ChanFamous I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Salubfoto It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Tobias Burrows It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Edwin The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

richspenc I'm sure most film critics, professional and amateur, have read Roger Ebert's famous review of "North". " I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated it". I can definitely see where he's coming from with a lot of this film. But as much as I hated a lot of it , I feel that there are a couple sort of amusing moments in it, but there are MANY more bad ones than OK ones. That's why I've rated it a 3 instead of a 1. The parts I hated, I don't have enough room to name them all, but I'll name a few of the worst things in it. The entire Texas scene with North and Dan Aykroyd. Some very stupid irritating jokes such as "Buck ate more in a day than most people eats in a month, that's why he hated February". The Texas motor cart driving through the airport with an annoying horn. Dan Aykroyd's overly forced smiles after his dumb jokes. The dumb song with Dan at the end if it saying with his forced smile, " nother rib son"? The whole "trying to make North very fat" deal. The Hawaii and Alaska scenes have the exact same kind of problems. More stupid, annoying, unfunny jokes and puns made in Hawaii such as the "Mrs Ho" joke and "without B, C, D, and F in our alphabet, you're guaranteed to get straight As". The very worst and extremely inappropriate joke is the North billboard joke. More awful jokes in Alaska such as the "Eskimo pie" joke, the Alaskan Christmas joke, and the "your face will freeze that way" joke. The very worSt is the extremely heartless "ice flows" joke. Still more bad jokes; the plane landing in Alaska skidding joke. The beginning of the film with Jason Alexander and his pants factory joke. Very stupid. The Jerry Lewis joke in France. Jon Lovit's character, very annoying. I still did not name every stupid, terrible thing in this movie yet. Not enough room here. Now to list the few kind of amusing parts: Winchell's character as kid genius turned almost evil overlord as the film progresses .The Amish scene where North says humorously, "excuse me, I left my butter churner on the plane". Then him telling the pilot " floor it". The part in Bruce Willis's comedy club. And the dialogue between Winchell, Lovitz, and the hit-man about borscht and the hit-man's mistake about thinking North was dead. As you can see, there are many more bad than good parts in this film.

SnoopyStyle North (Elijah Wood) keeps being ignored by his parents (Jason Alexander, Julia Louis-Dreyfus). He is all stressed out. After talking to the mall Easter Bunny (Bruce Willis), he decides to sue to become a free agent kid. He gets Arthur Belt (Jon Lovitz) as his lawyer. The judge gives North until Labor Day to find new parents or go back to his old parents or be sent to an orphanage. He goes off on a worldwide search for new parents with all kinds of wild couples applying.The basic premise demeans the idea of childhood and family. Other than that, there isn't anything particularly funny in this movie. I don't know if there is something about the Alan Zweibel novel that director Rob Reiner missed. It needs to have a wilder crazier wackier sense of style. It needs to bring the audience into a completely different world. The movie needs to be played like a kid's fantasy. Having Bruce Willis play various characters doesn't give it that magical feeling. This movie needs to be seen through a lens of magic. This is not simply boring or unfunny. This is wrong headed.

horrorflicklover Siskel & Ebert really tore this film up top to bottom. Largely, they're absolutely right. But they also have at it in regards to the premise, and I would disagree with that. I actually think this is a pretty good concept for a family film. The writing is where this movie falls flat on it's face.There's nothing wrong with a fantasy-comedy film about a boy who sets out on an world trip to find the "perfect" parents. Nothing at all, unless it's this movie. North has got to be one of the most culturally insensitive, factually inaccurate, and stereotypical films I've ever seen. The entire problem with how the different cultures are depicted is that they're written as if this is a parody film. No, this is a FAMILY COMEDY (we'll use the word "comedy" pretty loosely here). Not a parody film. Big difference. This movie in no way purports to be a parody, nor does it attempt to draw that type of audience. That Rob Reiner would have released such a film really shocks me.These are the biggest problems, the inaccuracies and cultural insensitivity. Not for this type of film, not for it's intended audience. It's actually pretty appalling. Sure, I get what the writers were trying to do, the direction they were trying to go in. But that's not enough. Not when the end product is a cold-hearted insult to several different cultures. It's as misguided and stereotypical as a minstrel show.On top of that, this movie simply isn't very funny. Again, you get how they were TRYING to be funny. But you see it fall absolutely short.I have no beef with the concept at all. Had this movie been written in an entirely different manner, they'd have had a solid film here. It even has some solid star power. Nothing holds this back from being good more than the absolutely atrocious script. A script which seems to think that it's an entirely different film for an entirely different audience. And that leaves this movie with very little to make it worthwhile.

Jack Kierski The film North (which was released on July 22, 1994) features a comedy-drama-adventure plot written by Alan Zweibel and Andrew Scheinman and directed by Rob Reiner. The story is based on the novel North: The Tale of a 9-Year-Old Boy Who Becomes a Free Agent and Travels the World in Search of the Perfect Parents by Alan Zweibel. North was Rob Reiner's first recent family-friendly movie. Rob Reiner also directed the greats such as "This is Spinal Tap (1984)", "Misery (1990)", and "A Few Good Men (1992)".The film stars a talented then 13-year old actor Elijah Wood as the main protagonist, North. At the time the film was released in 1994, Elijah Wood was starting to become a somewhat well known celebrity. The film also stars Jon Lovitz, Jason Alexander, Alan Arkin, Dan Aykroyd, Kathy Bates, Faith Ford, Graham Greene, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Reba McEntire, John Ritter, and Abe Vigoda. It is also Scarlett Johansson's debut film, who's gone on to be considered one of the sexiest actresses of our era . North (Elijah Wood) is a eleven year old kid, with busy parents (Julia Louis Dreyfus & Jason Alexander) not giving him the attention he needs. So, North and his lawyer Arthur Belt (Jon Lovitz) file a lawsuit against them. The judge played by Alan Arkin decides that North should either find new parents or return to his own parents by Labor Day – a deadline of two months. If he hasn't found new parents or returned to his by the deadline, he will be sent to an orphanage. So North sets out traveling the world in search of parents who really care about him. His first stop is Texas where he takes a shot at getting to know potentially new parents played by Dan Aykroyd & Reba McEntire. That doesn't work out very well and he moves on to Hawaii and Alaska where he meets an Eskimo mother played by Oscar-winning movie actress Kathy Bates. The parents he encounters in the movie aren't funny, although they aren't serious and turn out not to be helpful to North. Either way, I believe the actors in the movie don't play their characters in the humorous way needed. The film is narrated by Bruce Willis in the form of a mysterious characters who follows North throughout the movie in various character forms - the Easter bunny, a Texan cowboy, a beach bum and a Fed-Ex driver. The narrator first meets North at a mall wearing an Easter bunny costume a role difficult to reconcile with Willis' usual tough-guy role. His role as narrator in the film really falls short. The narrator, in my mind, is not helpful to the movie. One example of this is the way that the narrator verbalizes to North about his terrible parents. Rob Reiner's biggest mistake as a film director takes place with creation of this motion picture, a mistake he himself acknowledged: "North is one of the worst movie that I have ever seen in my life!". I feel sorry for Rob Reiner with respect to his directing of this film, but he, of course, was unaware while directing the film that it would turn out as bad as it did and he probably shouldn't have even made the film whose greatest weakness is the screenplay and film production itself. (Alan Zweibel and Andrew Scheinman also produced the film.)The film North has one of the stupidest stories ever and I disliked every character portrayed in the movie. Even the film was really poor, I still respect Rob Reiner because it is his only failure of a movie; the only truly bad film he's ever directed. Here's my advice: "Do not watch this film! However, you could watch it just to see how bad the movie truly is!" I give that film a 0 out of 4 stars!