BWW Review Roundup: Zac Efron Stars in THAT AWKWARD MOMENT

By: Jan. 31, 2014
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Zac Efron, Miles Teller and Michael B. Jordan star in the R-rated comedy, THAT AWKWARD MOMENT, about three best friends who find themselves where we've all been- at that confusing "moment" in every dating relationship when you have to decide "So...where is this going?"

Written and Directed by Tom Gormican, That Awkward Moment co-stars Imogen Poots and Jessica Lucas. Scott Aversano is producing via his Aversano Pictures banner along with Andrew O'Connor, and Justin Nappi and Kevin Turen via the Treehouse Pictures Banner. The film is executive produced by Manu Gargi, Zac Efron, Jason Barrett, Michael Simkin, John Friedberg, and Peter Schlessel and Lia Buman.

The film opened in theaters nationwide today, January 31, 2014. Let's see what the critics had to say:

Stephen Holden, The New York Times: Written and directed by Tom Gormican, "That Awkward Moment"desperately tries to outdo forerunners like the "Hangover" movies in gross-out humor. But the longest-running joke, about residual bathroom stink, is poorly executed, and a sight gag stolen from "Boogie Nights" and involving a sex toy, is as limp as a dangling prosthesis.

Scott Foundas, Variety: "Teens and twentysomethings who possess even less life experience and emotional maturity than these characters may find profundity in some of this. All others need not apply"

Claudia Puig, USA Today: "While it has the requisite amounts of comedy and romance, it's actually more of a buddy movie. Think Sex and the City, bro-style... It's a Valentine's Day date movie that guys won't mind seeing, and women will find amusing enough and easy on the eyes."

Sheri Lenden, Hollywood Reporter: "In smaller, sharper doses, the frenetic testosterone shtick of these baby-faced blusterers might have worked better."

Stephen Witty, Newark Star-Ledger : "Neither raunchy or believable, this R-rated rom-com can't commit. Maybe in development this movie needed an awkward moment of its own-one where the filmmaker was taken aside by one or more older, preferably female studio executives, who'd read him some of his script out loud."

Joe Neumaier, The New York Daily News: "Efron ("High School Musical"), however, is a gelled hairdo pretending to act. He's tried to be more than that ("Me & Orson Welles," "Parkland"), but this facile movie only needs him to be a walking Diesel ad."

Cath Clarke, Time Out: "The actors-who seem to have been involved in a hideous industrial accident that's left them with the superpower of repelling all comic timing-are spectacularly unfunny."

Alonso Duralde, The Wrap': "That Awkward Moment has a script like a basket of clichés, hauling out the hoariest insights about romance and relationships alongside gags so shopworn...you can't believe they still exist outside of family-hour sitcoms."


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