Name : Wesley Morris / Alias : Boston Globe
What seems like another desperate adventure in stunt casting turns out to be a combustible comic bounty.

Name : Joshua Katzman / Alias : Chicago Reader
This is the fourth feature that Will Ferrell and writer-director Adam McKay have collaborated on, and once again they deliver laugh-out-loud if ultimately disposable comedy with mixed messages about arrested male development.

Name : Peter Debruge / Alias : Variety
The laughs ultimately take a backseat to a convoluted white-collar crime story.

Name : Kyle Anderson / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
The Perfect Guy escalates quite nicely, leading to a satisfyingly white-knuckled finale.

Name : Betsy Sharkey / Alias : Los Angeles Times
The plot doesn't always hold water and it has a tendency to ramble, but they don't seem to care. And honestly, neither should you.

Name : Liam Lacey / Alias : Globe and Mail
Deteriorates into something resembling Rush Hour 3.

Name : Chris Nashawaty / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
Basically, it's Inherent Vice without the highbrow aspirations, or The Big Lebowski with two Dudes.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
Don't let anyone spoil the wildly hilarious surprises. Ferrell and Wahlberg will double your fun. Guaranteed.

Name : Eddie Goldberger / Alias : New York Daily News
It's a lazy, by-the-numbers bore. It almost jumps through hoops to not be different in any way. In fact, you could sleep through the movie and still recite what happened.

Name : Richard Roeper / Alias : Richard Roeper.com
Note to Kevin Smith: THIS is how you do a spoof of the buddy-cop genre.

Name : Chris Vognar / Alias : Dallas Morning News
They may not be Jack Lemmon and Billy Wilder , but Will Ferrell and Adam McKay have a pretty good thing going.

Name : Ben Sachs / Alias : Chicago Reader
A reasonably engaging thriller with some topical overtones.

Name : Todd McCarthy / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
That the film mostly falls flat has far more to do with the largely unconvincing material rather than with the co-stars, who are more than game .

Name : David Fear / Alias : Time Out
Gives Wahlberg and Ferrell beautiful opportunities to turn their anger-mismanagement-meets-milquetoast act into an absurdist version of Abbott and Costello.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
Dead horse, meet floggers.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
Measured against this year's other police farce - remember Cop Out? - it looks absolutely heroic.

Name : Brian Truitt / Alias : USA Today
The movie is a throwback in many ways but also proves a dynamic duo can still be just as effective in modern cinema as a superhero ensemble cast. For The Nice Guys, it takes two to make it outta sight.

Name : Amy Nicholson / Alias : Boxoffice Magazine
As good and fleeting as a street corner popsicle

Name : Richard Corliss / Alias : TIME Magazine
Like some silly summer song that can't be shaken from the mind, this is a catchy enterprise, no better than it tries to be and no less funny.

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
A summer movie that honors summer-movie conventions with a vengeance.

Name : Elizabeth Weitzman / Alias : New York Daily News
There are as many hits as there are misses, thanks to the dedication of both leads.

Name : Steven Rea / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
The Other Guys boasts perhaps three legitimately funny sequences in all its belabored 107 minutes.

Name : Bilge Ebiri / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
Nobody goes to these Fatal Attraction retreads anymore for serious drama. But this one is a movie torn - too grim and self-important to go truly nuts, but too silly and slipshod to work on a more somber level.

Name : Connie Ogle / Alias : Miami Herald
The Other Guys is the sort of movie that generates some of its best jokes quietly in the background or as quick-hit throwaway lines, while other terrific gags are defiantly over the top.

Name : Amy Nicholson / Alias : MTV
Crowe and Gosling are a perfect mismatch. They skulk around Los Angeles like a bear and a weasel who just escaped from the circus.

Name : Frank Scheck / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
You've seen it a thousand times before.

Name : Tom Huddleston / Alias : Time Out
There's a wealth of joyously berserk idiot humour, fusing slapstick and satire, surrealism and stream-of-consciousness improv into what could well prove the funniest movie of the year.

Name : Alan Scherstuhl / Alias : Village Voice
The Nice Guys, ultimately, might be a little too nice, but Black and his cast really want you to have a ball.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
For the most part, the jokes have punch lines, which is too rarely the case in big-budget comedies.

Name : A.O. Scott / Alias : New York Times
The Other Guys is most authentically itself when it indulges in a free-form but nonetheless highly disciplined silliness that has the effect of dissolving, rather than piquing, whatever worldly anger or frustration you may be harboring.

Name : Alonso Duralde / Alias : TheWrap
Gosling and Crowe's breezy give-and-take goes a long way in elevating "The Nice Guys" above the moments where cynicism overwhelms the comedy.

Name : Nick Schager / Alias : Variety
David M. Rosenthal's Internet-age thriller falls head over heels for cheesy cliches.

