CHICAGO - MOVIE REVIEWS NICK AND NORAH'S INFINITE PLAYLIST

MOVIE REVIEWS NICK AND NORAH'S INFINITE PLAYLIST

To another generation Nick and Nora were Nick and Nora Charles, played by William Power and Myrna Loy in The Thin Man and three sequels in the 1930s and '40s. Several critics warn that the title pair in Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist have nothing at all in common with the elegant pair in the old husband-and-wife detective series. Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times gives Michael Cera and Kat Dennings, who star in it, some restrained praise ("They work well together [and] are appealing"), but is far from enthusiastic as he concludes that the movie "lacks some of the idiocy of your average teenage rom-com But it doesn't bring much to the party." Mick LaSalle in the San Francisco Chronicle remarks that Nick and Norah "plays like a movie inspired by good movies, not by the emotion that inspires good movies." A.O. Scott in the New York Times regards the title characters as "cool" and "nice" and the movie itself as being "so friendly that you may wish for a little more conflict." He suggests, however, that those who go to see it simply "savor the fleeting, teasing pop pleasures this movie celebrates and dispenses." Joe Morgenstern in the Wall Street Journal agrees. "It's an imperfect, sometimes familiar but always exuberant comedy with romantic resonance," he writes.

03/10/2008