplay with Nia Vardalos. You may recall that he produced her breakthrough film...

Full Review | Original Score: 2.1/2 | Jul 8, 2011

The problem is the movie only waltzes in the real world while it tangos and rumbas in the realm of the fantastic and superficial.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jul 8, 2011

Larry Crowne is more than a missed opportunity. It's alarmingly, depressingly out of touch.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Jul 7, 2011

Even if you wander into this congealed mess with nothing more demanding in mind than to spend a little time with two charming favorites, do not expect Forrest Gump or Pretty Woman.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Jul 6, 2011

Neither fish nor fowl, Larry Crowne skitters between pathos and shtick, wasting abundant acting talent as it goes.

| Jul 5, 2011

When it comes to unemployment-themed cinema, I'll take the greater realism of last year's The Company Men or this year's Everything Must Go over Hanks's too rosy vision of life after the pink slip.

| Jul 5, 2011

What a pleasant, easy-going experience that was.

| Jul 4, 2011

The film is sometimes gentle to the point of blandness, but it's never flimsy.

| Jul 4, 2011

The film pretends Tom and Julia are just two regular, down-to-earth, middle-aged people - even though their faces couldn't be any tighter if they pulled washing-up gloves over their heads.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 3, 2011

Neither the relationship of the two leads, nor any encounter between any of the film's other humans, seems to proceed according to the emotional or sociological customs of our culture.

| Jul 1, 2011

Larry Crowne doesn't come close to providing the rom-com satisfactions of films attached to the names Hanks and Roberts, or writer Nia Vardalos for that matter.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Jul 1, 2011

This is film as comfort food, and even if it has very little nutritional value, its pleasantly bland texture will help keep you occupied until your next job interview or layoff notice.

| Original Score: C+ | Jul 1, 2011

Next semester, the stars should drop Speech 217 and enroll in Chemistry 101 -- they dearly need some.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jul 1, 2011

If you like, you can think of Larry Crowne as the anti-Transformers. It's the opposite of an Event Movie for the summer season; instead, it's an old-fashioned star vehicle, fashioned for the particular screen personas of Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts by...

Full Review | Jul 1, 2011

It's enough that these two castaways are friends, but I guess friendship doesn't cut it when you're trying to create a star-driven hit. It should, though. Better a believable friendship than an unbelievable love affair.

| Original Score: C+ | Jul 1, 2011

It's a movie about starting over when you're past your prime, a message that must also be an analogy for its aging stars. But it only proves that some stars should just bow out when they have nothing else going for them.

| Original Score: 15/100 | Jul 1, 2011