Bell and Grammer's characters are so fuzzily rendered that they create no sparks when they butt heads in close quarters.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Aug 29, 2018

There is an element with early onset Alzheimer's, that in the film feels very wedged in like as the emotional underpinning that they are going for which explains certain people's actions.

| Original Score: 4/10 | Aug 10, 2018

Clearly, given its algorithmic knowledge, Netflix knows things we don't... It doesn't quite explain why a film so willing to check all the comedy-cliché boxes would commit to humor least of all, particularly given how well standard fare can do.

| Aug 7, 2018

These flaws might be more banal, if not more forgivable, had the film not seemingly had its own ulterior motive for entering your living room. Unfortunately, branding plays a far more significant role than any of the human supporting characters.

| Aug 6, 2018

It's a predictable comedy of reconciliation. But it boasts substantial pleasures, largely on account of the performers.

| Aug 3, 2018

Bell and Grammer are wonderful playing off one another. Funny when the moment calls for funny, authentic and believable when the moment calls for substantive drama.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 3, 2018

"Like Father" does what a lot of its comedic ancestors did, which is find humor on the perimeter of woeful circumstance.

| Aug 3, 2018

By the time the main characters deliver an exuberant full-length karaoke rendition of Styx's "Come Sail Away," a norovirus seems a desirable alternative.

| Aug 3, 2018

It's hard to imagine anyone but Netflix greenlighting such a lackluster screenplay (I imagine 60 pages with the words "Insert hilarious montage here" repeated five or six times throughout)...

| Aug 3, 2018

Too often, however, the film lurches into jaded formula (an climactic karaoke competition) and weary stereotypes (the baby-craving gay dads).

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 3, 2018

There are traces here of a more ambitious, less predictable film.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 3, 2018

For the most part, it's barely a comedy at all, first by choice and then for other, more disappointing reasons.

| Original Score: C- | Aug 3, 2018

The movie's arc is too conventional by half, but the appeal of the two main actors keeps it (sorry) afloat, maybe more than it should...

| Original Score: B | Aug 2, 2018

A mostly likable if wholly unremarkable heap of froth.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 2, 2018

"Like Father" swamps its workable emotional core and adept lead turns with some slapdash plotting and a raft of floating festivities.

| Aug 2, 2018

Like Father ends up challenging the value of resentment in a way that few movies can, or will, or want to.

| Original Score: B | Aug 2, 2018