Multiplicity

Both assuredly funny without being forced, and smart without being smug, this is one comedy that deserves to go forth and, indeed, multiply. Read full review

The picture provides hilarious complications to the arithmetic mayhem and will be one of the strongest performers in the second half of the summer, its inventive edge standing up to the barrage of flashier effects pics. Read full review

A finely performed, breezily directed, very funny comedy. [17 July 1996, p.33]

As silly as Multiplicity is, there is an adult sensibility at work here. The movie gets some of its biggest laughs when the clones, one after the other, proceed to break rule number one: No clone nooky. There's nothing explicit about the sexual shenanigans, but the duplicates' respective dalliances with the missus serve as the basis for much of the comedy. [17 July 1996, p.E04]

Director Harold Ramis, who managed to stop time in the sunny comic masterpiece "Groundhog Day," tries a different tack in this lesser though nonetheless hilarious caper. Read full review

Directed by Harold Ramis and starring Michael Keaton at his most satisfying, "Multiplicity" is the latest film to benefit from the unprecedented visual miracles that special effects can now produce. It is also one more example of a picture where technical inventiveness outstrips the pedestrian story line it's meant to animate. [17 July 1996, p.F1]

Watching the film, I enjoyed a lot of it, especially Keaton's permutations on the theme of himself. But I wondered why the possibilities weren't taken to greater comic extremes. Read full review

The jokes, which are frequent and frequently successful, make this motion picture worth sitting through, even though, at nearly two hours, it runs on for far too long. For those who are just looking for a movie that scores high on the feel-good comedy scale, Multiplicity is a can't- miss choice. In the end, however, I couldn't help wishing that Ramis had tried for something a little more ambitious, rather than settling for a multiplicity of laughs without much genuine substance. Read full review

Multiplicity satisfies the need for a dumb summer comedy while remaining fairly smart. Read full review

While Keaton is many things, he is not Jim Carrey. Which, from Keaton's standpoint, is probably a relief. [17 July 1996, p.25]

My hope is that if they do a sequel, they focus on No. 4. Love the way he carries pizza wedges in his wallet [17 July 1996]

But the movie really just sort of peters out rather than reaching a sublime point. In "Groundhog Day," there was an exquisite moment where the wonderfully horrid Bill Murray actually regained contact with his humanity and rejoined his species. No such thing occurs in "Multiplicity"; the movie just staggers toward a point where it's gone on long enough to do everybody the favor of ending it. Send out the writers. [17 July 1996]

Seamless, funny and startling. Anybody who thinks Keaton always does tiny variations on the same sardonic character - making him a bit more tight-lipped, say, when donning a Batsuit - will be surprised by the variety of his skills here. [19 July 1996, p.3E]