Rating: 
Summary: Not a comedy
Review: I've seen the term "Dark Comedy" used for this film way too many times. For one.....it's not dark, and for another: It's not a comedy.Which is rather misleading as it was advertised as one, blame that to executives who think people will only see movies that can be defined in terms of action, comedy, romantic comedy, summer blockbuster, etc... Some funny things happen in the movie, true. But some exceptionaly sad things happen as well. And some of the most gorgeous things i've ever seen in a movie take place. The fact of the matter is, you can't define this movie in any single word terms. The best way i can describe it is that it's a "Real" movie. The plot, the acting, the characters, all these are actually real people. These are people you could possibly meet in your life, they say things a real person would say, they do things a real person would do. In fact Royal Tenenbaum strongly reminds me of my own father. The term dark certainly dosnt fit as it's actually an extrodinarily hopefull movie. All the tenenbaum children are stuck in a pit of their own despair in one form or another only to be pulled out of it by the same person who probably was most responsible for putting them there. Unfortunatly, it's not for everyone. Some people think films are just cute little distractions, and some people actually watch them and absorb what they're saying. If you're in the latter you'd want to check this one out.
Rating:
Summary: The Royal Tenenbaums
Review: I rented this movie and liked it very much. It is sad and depressing, yet there is a hopeful ending. It is about the Tenenbaums, a family of geniuses that are smashed when their parents separate. Their father, Royal Tenenbaum, not in their life during their teens and young adult life. He tended to lower his adopted daughter's self confidence. He later comes back into their lives, pretending to be dying, in order to mend his family and make everything. The acting is superb. The music is outstanding. It is very funny, but at the same time it is very depressing. There is a graphic scene of someone trying to commit suicide, and there is cursing, so this movie is not suitable for children. Overall it was a wonderfully touching movie.
Rating: 
Summary: Most depressing
Review: The Royal Tennenbaums is probably one of the worst movies I have ever seen. It was advertised like a comedy and has an incredible amount of great actors in it. Well, I took my 26 year old daughter to see it, hoping to cheer her up ( she was suffering from depression ), well, guess what - that movie was a disaster. I don't recommend it. It doesn't deserve a star. Could you come up with a negative rating system, please ?
Rating: 
Summary: A bit pretentious prehaps?
Review: Although it's packed with talented actors and actresses, this film just misses the mark and is extremely boring, boring, boring. While I like good witticisms as much as the next person, this film is tied up with trying to be witty it forgets to be funny. Because there is so much talent in the cast, I can only assume the directer and screenplay writer are morons. I recommend NOT seeing this movie, it's like watching paint dry as it trys painfully to be funny. I gave my copy away after watching it.
Rating:
Summary: A LITTLE Too Self-Concious?
Review: Self-conciousness is what "Tenenbaums" is all about: it's the entire point. The film's inverted universe collapses into itself so completely that nothing can escape, most especially laughs.
This movie is a textbook example of the difference between "witty" and "funny". Yes, it's intelligent, well-acted and witty. Computers (and insecure intellectuals) undoubtedly could point out all the correct spots at which to pump out a forced "ha!" of admiration.
But, good grief... for the rest of us, this is a tedious and vaguely repellent waste of talent.
Pay NOT to see this one. If you need an Anderson hit, "Bottle Rocket" is better, and "Rushmore" is actually rather good.
Rating:
Summary: Hilarious Masterpiece
Review: This new installment by Wes Anderson is truly a masterpiece worth seeing. The star studded cast performs well for him and creates a biopic of a family doomed to drown in their own talents. Luke Wilson is especially moving with his performance, bland as always. This move can bring you from ridculously laughable comedy to heart wrenching drama in 2 minutes flat. Anderson really draws you in with his superior character development and has you falling in love with every member of the family (even Ben Stiller) by the end of the movie. Wes Anderson can do no wrong.
Rating:
Summary: What was this?
