38
Metascore
12 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 75Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertOnce in a blue moon a movie escapes the shackles of its genre and does what it really wants to do. Kids in America is a movie like that. It breaks out of Hollywood jail.
- 40Village VoiceVillage VoiceNicole Richie loyalists are sure to be confounded (along with the rest of us) by Kids in America, the weirdly anti-Bush high school "satire" that is also Richie's big-screen debut.
- 40Dallas ObserverMelissa LevineDallas ObserverMelissa LevineHas its heart in the right place, but its head seems to be lost in a swirling maelstrom of teen movies that have come before.
- 40L.A. WeeklyL.A. WeeklyA trite teen comedy burdened with lofty aspirations of rallying adolescent audiences to political action.
- 40VarietyJustin ChangVarietyJustin ChangJosh Stolberg launches a scalding attack on the stodgy conservatism of the American public school system, only to end up stacking the deck in egregiously smirky and simple-minded ways.
- 40The Hollywood ReporterSheri LindenThe Hollywood ReporterSheri LindenWell-meaning but woefully unconvincing.
- 40The New York TimesStephen HoldenThe New York TimesStephen HoldenBecause Kids in America can't decide whether it wants to be a stock teenage comedy or something more, it ends up stranded in the middle of nowhere.
- 38New York PostLou LumenickNew York PostLou LumenickFilmmaker Josh Stolberg claims to have been inspired by real-life events, but mostly he ineptly rips off other movies and wastes a cast that includes Rosanna Arquette, Adam Arkin and Elizabeth Perkins.
- Short on real teenage angst and emotion, the film is long on caricatures.
- 30Los Angeles TimesKevin CrustLos Angeles TimesKevin CrustA comedy so inane and tedious that it buries its premise and its various worthy points under too many arch and improbable shenanigans and endless dialogue, much of it seriously under-inspired.