Rating: 
Summary: Tom Hanks needs to try living outside of L.A.
Review: This movie is probably one of the worst films ever released. The only reason it made the theaters was because it had Tom Hanks' name tagged to it. Its true home is where it is played now - on USA up all night. The funniest part of the movie is the build-up to getting to see Tom Hanks. We don't see him for the first 20 minutes of the film, until the climactic moment when the camera slowly crawls up from behind him in a slow dolly. When the star is finally revealed in all his glory, Mr Hollywood is cooler in his Ray-Ban shades. The funniest thing about this is Tom Hanks is the narcissist behind the camera. The only thing more obnoxious than this is the horrible soundtrack. The film digs its own grave by playing the awful one hit wonder that the band supposedly rides to glory over and over again.
Rating: 
Summary: I LOVE THIS MOVIE
Review: if you love music you will love this movie.the songs were great too.its about a garage band getting to be really famous.but jimmy the lead singer broke the band up because he wouldn't play that thing you do in spanish.it was great i recommend you to go and see the movie
Rating:
Summary: They did it right
Review: That Thing You Do is a great movie. It combines humor with excitement and emotion. Tom Hanks is brilliant as both an actor and a director. The music is catchy and will have you tapping your feet and singing along. That Thing You Do is a must see movie.
Rating:
Summary: A Very Groovy Flick
Review: when i hear the intro to that song the title track i just want to get up & start rockin away. i love liv tyler in this movie she is soo cute,
the cast & crew make this classic story into a great movie i just gush with loud emotion as i watch a masterpiece unfold. i really liked tom everett scott guy (shades ) patterson. i would highly recommended this film to anyone i know that says something
& thanks to mr. Tom Hanks for making possible this vision if only more people could be talented to write decent shows with fun in them sending positive message to kids thanks again&have great time.
Rating:
Summary: We need more of these kind of movies.
Review: Well, what do you know. No violence. No meaningless sex. No profanity to speak of. Just good clean fun. Maybe we ought to have more movies and tv shows that portray things as they ought to be, instead of supposedly how they really are. This movie has great music and great comedy. And it has a plot you can follow.
Rating:
Summary: Possibly My Favorite Movie
Review: This is possibly my favorite movie. First of all, let me say that Tom Hanks is really great. I love everything he does. Now, I'll move on. This isn't Oscar-worthy stuff, you have to know that. All of the actors who played the band are incredibly talented. Liv Tyler, who usually bothers me, was excellent. I think the story techinally is a little cliche, but I'm okay with that! I go in expecting some good music(which is it), catchy songs(which they are) and a good story. It is something that could actually have happened, it has so many times before, but this time you see why. The acting and directing are excellent, and this is possible one of my favorite movies.
Rating:
Summary: I love this movie!
Review: I'd never heard of this movie until some of my friends were talking about it at one of my drama cast parties. Then I heard other friends talking about how good it was. Well, I kept missing it on VH1 (they play it alot on there), and finally caught it, and loved it! Then I got it for Christmas and have watched it twice in 2 days! It's lighthearted, and funny. Even when it's not laugh-out-loud funny, it's completely entertaining. The characters are great, and there really aren't unlikeable ones, except for Jimmy in the end, and he still isn't a villanous character. They even manage to give the very small, unnoticeable parts great characters that you end up loving, like the owner of the hotel. Another perk is that this movie is *squeaky* clean! If you don't like hearing useless language, this is the movie for you. And they manage to have loving relationships without sex. And we can't forget the music!! The music is the BEST part of this movie. All the songs are catchy and good, especially the title track, which you hear about 10 times throughout the movie, which is really ok, because it's a GREAT song! You'll definently want the soundtrack to this movie! This is great for anyone, but especially musicians or music fans!
Rating: 
Summary: See this only if you're bored.
Review: I bought this movie for my husband on his birthday, because he loves it. I thought it looked stupid, and didn't want to watch it...of course, I eventually did. The story was boring (WAY too many performance scenes) and I couldn't STAND Johnathon Schaech and Tom Hanks' characters. They were both total jerks. There are a lot of wasted actors. Needless to say, Tom Hanks is very talented - and so are MOST of the others - but that doesn't show here. Tom Everett Scott is funny (see "An American Werewolf in Paris") and Ethan Embry and Giovanni Ribisi (who is ingenious in everything he does - from "Wonder Years" to "Friends" to "The X-Files" to "The Mod Squad") are adorable in their minor roles, but Liv Tyler is not a very good actress - in anything, let alone this. The ONLY reason I'm giving this movie three stars is because of Steve Zahn. He is hilarious in everything! The sarcastic remarks he makes throughout the movie are absolutely fantastic. I recommend this movie to people who appreciate sarcasm...or, to people who are very hard up for something to watch (like I was).