Name : Christy Lemire / Alias : RogerEbert.com
Decent trash that could have been delicious trash with a little more daring.

Name : Josh Levin / Alias : Slate
There's just a bit too much formula and not quite enough insane-asylum lunacy.

Name : Jesse Hassenger / Alias : AV Club
Scene after scene exists only to deliver facts for later: Carter's family background; the location of Leah's spare housekey; the presence of a mildly nosy neighbor and a clumsily introduced pet cat.

Name : Kyle Smith / Alias : New York Post
Forgets it's a comedy and starts burrowing into a convoluted but uninteresting financial scandal involving an evil capitalist played by Steve Coogan.

Name : Wesley Morris / Alias : Grantland
I love Sanaa Lathan, except when she has to play dumb. And, boy, does The Perfect Guy need her to be dumb.

Name : Christy Lemire / Alias : Associated Press
You should really meet and get to know these guys for yourself.

Name : James Rocchi / Alias : TheWrap
"The Perfect Guy" - which was, it must be pointed out, deliberately not screened for critics prior to release - is a perfect example of how lame, lazy material strands good actors, resulting in a movie that looks great and feels less so.

Name : Scott Tobias / Alias : AV Club
Gloms together enough clever riffs and random funny business to overcome the inevitable lumpiness and dead ends.

Name : Michael Rechtshaffen / Alias : Los Angeles Times
A glossy, cliche-laden revenge thriller about the perils of meeting Mr. Too Good To Be True.

Name : Michael Rechtshaffen / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
Just when it seemed like the once-robust buddy-cop action-comedy was going to require a do-not-resuscitate order, along comes Will Ferrell and Adam McKay to show 'em how it's done.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling are clearly enjoying the hell out of each other in this crime caper set in 1977 Los Angeles. So how can you resist?

Name : Nick Pinkerton / Alias : Village Voice
Somebody didn't pack enough comedy for this long trip - the punchlines in the movie's second half are often callbacks to jokes you may not fondly remember from the first, until every gag is united with its mate.

Name : James Rocchi / Alias : MSN Movies
Highbrow, lowbrow and no-brow, inspired by improvisation yet connected to the structure of a plot and the traditions of a genre, "The Other Guys" is that rare modern comedy as smart as it is crazy, and as skillful as it is silly.

Name : Amy Biancolli / Alias : Houston Chronicle
Through it all, Ferrell is as Ferrell does. He's a non sequitur with frizz.

Name : Andrew O'Hehir / Alias : Salon.com
This is a startling late-summer surprise that's hysterically funny when it's not falling on its face.

Name : Owen Gleiberman / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
It's a comedy of manhood for the age of emasculation.

Name : Tomris Laffly / Alias : Time Out
The Nice Guys is the perfect, incredibly crafted yet laid-back procedural we've been starved for.

Name : Tom Long / Alias : Detroit News
In terms of flat-out nonstop laughter, it's the best comedy of the summer.

Name : Randy Cordova / Alias : Arizona Republic
It's sneaky and smartly funny, offering an almost perfect balance of action and comedy.

Name : Michael Phillips / Alias : Chicago Tribune
As with the war-film goof Tropic Thunder, you wonder if a smaller, scruffier-looking version of the same movie would have yielded bigger comic payoffs.

Name : Roger Moore / Alias : Orlando Sentinel
The Other Guys is a Ponzi scheme of a comedy, a buddy action picture cluttered with funny characters and hilarious moments.

Name : Joe Dziemianowicz / Alias : New York Daily News
It's overlong by about 15 minutes and goes in too many directions at once. But thanks to a groovy period vibe and the A-list stars, you're along for the ride.

Name : Owen Gleiberman / Alias : Variety
The sort of cheerfully hostile buddy bash that's been a staple since the '80s, only this one is singularly clever about its own triviality, and it offers the scruffy pleasure of seeing two great actors dial down their gravitas with style.

Name : Claudia Puig / Alias : USA Today
What would have been very funny for 15 minutes, and pretty funny for 45, doesn't maintain the standard over the course of a feature-length film.

Name : Michael O'Sullivan / Alias : Washington Post
The Other Guys takes stuff that, as a rule, isn't particularly funny, and tries to make you laugh. More often than not, it succeeds.

Name : Lisa Kennedy / Alias : Denver Post
At times, there's an "everything but the kitchen sink" quality to the joke grab. But it works.

Name : Neil Genzlinger / Alias : New York Times
Next to child-in-jeopardy thrillers, women-in-jeopardy thrillers are about as easy to construct as films get, and this one makes no effort to break any molds. Too bad.

Name : Tom Horgen / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
Do we really need another buddy-cop comedy? While stupefying, the answer is, surprisingly, "yes."