53
Metascore
29 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 75Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertThe Big Year is getting the enthusiastic support of the Audubon Society, and has an innocence and charm that will make it appealing for families, especially those who have had enough whales and dolphins for the year.
- 70The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyThe Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyThe uniformly winning cast, led by Steve Martin, Jack Black and Owen Wilson, and the ultra-accessible touch provided by director David Frankel provide for a constant steam of gentle mirth, if not huge laughs.
- 70MovielineMovielineGenial and mild, The Big Year doesn't give in to the temptation to juice up its story with outsized caricatures or inflated dramas.
- 67Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanEntertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanThe more I sat through it, the more it won me over in its very benign high-concept way. It's like "City Slickers" remade for the Discovery Channel.
- 63Orlando SentinelRoger MooreOrlando SentinelRoger MooreWhat this film from the director of "The Devil Wears Prada" does manage is a gentle amiability.
- 50VarietyBrian LowryVarietyBrian LowryDirector David Frankel's picture delivers sweet and (more rarely) amusing moments, but this odd duck never completely gets off the ground.
- 42The A.V. ClubKeith PhippsThe A.V. ClubKeith PhippsIn The Big Year co-stars Owen Wilson and Jack Black appear on the verge of succumbing to the same terminal blandness that's gripped Martin for so long.
- 25Miami HeraldRene RodriguezMiami HeraldRene RodriguezWhy does The Big Year's trailer intentionally hide what the film is really about? Here's why: Because bird-watching - or birding, as practitioners prefer to call it - makes for a stupefyingly boring movie.
- 25Slant MagazineBill WeberSlant MagazineBill WeberDirector David Frankel can't lend the inflated sitcom dilemmas of the characters any life, and most mysteriously screenwriter Howard Franklin, whose work in the '90s frequently had appealing quirk and flavor, gets the dubious credit for adapting a 1998 nonfiction book about these hobbyists' pursuit of pink-footed geese and Northern Shovelers.