Rating: 
Summary: My All-Time Favorite Movie! 5 stars aren't enough
Review: There are so many things that I can say about this film and so little space to put them in. It is a story of human relationships, of love and friendship, of new beginnings, and of how people can conquer their fears, how people can change. taking place in New York city in a fairly trendy part of town, this story concerns Melvin (Jack Nicholson), an obsessive-compulsive, foul-mouthed and successful author; Carol (Helen Hunt), a kind, burnt-out waitress whose life literally revolves around her devastatingly allergic son; and Melvin's neighbor, Simon (Greg Kinnear), a brilliant and sensitive painter who, after being beaten during a burglary in his house, loses everything he has, including his self-confidence. How these people meet, connect and react to each other is a stroke of screenwriting genius, producing a hilarious and touching story that I feel should have won best picture over Titanic. Nicholson and Hunt readily deserved their Oscars for their exceptional performances, and I believe that Kinnear also deserved a win. Watch for Cuba Gooding Jr. in a strong and witty performance as Simon's art dealer. The last 15 minutes or so of this film contain the best ending that anyone could hope for outside of the Shawshank Redemption. Check it out and enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Better Than It Claims To Get
Review: "As Good As It Gets" is one of the best comedies released in 1997. The plot of a man with OCD and a struggling waitress builds brilliantly as the movie continues. As much as many may dislike the lead man, he is highly laughable. Such comedy combines well with drama at the right places to give it the added flavor. It combines attitude, laughter, romance, and family. This movie rightfully earned seven Oscar nominations including Best Picture.Two of those nominations became winners: Jack Nicholson for Best Actor and Helen Hunt for Best Actress. Nicholson's role has the intensity that gives this film the added comedy. His research into his character's disease and his characteristics showcase very well. As always, no words can express how terrific his acting is. Helen Hunt's role gives the film the drama it needs without removing the comedy. Her performance is enough to make an audience cry. Greg Kinnear's Oscar nominated role as a depressed gay man is one of the best performances of his career. All the other actors also performed wonderfully: Jamie Kennedy, Skeet Ulrich, Cuba Gooding Jr., and many more(even the dog). "As Good As It Gets" is a great movie for those who are looking for a unique comedy. Everybody will be entertained.
Rating:
Summary: Forgot Just How Great This Film Really Is...
Review: This is by far the best romantic comedy I have ever seen, and I admit being a guy I haven't really seen that many. The thing that seperates this film from most is the power to make you bust out in laughter one second and wiping away tears the next. Jack Nicholson delivers my favorite performance of his career and deserved that Oscar, as did Helen Hunt in her best role. I truly think Greg Kinnear deserved the Oscar over Robin Williams in "Good Will Hunting." Jack was weirdly great, but Kinnear was so convincing as the soul of the movie, who helped mold others around him rather than changing himself or his past. Also, this movie has almost as many great quotes as Monty Python or the Princess Bride and thats really saying something. So, if you want to see an excellent movie for a nice romantic evening with someone special or if you just want to watch a movie that will have you cherishing it long after the fading bakery scene, buy this movie for the extremely worthy and reasonable price.
Rating:
Summary: Jack does it
Review: Let there be no doubt that Jack Nicholson made this movie as good as it is! I don't think there's another actor out there who could have pulled this performance off! Combine Jack with a great cast, and side spltting story, and you have this outstanding comedy! Bravo!
Rating:
Summary: Why This Is My Favorite Movie As Of Late
Review: This really is as good as it gets when it comes to romantic comedy! While this movie may fall into the "sappy" category for true film aficionados, it manages to mix wry humor and legitimate drama with enough sentimentality to satisfy even the weepiest movie-goers. Unlike other films of its genre, As Good As It Gets has a point - a not-so-trite main idea that is simple yet profound. The fine characterization accomplished by the writers and a superb cast (Helen Hunt; Jack Nicholson, who admittedly does not stray far from his usual character; Greg Kinnear, whose work in a supporting role underscores the film's thematic content; and Cuba Gooding, Jr.)supports the theme that threads its way throughout the plot. Simon (Kinnear), the gay next-door-neighbor artist, articulates the idea in a considerably early portion of the film: "Have you ever looked at somebody who doesn't know they're being watched?...This flash comes over them...it's nothing external, because that hasn't changed. If you look at someone long enough, you discover their humanity."
This film is comforting to some because it glorifies the individual; it illuminates the humanity, and, ultimately, the beauty of everyday characters. (While the obssessive-compulsive romance writer may not be the most typical personality, many people can probably identify with individual crises, big and small, of Carol and Simon.) In the final scene, Melvin (Nicholson) gives a reminder of Simon's earlier reflections after singing the praises of Carol the waitress (Hunt): "I might be the only one who sees that you're the most wonderful woman in the world." It becomes clear that Melvin loves Carol for, above all, her humanity. The significant age gap between the two main characters seems to be bridged by this understanding.
Still wary of AGAIG because of its romanticomedy label? Fear not. Despite its pathos, it at least offers a few laughs and a generally pessimistic protagonist to amuse the cynics.
