MacGruber
Universal Pictures | Release Date: May 21, 2010 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
43
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 24 Critic Reviews
Positive:
5
Mixed:
11
Negative:
8
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
Boxoffice MagazineAmy Nicholson
What makes Forte so funny is that he stalks through the flick cocksure and utterly deadpan. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter Travers
How the hell can you take an SNL skit that runs 90 seconds and stretch it to a 90-minute feature? Sounds excruciating. But MacGruber breaks the jinx by putting the skit in the context of a 1980s action movie and creating its own brand of explosive lunacy. Read full review
75
PremiereJohn DeVore
MacGruber is crude. It’s obscene. The dialogue is puerile and the jokes adolescent. And for the most part, it's hilarious: a bawdy riot drunk on impropriety, which is why the movie works. Read full review
65
MovielineStephanie Zacharek
MacGruber never gathers any momentum. Once in a while a funny line or absurd sight gag will amble into the foreground, only to recede immediately in the rear-view mirror of memory. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Forte and company have managed to make crude and lewd dunderheadedness laugh-out-loud funny here and there, and that, I guess, is something of an achievement. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterJohn DeFore
Utterly disposable but diverting, MacGruber manages to spin feature-length product out of an idea that few would try expanding beyond a "Saturday Night Live" skit. Read full review
60
VarietyJoe Leydon
How much mileage can a comedy get from a single joke? Quite a bit, judging from the guffaws-to-groaners ratio in MacGruber. Read full review
60
Time OutJoshua Rothkopf
The meal here is mainly nostalgia, larded with a thick sauce of irony. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesRobert Abele
While this jury-rigged exercise may not be an explosion of laughs, it's no dud, either. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubNathan Rabin
It isn’t exactly good, but for audiences in search of nothing more than a few silly chuckles, it should prove good enough. Read full review
50
Orlando SentinelRoger Moore
Kilmer makes a worthy, if somewhat underscripted villain. And some of the bits -- MacGruber idiotically setting traps that the bad guys never fall for -- tickle. But this still feels instantly dated, a "Hot Rod in a Role Models" era. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTy Burr
All thing considered, MacGruber’ is a lot better than it should be. That still doesn’t mean it’s all that great. Read full review
50
Tampa Bay TimesSteve Persall
Will Forte plays his pitifully deluded creation to the hilt in a penknife movie. There's a lot of material here that only occasionally succeeds on Forte's insanely focused performance. Read full review
50
SalonSam Adams
MacGruber dutifully rehearses the genre's standbys -- so dutifully, at times, that the joke disappears altogether. Read full review
42
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
The result is a naughty throwaway in all senses of the word. Read full review
40
EmpireNick de Semlyen
More Pistachio Disguisey than Austin Powers, this cheapjack comedy is nowhere near as ingenious as the man it sends up. Read full review
38
Washington PostRuth McCann
For all the wacky, taboo, parodic situations that MacGruber plunges into, the film seems content to simply point at its hero, yell "What a schmuck!" and leave it at that. Read full review
30
SlateDana Stevens
The SNL skits get laughs from combining the grandiose scope of an action movie with the cramped, bare-bones stage of a live late-night comedy show. It's funny because it looks dinky, cheap, and fake. By showing real buildings really exploding, and real throats—or a believable simulacrum thereof--ripped open by real bare hands, MacGruber commits the deeply MacGruber-esque mistake of shooting itself in the foot. Read full review
30
Austin ChronicleKimberley Jones
The film goes by in a wash of uninspired action and unmemorable comedy. Read full review
25
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
Think of a really bad, uncensored Saturday Night Live comedy sketch. Then make it worse – make it longer. Read full review
25
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Watching this movie, I wished I knew how to use dental floss, a paper clip, and a crumpled movie ticket to break the projector. Read full review
20
New York Daily NewsJoe Neumaier
To call MacGruber"a total bomb is a bit much, but this comedy-action flick sure feels like it was put together with gum, shoelaces and a couple of sticky Twizzlers. Read full review
12
New York PostKyle Smith
There's a reason you've never seen the words "Will Forte" topping the billing of a major motion picture. After the throbbing flameball of unfunny that is MacGruber, you never will again. Read full review
0
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
The law of diminishing returns is enforced so stringently that the movie succeeds not only in negating its own comedy, but its very being. Read full review
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