Ghost Town.

Ghost Town is "an occasionally effective mash-up of Ghost, The Sixth Sense and The Frighteners," notes Robert Wilonsky in the Voice. "If it sounds all so pale and predictable, it is."

It "doesn't do justice to the manifold gifts of Ricky Gervais," finds Slate's Dana Stevens. "Then again, giving Gervais the American star vehicle he deserves might be too much to ask. When he's performing his own material according to his own rules, Gervais is capable of comic sublimity.... Still, Ghost Town has inspired casting, a few memorable scenes, and enough laughs that mainstream US audiences may finally get the point of that doughy English guy with the pointy canine teeth and the high-pitched giggle."

Updated through 9/19.

"[I]f blockbuster screenwriter David Koepp's rom-com doesn't breach new territory, it finds small ways to revitalize familiar scenarios—specifically, by underplaying both its romance and its comedy, avoiding towering swells of sentimentality and attuning its tone to Ricky Gervais's snidely deadpan humor," writes Nick Schager in Slant.

"[M]ild, amusing..." David Goldman in the L Magazine.

Joel Stein profiles Gervais for Time. There're a couple of minutes of video, too.

More interviews with Gervais: Rachel Abramowitz (Los Angeles Times) and Sara Carduce (New York).

Cinematical paid a visit to the set.

At the SpoutBlog, Christopher Campbell revisits a host of "Allegorical Ghosts."

Online viewing tip. Michael Hogan talks with Koepp.

Updates, 9/19: "A latter-day hybrid of Topper and Blithe Spirit and a visual ode to autumn in New York, Ghost Town is a screwball comedy with no big surprises or hidden metaphors," writes Stephen Holden in the New York Times. "But if you comb through the ranks of recent Hollywood comedies that have tried to conjure the same mood of airy amusement, most of what you'll find are strained, witless duds that get mired in sentimentality like flies in molasses. As it draws to a close, Ghost Town tiptoes to the edge of that sticky mess, but it doesn't get caught there."

Charles Mudede in the Stranger: "Ghost Town contains two decent comic sequences (both involving a misanthropic English dentist, Ricky Gervais, and both happening in the first 30 minutes), one decent performance (again, the English dentist), zero new ideas, and less than zero cinema."

"Ghost Town is a rarity, a contemporary romantic comedy that honors the traditions of the genre without checking them off some plasticized list," finds Salon's Stephanie Zacharek. "The picture is breathing, and alive, every minute."

"More a man who could win a woman's heart by tickling her funny bone, Mr Gervais's characters need time to work their conversational mojo, lest the target of their affection catch sight of a striking extra," writes S James Snyder in the New York Sun. "And that's why Ghost Town, though a competent comedy, ultimately fails in the romance department: It shortchanges the dialogue and leaves Mr Gervais vulnerable to the charge that he's just not an entirely believable leading man."

"It takes an awful lot of effort for a contemporary comedy to win an audience back after opening with yet another 'Holy crap, that guy just got hit by a bus!' scene, but Ghost Town perseveres, and eventually emerges as a likeable time-waster, albeit more sweet than funny," writes Noel Murray at the AV Club.

In the Los Angeles Times, Jan Stuart enjoys watching Gervais "defying his own formidable unkemptness to make the case for himself as a successor to the slob-Romeo mantle of Jack Black. If Black can go the distance with Kate Winslet (as he did so charmingly in The Holiday), why shouldn't Gervais have a shot at Téa Leoni?"

"Because both Gervais and [Greg] Kinnear seem so urgent in their desires, and because Tea Leoni has a seemingly effortless humor and grace, this material becomes for a while sort of enchanting," writes Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times.

The Telegraph's John Hiscock talks with Gervais.

Posted by dwhudson at September 18, 2008 12:31 PM