Rating:
Summary: It Speaks for Itself
Review: Jack Nicholson has a certain character down pat, and has played that character with variations for the last decade. When Jack Nicholson plays obsessive-compulsive Melvin Udall, a reclusive writer with a routine so set that even the most minor deviation causes mental anguish, the results are continuously hilarious. To be funny Jack requires other good actors, and in this movie Jack gets Helen Hunt as waitress and love interest Carol Connelly, Greg Kinnear as alternate lifestyle artist Simon Bishop, Cuba Gooding as Greg's agent Frank Sachs, and a wonderful little dog named Verdell. As you would expect Melvin holds rigid opinions about everyone and everything. Fortunately he rarely has to interface with anyone at length, so his unreserved comments about others rarely offend others to the point where they refuse to deal with him, or worse, hit him. However, two events conspire to force Melvin to change. First, Simon is beat up by a group of men robbing his house. Someone has to take care of Verdell the dog, and Melvin is forced into taking care of Verdell by Cuba Gooding. At first Melvin is completely unable to tolerate the dog, but the dog slowly wins Melvin over, putting a small chink into Melvin's curmudgeon armor. The second event that upsets Melvin's rigid life is that Carol misses a day of work. Melvin must be served by Carol or his breakfast routine just is not right. Melvin finds Carol at her house and discovers that she is being kept at home by her sick son. Not letting anything stand in his way, Melvin arranges for a doctor to take care of Carol's son. As Melvin gets to know Carol better, her opinion of him starts to matter, and Melvin finds that he is falling in love with Carol. I leave the rest of this story to the viewer. It is easy to find fault with Jack Nicholson in this role because this role was his with little or no effort. However, it matters not that this role fits with Jack Nicholson's character so well that you would think Jack is just like his character in real life, what matters is that Jack is perfectly believable. The change that we see in Jack throughout this movie and the interactions with the various characters that brings about this change is the heart of this movie. That watching the change is humorous and makes you feel good is just that much more benefit. This movie is the rare funny, feel good movie that makes you want to watch it again. Perhaps the theme is just a bit trite, but we all want to believe in the core good of all people. Watch this movie and enjoy the easy smile it puts on your face.
Rating: 
Summary: Only OK.
Review: This movie did not do a lot for me. I mean, it was a really boring pointless movie. Sure, relationships did develop and the characters changed but it was really a snooze. Helen Hunt should not have won the Oscar for Best Actress that she stole from Kate Winslet. Jack did deserve, but this definately was not his best performance of his career by any standard. The movie wasn't bad, it was just OK.
Rating:
Summary: You Down With OCD? Oh Yeah That's Me!
Review: There's a lotta bruthas out there flakin an perpetratin but scared to kick reality. This particular playa (Jack Nicholson) got the OCD chronic, yo. But what interests this G is that one of the main symptoms of OCD is recurrent, abhorrent, anxiety-provoking thoughts of doing violence to those close to you - i.e. poppin a cap in your homies, though you think this sort of thing is to-the-curb. Which is exactly what Jack Nicholson had going on in The Shining. The intrusive unacceptable thoughts are what motivate the ritualistic behaviors. In The Shining, Jack had the bad ideas, in As Good as it Gets, he's got the rituals. If you could somehow combine these two movies in your mind, you'd get a complete picture of Nicholson's mental illness.
Rating:
Summary: Oh boy. This movie is just about as good as it gets
Review: Somehow Helen Hunt manages to stand up to the power of Jack Nicholson in this role - and I can't think of many other actresses who would have been brave enough to try. But she does, and she does it well.
Nicholson is a writer of romance who struggles with OCD and MUST be waited on by Hunt in his neighborhood restaurant; all the other waitresses cower at the possibility of interacting with him, but she smacks him into place, tells him where to get off, and puts his food in front of him. She's got a severely asthmatic son, and when caring for him causes her to miss work, Nicholson steps in as the fairy godfather.
But, see, there's a real fairy in this movie: Nicholson gay artist neighbor (Greg Kinnear) who gets bashed up by thugs and loses everything, nearly including his dog, whose trip down the garbage chute is a side-splitting opening scene to the movie.
Can't say a lot more without ruining several of the subplots without spoiling it for those who haven't seen it yet. Let's just say that by the end, there's a glimmer of hope that the love (albeit reluctant love) of a good woman just may tame Nicholson's OCD demons.
Rating:
Summary: One of the '90s most beautiful comedies
Review: Another reviewer comments that the events in this film conspire to make Jack Nicholson (or rather Melvyn Udall) a human being. On the contrary, this is a film where the central character, an obsessive-compulsive bigot, is human from the start: We just don't realize it. A key moment in the film is when Simon, Melvin's gay neighbour (Greg Kinnear), is telling the young male prostitute, Vincent (Skeet Ulrich), about his art, and comments that he likes to watch people because sometimes, when you look at someone long enough, "you see their humanity." At that point Vincent is momentarily enabled to see something beyond the seedy world of male prostitution; at the same time Simon gives us the interpretive key to the whole movie. It is a film about three very different people who discover their common humanity. Melvin is a hateful and insensitive recluse with a debilitating mental disorder; Carol (Helen Hunt), a Manhattan waitress struggling with her son's chronic illness and finding her identity swallowed up in the process; Simon, a gay artist who loses everything when he is attacked and robbed in his own home. One by one they must learn to see the humanity in each other and, as importantly, in themselves ("Where'd I go?" asks Simon as he looks at the reflection of his battered face in the mirror). We, too, must learn to see the human being underneath the spiteful and vicious (if somewhat the "loveable rogue") in Melvin. The theme is developed sensitively and beautifully throughout the course of the film (perhaps only slightly overlong at more than two hours), with help coming from a fourth character, Verdelle, a dog, whose pivotal role in the narrative is easily overlooked (standing in the same cinematic tradition as Toto of "The Wizard of Oz"). By the end of the film, we are aware that the big issues in the character's lives are still to be totally overcome, but the process of resolution has begun as it should, with the characters each recognizing the dignity and worth of the others (and themselves). James L. Brook's delicate direction carefully avoids excessive sentimentalism and saccharine sweetness (though admittedly, it teeters perilously close to the edge at times), and results in one of the most charming and profound comedies of recent years.
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