Last night, critics got their first look at Oliver Stone's Apatow-aping comedy spectacular W., loosely based on the life of much-admired president George W. Bush. So how is it? Not that great! According to Variety's Todd McCarthy, the film "is unable to achieve any aims higher than as a sort of engaging pop-history pageant and amateur, if not inapt, psychological evaluation," and "feels like a rough draft of a film it might behoove him to remake in 10 or 15 years." "It's a gutsy movie but not necessarily a good one," assesses The Hollywood Reporter's Kirk Honeycutt, who says W. is, at turns, "awkward" and bordering "perilously close to a Saturday Night Live sketch" (presumably he means one of the bad, non-Palin skits with which Tina Fey had nothing to do). Both critics note the spot-on performances by the movie's lead actors, but neither cite any specific examples of any hilarious pratfalls or wang-showing, which makes us slightly nervous that it won't be as funny as we'd hoped.

W. [Variety]
W. [HR]