Rating: 
Summary: Sweet, slight and sunny-natured rock'n'roll fantasy
Review: "Tom told us that 1964 was the last innocent year."
-Tom Everett Scott, on his director's vision for "That Thing You Do!"
Was it really that innocent? I dunno. After all, said director was all of eight at the time, and the movie definitely has that fuzzy-edged childhood nostalgia feel to it, sort of "Almost Famous" meets Frank Capra. (I have an especially hard time believing that the black concierges and jazz greats of the time took such a lively interest in geeky white pop drummers.)
But then again...My mom, that authentic 60's small-town teen Beatlemaniac, vouches absolutely for all the small details - and there are a lot of small details to vouch for, including a whole slew of psuedo-hit tunes from the era.
In the end I suspect that Roger Ebert says it best: "Without hauling in a lot of deep meanings, it remembers with great warmth a time and a place."So it won't be entirely surprising to learn that this is a Tom "Forrest Gump" Hanks production all the way across the board. He directed it, he wrote it (including a surprising number of those pseudo-hits), he co-stars in it, he with great fanfare cast a 25-year-old lookalike in the lead role Hanks himself would have played at that age.
Lookalike Scott most certainly is: Imagine a slightly taller, lankier Tom, with clear hazel eyes instead of quick dark ones, and you've got the idea. The face is the same, the mannerisms are the same...and more importantly, the nice-guy-slash-sane-center charm is the same. Hanks gets some great effects by playing his smooth Mr. White off this literal wide-eyed protege; looking at the two together it's easy to imagine the pitfalls awaiting the naiive 'Shades' on his way to the top. (Now, if only Hanks in real life coulda advised Scott against 'Dead Man on Campus'...)
Some of those pitfalls, of course, also involve his equally-brilliantly-cast bandmates. Steve Zahn (late of "Happy, Texas") just has a whole lot of fun as Lenny, the guitarist who's in this music thing mostly for the girls. The bass player may not have a name, but Ethan Embry still manages to stake out a small, shining comic niche of his own. Liv Tyler is...well...Liv Tyler; she gets a nice chemistry going with Scott - but unfortunately doesn't with her other romantic lead, Johnathon Schaech. He's very handsome and of course brooding, but the character feels woefully underwritten.
The movie as a whole feels a little that way, really. Instead of what was apparently a whole sequence of character moments (visible in the second 'music video' tacked on after the movie) Hanks finally decided to go for broad brushstrokes in chronicling the Wonders' rise to the top - the better, I guess, to give them a 'generic band' feel - and towards the end his film suffers for it in noticeably awkward plotting. The band doesn't break up so much as the movie decides to break them up. And while Faye undeniably gets the right bandmember in the end, Lamarr the concierge's 'Love Boat'-esque intervention in the process is wholly unnecessary.
But in the meantime...remember those details? There are lots and lots of finely observed small moments to cherish here: The way Jimmy first offers Guy the drumming gig, as though there's nothing in the world as Important as playing a crummy school talent show. Guy's dad observing, "I don't think I want to live in a country where a man has to work on Sunday." That genuinely magical first moment when they hear their song on the radio. The look on Guy's face when he's confronted with his hysterical fans. Rita Wilson's nicely underplayed cameo as a cocktail waitress. Even the way veterans Obba Babbatunde and Bill Cobb bail Hanks out by investing the aforementioned concierge and jazz great cliches with plausible humanity.
Yep, Ebert had it right. This is a movie to see simply because you're in the mood to be brightly and guilessly entertained; think "Sleepless in Seattle" or - more likely - "Big" and you're on the right track.
Rating:
Summary: A sneaky favorite
Review: Some of my favorite movies are those that I just happened to catch on cable long after they were actually in theatres. My Favorite Year, Breaking Away, Tremors, So I Married An Axe Murderer; all of these belong in this category along with my newest favorite, That Thing You Do. Full of great, believable scenes, none hit home quite like the talent show where they start to do Jimmy's ballad, but find themselves giving birth to a hit due to Guy's uptempo drumming. Hearing them try to sing along at the original tempo while Guy unintentionally revs things up really struck a nerve with me. A great scene in a hugely enjoyable movie.
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