Review: First of all, I am not a lover of gross-out, slap stick humor. I have enjoyed movies with a similar 'wierd people' premise. I consider myself well-read and educated, but still found this movie inane except for a few places when something genuine shown through for a few minutes. I just had a hard time feeling for any of the people. There's just nothing in my life that resembles this and I was not sympathetic to the clueless dad or his equally clueless brood. I don't find dog fighting, incest (yes, they are not blood relatives, but they grew up together...ewwww) or lying (about being ill, and about everything else) all that amusing. The jogging suits, drugs, slit wrists and the loyal foriegn servant were supposed to be funny, but fell quite flat. There was dialog where there didn't need to be dialog, and no dialog where some would have been useful (some comedic potential was lost by cutting off scenes too soon). I felt this was not so much a wierd, funny people movie as a weirdly directed movie.
Rating:
Summary: another masterpiece from Criterion!
Review: The Royal Tenenbaums is set to the same wistful, sentimental tone as A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965), but in many respects, the narrative structure of the movie is similar to Wes Anderson's previous film, Rushmore (1998). The latter film was structured like a play yet organized by month, while the former is arranged like a novel, complete with chapter breaks. However, Anderson and his co-screenwriter, Owen Wilson, are much more ambitious with Tenenbaums as they introduce many more protagonists, each with their own storyline. These storylines are distinctive and fully realized to such a degree that the characters develop past their eccentric quirks into emotionally attachable figures. Tenebaums evokes the work of J.D. Salinger and his short stories about the Glass family of genius children who never really grow up. The characters in both Tenenbaums and Salinger's fiction inhabit a mythical New York City that doesn't really exist except in the romantic notions of their respective authors. For all of its literary trappings, The Royal Tenenbaums is also very cinematic in nature. It evokes The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) with the way it introduces the Tenenbaum family (both films even use an omniscient narrator) and also feels like one of Hal Ashby's films -- in particular, Harold and Maude (1971) or Being There (1979). Anderson, like Ashby champions innocent dreamers in a cynical world that threatens to crush them. The first disc is an audio commentary by Wes Anderson and is delivered in his trademark low-key style. He talks about the themes of Tenenbaums, recounts many anecdotes that occurred during the making of the movie and divulges all sorts arcane trivia. This is an informative commentary essential for any fan of Anderson's work. The second disc carries the bulk of the supplemental material. There is a massive collection of stills, a spot-on parody of The Charlie Rose Show, With the Filmmaker, a 27-minute documentary that originally aired on the Independent Film Channel, and a nice collection of interviews with the cast that can be viewed individually or as a whole. The folks at Criterion come through again with this top notch two-DVD set. Presented in a picture-perfect anamorphic transfer with a 5.1 DTS soundtrack and an excellent collection of supplemental material support a fantastic film. The Royal Tenenbaums is of the best movies the year it came out and is Wes Anderson's strongest effort to date. This is an essential purchase for any film buff's collection.
Rating:
Summary: Innovative Comedy Forgoes Humor
Review: Let's have Ben Stiller's character and his kids run around in 80s style jogging suits. That'll be funny. It's not. It's merely odd, which is about the best thing I can say for the film as a whole.
Rating:
Summary: If you like comedy, I recommend you look elsewhere.
Review: Every time I see this dog of a movie in the stores or in www.Amazon.com, I groan. My wife and I, who enjoy comedies very much, did not even remotely laugh once while watching it. It basically resembled a parade of dumb...characters through their abnormal and somewhat sad everyday lives. If that sounds like fun, then you've found your movie. Personally, I like comedies that are funny. This was not. Not to say that the acting was bad. Ben Stiller, Gwen Paltrow, Gene Hackman...they're all great actors and they played their parts very well and very convincingly. But wow, was this movie boring and not at all funny. And sad, too. I was glad when it was over, but puzzled, as I was expecting things to wrap themselves up at the end. Sadly, it did not even do that. It just ended inexplicably. It was a couple wasted hours of my life that I will sadly never get back. Some people may say that I simply "did not get it". Perhaps I'm not intellectual enough to "get it". If you really like comedies and you do not think you are an elitist intellectual, then you probably won't get it either, so I recommend that you don't.
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