Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!
DreamWorks Distribution | Release Date: January 23, 2004 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
52
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 35 Critic Reviews
Positive:
10
Mixed:
25
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
USA TodayClaudia Puig
Unexpectedly charming. It's a classic date movie, but it also will appeal to pre-dating tweens and middle-aged romantics. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
Isn't as funny as it wants to be, but it has a sheer pleasantness that stands out in this season of heavy-handed entertainments. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Kate Bosworth holds it all together with a sweetness that is beyond calculation. Read full review
70
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
The great lesson of the film is that humor, honest feelings and genuine exuberance trump technique.
63
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Easy to like, and easy to forget. Read full review
63
New York Daily NewsElizabeth Weitzman
Starts out as fresh as your popcorn, but turns stale before you finish it. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
Too silly to be taken seriously, it's not silly enough to overcome skepticism. Read full review
63
PremiereLaine Ewen
It is a cute, silly romantic comedy, with little suspense and nothing particularly new to add to genre. Read full review
63
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
A flimsy, genial romp peopled with early-twentysomethings and targeted at teens and young adults. Read full review
63
Miami HeraldConnie Ogle
Half-hearted satire of Hollywood and small-town life, and Bosworth is not particularly memorable in it. Read full review
60
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
The great character actor Gary Cole, in particular, stands out as Bosworth's father, who tries to impress Duhamel by reading the trades, thumbing through Julia Phillips' autobiography, and donning a Project Greenlight T-shirt. Read full review
60
L.A. WeeklyChuck Wilson
Refreshingly laid-back romantic comedy. Read full review
60
The New York TimesStephen Holden
A 1950's movie magazine fantasy dressed up just enough to pass for contemporary. Read full review
60
Washington PostMark Jenkins
Forget Tad Hamilton -- this is really a 90-minute date with Kate Bosworth. Read full review
60
TV Guide MagazineAngel Cohn
This sweet trifle is infinitely more enjoyable than the gross-out romantic comedies that proliferated in the wake of "There's Something About Mary." Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesKevin Thomas
A sweet-natured romantic comedy that's easy viewing but could have used a little more energy and a little less unalloyed niceness to put it over with more punch. Read full review
60
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
Slapdash but good-natured romantic comedy. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
May find an audience, but I found it to be a leftover John Hughes triangle. Read full review
50
VarietyRobert Koehler
A warm embrace of broadly but humanely sketched characters plus some scrappy casting of rising young stars led by an incandescent Kate Bosworth help overcome the half-realized comedic situations. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
The film's comedy is lackluster, with supporting actors Nathan Lane and Sean Hayes (as Tad's manager and agent) providing a few mildly amusing moments that would be at home in a sit-com. Read full review
50
Village VoiceBen Kenigsberg
A less offensive concoction than Luketic's "Legally Blonde," Win a Date is nevertheless an oddity, unsure of its tone and even of what period it's set in. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
Should please its core audience, which includes anyone who might actually want to win a date with Tad Hamilton. Others may opt to wait for another date with Kate Bosworth -- or Nathan Lane. Read full review
50
New York PostMegan Lehmann
Despite his innate appeal and nimble line readings, Grace can't surmount the deficiencies of the underdog character screenwriter Victor Levin ("Mad About You") has saddled him with. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleCarla Meyer
[Duhmel] brings surprising nuance to an ostensibly shallow character, a guy who's not really bad, just caught up in his own celebrity. Read full review
50
SlateDavid Edelstein
The final 10 minutes of Win A Date With Tad Hamilton! are likable: one cliché following another, but with charming restraint. Or it might just have been that the movie's simple-mindedness wore me down. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTy Burr
A pleasant puff-pastry throwback to Sandra Dee movies, ''Bye Bye Birdie,'' and other pre-Beatles effluvia. Read full review
50
Rolling StonePeter Travers
The actors, especially Grace, fight hard against a schizoid script (the kids are rubes one sec, hipsters the next) and cotton-candy direction from Robert Luketic (Legally Blonde). It's a losing battle. Read full review
50
SalonStephanie Zacharek
Suffers from a lack of conviction. Read full review
42
Seattle Post-IntelligencerSean Axmaker
Time travelers, hobbits, ghosts? Those I can buy. The impossibly quaint world of small-town innocence and Hollywood harmlessness in Win a Date With Tad Hamilton? Now that demands a serious suspension of disbelief.
42
Portland OregonianMarc Mohan
For children old enough to get the jokes about Vicodin but young enough to innocently fantasize about movie stars, Win a Date With Tad Hamilton! will be a perfectly pitched midwinter treat. Read full review
40
Film ThreatChris Barsanti
Takes a workable premise wrapped inside a mostly-talented cast and piles it all on poor Bosworth’s shoulders; it’s just not fair, you see how narrow they are. Read full review
40
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
Ironically, what the comedy lacks is the sly imagination and satirical underpinnings of the best sex comedies from that (Doris Day) era. Instead, exposition is poorly executed, genuine laughs come infrequently and you quickly lose confidence that the filmmakers even understand what their basic joke is. Read full review
40
Dallas ObserverRobert Wilonsky
Before things have even begun we know how they will end; this is pure Hollywood product, slicker than the insides of an oilcan. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleKimberley Jones
The bland script and direction are spruced up by a likable cast. Read full review
40
EmpireChris Hewitt
Win A Date With Tad Hamilton is a valiant attempt to create a love triangle, but ends up getting all its sums wrong. Read full review
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