Even if The 4:30 Movie is intended as a parody of crummy ’80s teen comedies, that still means the jokes are lame and their hollering deliveries are dead on arrival.

Full Review | Sep 18, 2024

Fortunately, The 4:30 Movie is a step in the right direction. I have my share of issues with the film, but Kevin Smith is at least doing more than just having his heart in the right place.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Sep 18, 2024

The endearing moments in Kevin Smith’s coming-of-age cinema-fest are weighed down by underwritten comedy. Could have done with being more sweet, less salty.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 18, 2024

We sense that every moment (good or bad) comes from a personal place. That earnestness does a lot of heavy lifting, making this a much more palatable experience compared to Smith’s other, less successful undertakings.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Sep 18, 2024

Everything is cast in a glow of hazy, diffusion-filter-smeared nostalgia, though it never feels authentic to a particular time or place, or even develops a consistent vibe.

Full Review | Original Score: C- | Sep 16, 2024

Smith's love letter to youth, the movies and the '80s is precisely the kind of film that people lament doesn't get made anymore.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Sep 16, 2024

You’d reckon it would be impossible for someone to do something 15 times without learning anything, but it beggars belief how much worse Smith has gotten at the basics of camera blocking and shot composition.

Full Review | Sep 14, 2024

Even though it all leads to a charming conclusion, far too much of The 4:30 Movie is concerned with excessive indulgence, making every cringe joke possible about the future of movies and time-wasting subplots

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 13, 2024

It’s nice to see his characters behave in a developmentally appropriate way for a change. Rather than sad looks into grown men who stubbornly refuse to grow up, Smith is able to give us a cute portrait of kids who just haven’t gotten there yet.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Sep 13, 2024

Light and self-deprecating where “Clerks 3” was depressing and verklempt, “The 4:30 Movie” offers viewers a reassuring trip down memory lane.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 13, 2024

Smith captures the fun and perils of young adulthood convincingly.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 13, 2024

[Smith is] doing things his own way, and if that doesn't make The 4:30 Movie actually good, it's still not nothing. Smith is now strictly a for-fans-only kind of showman, and one suspects those fans wouldn't have it any other way.

Full Review | Sep 13, 2024

Kudos to Smith for trying something different, but it's just too insipid to truly stand apart as a unique coming-of-age tale or a canonical Kevin Smith production.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10 | Sep 13, 2024

Kevin Smith’s The 4:30 Movie is a charming slice-of-life coming-of-age tale that not only embraces young love but serves as a love letter to cinephiles, friendships, and the multiplex experience.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 13, 2024

Sadly, I’d rather watch any of Smith’s fake movies than The 4:30 Movie, because at least they seem enjoyably weird.

Full Review | Sep 12, 2024

It’s like “The Fabelmans” if Steven Spielberg had grown up to make bad movies.

Full Review | Sep 12, 2024

Everything adds up in Kevin Smith's love letter to his youth and the movies in The 4:30 Movie--his efforts here would make John Hughes proud.

Full Review | Sep 12, 2024

The 4:30 Movie is Kevin Smith’s most genuine film of his career as a director and perfectly aligns with the classic teen-centric films of the 1980s.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Sep 12, 2024

The 4:30 Movie is an absolute return-to-form of a director fans have never stopped rooting for. This is Kevin Smith’s foul-mouthed Fabelmans, and also his best film in years.

Full Review | Original Score: 7.5/10 | Sep 12, 2024

Smith's self-indulgence overshadows any sense of nostalgia ... [and] sincerity...

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4 | Sep 12, 2024