If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Goldie Hawn is a wonderful comedy actress; Steve Martin is a wonderful comedy actor; Neil Simon is a wonderful comedy writer; and New York City is a wonderful place to use as a setting for a movie. Yet, this movie is a clunker; it's as flat as a pancake, and an overcooked one at that. Although certain scenes do provoke a laugh, in general this movie simply is not funny. The story is a pure Hollywood comedy potboiler, that is, a formula movie and a poor retread of the 1970 original, which itself wasn't the funniest movie either, but that's for another review. The idea of everything going wrong during a trip is nothing new, but if properly treated it can produce laughs. But in this movie the things that go wrong are so absurd and contrived that the laughs are lost. What happens to the Clarks would not and could not happen to anyone else, hence the movie becomes irrelevant to the audience and loses its meaning as a satire or parody. John Cleese provides some humor as the hotel manager but his presence is limited and in no way comes close to rescuing this movie from its essential banality.

I am a big fan of the original movie with Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis. So you can imagine how excited I was to see what they might have done with it. Unfortunately, it turned out that instead of seeing what they had done WITH it, I was saddened to see what they had done TO it. I have read many places where Troll 2 is considered the worst movie ever made, and I agree it is pretty cheezy. But as far as a really bad movie, this one out-does Troll 2 in every possible way. Shame on Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn for accepting to make this abomination! For one thing, it has nothing remotely akin to the original script of Neil Simon's. The basic premise is similar...New York, job interview, mishaps. That's about it. The comedy(?) is nothing but stupid slapstick crap that I often refer to as cheap and easy. I like Steve Martin, but I keep wondering why he keeps doing these horrible remakes of good classics (e.g. Cheaper By The Dozen). I issue this review as a warning against seeing this waste of time. From here on, watch it, but at your own risk. Don't say I didn't warn you!

It really hurt me to make it through this entire thing. I love me some Steve Martin and John Cleese, but this movie was down right offensive to me. I don't think I've ever said that about a movie before, but the way any sort of slightly-less-than-vanilla sex act is considered freakish and disgusting in this movie could only bring joy to Rick Santorum. The only people I could envision sitting in a theater laughing at this is a group of WASP-y middle age white people who go to the movies once a year on Christmas and the rest of the year watching Nora Ephron films on VHS. I've had people talk to me recently about how maddeningly bad the new Indiana Jones film is and how they have to explain how bad it is, and that's how I felt about this movie. Stay away from it if you value your soul.

One comedy that is so American that you may have problems sleeping afterwards because of the jaw pain you will get due to too much laughing. I would advise you to take some kind of Prozac before not to be too much overwhelmed by the silly situations this film develops with gusto and vicious pleasure. The poor people from Ohio do not have one gram or one 176th part of an ounce of luck when they come to New York for a job interview. The plane is out-routed, nearly out-sourced, their deluxe rental car has no air conditioning. They get lost because they don't know how to read a map, and then their rental GPS gets stuck in some kind of French sounding neighborhood and they end up in a fish-market or something like that with crates and fresh squishy things. 2,200 dollars for a 200 mile, at the most, ride. At the hotel they are kicked out because their credit card has been overdrawn by their own daughter. And that's only part of the beginning. Get to that film to discover the hundreds of details and risks out-of-towners run in New York City, an apple in which any smiling friendly face may be the worm that is eating the core of it. Very well done and so dynamic that you may fall for the good old days of Hair in Central Park.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines