Yahoo! MoviesZac Efron. Planking naked on a toilet. Sold, right?
Enticing as that may be to some, it might not be enough to hold one's interest when it comes to the actor's latest movie, That Awkward Moment (based on the reviews that have come in for the flick that also stars Michael B. Jordan, Miles Teller and Imogen Poots).
So, just what are the critics saying about the romantic comedy hitting theaters on Friday, Jan. 31? Here's a sample...
• "Teens and twentysomethings who possess even less life experience and emotional maturity than these characters may find profundity in some of this. All others need not apply," writes Scott Foundas of Variety.
• "Neither raunchy or believable, this R-rated rom-com can't commit," Stephen Whitty of the Newark Star-Ledger notes. "Maybe in development this movie needed an awkward moment of its own—one where the filmmaker was taken aside by one or more older, preferably female studio executives, who'd read him some of his script out loud."
• "In smaller, sharper doses, the frenetic testosterone shtick of these baby-faced blusterers might have worked better," the Hollywood Reporter's Sheri Linden opines.
• "While it has the requisite amounts of comedy and romance, it's actually more of a buddy movie. Think Sex and the City, bro-style," states Claudia Puig of USA Today. "It's a Valentine's Day date movie that guys won't mind seeing, and women will find amusing enough and easy on the eyes."
• "That Awkward Moment has a script like a basket of clichés, hauling out the hoariest insights about romance and relationships alongside gags so shopworn...you can't believe they still exist outside of family-hour sitcoms," writes The Wrap's Alonso Duralde, adding, "The plotting issues would matter less if That Awkward Moment actually delivered on the laughs, but there are few to be found."
• "The actors—who seem to have been involved in a hideous industrial accident that's left them with the superpower of repelling all comic timing—are spectacularly unfunny," remarks Cath Clarke of Time Out.