Reviews - Here Comes the Boom (2012)

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Country: USA

Taglines: One teacher still believes in fighting for his students.

Writers: Kevin James, Allan Loeb, Rock Reuben

Stars: Kevin James, Salma Hayek, Henry Winkler, Greg Germann, ...

A high school biology teacher looks to become a successful mixed-martial arts fighter in an effort to raise money to prevent extra-curricular activities from being axed at his cash-strapped school.

63 | 2012-10-11 | Scott Bowles

When the comedy connects, it can deliver with funny force

63 | 2012-10-11 | Michael Phillips

Once it gets going and commits to its time-worn inspirational formula, it's not half-bad.

60 | 2012-10-16 | Joshua Rothkopf

Knuckleheaded though this faculty-member-turned-MMA-fighter comedy is, there's no denying the plot's lefty credentials, snuck in like Raisinets among the popcorn.

60 | 2012-10-11 | Amy Nicholson

Like James in the ring, it doesn't pack a lot of power, but it comes out swinging and sweats for applause.

50 | 2012-10-23

Although it's not as bad as it could be, the film is still middle-of-the-road fare for comedy fans who are already firmly in James' corner, delivering the sort of brainless laughs that James is famous for. [18 Oct 2012]

50 | 2012-10-14 | Bilge Ebiri

So even if Here Comes the Boom doesn't quite work as a comedy (it's not particularly funny), or a drama (it's not particularly poignant), it has an earnest charm that keeps us engaged.

50 | 2012-10-13 | James Berardinelli

Here Comes the Boom is stale and vanilla. We know we're in trouble early when the first joke fails.

50 | 2012-10-12 | Neil Genzlinger

If you can choke down the implausible notion that the doughy Kevin James would last more than five seconds in a mixed martial arts ring, Here Comes the Boom is a moderately enjoyable, nontaxing sort of comedy.

50 | 2012-10-11 | Stephen Cole

A farther-fetched fantasy: In addition to asking we believe our loosely packed academic can play Rocky, Here Comes the Boom imagines a world in which butterball Everyman Scott and the fabulously lush Bella (Salma Hayek) might argue and bill and coo and eventually fall in love.

50 | 2012-10-11 | Sean OConnell

What's missing from this color-by-numbers screenplay is the bizarre touch of eccentric humor Sandler often lets creep into his comedies.

50 | 2012-10-11 | Mick LaSalle

The pure mechanics of Here Comes the Boom land it in an enjoyable, if forgettable, space.

50 | 2012-10-11 | Steve Persall

It's all harmless, if not entirely fun.

50 | 2012-10-11 | Janice Page

Kevin James's latest comedy doesn't promise any bing or bang, only boom. Take it at its word.

42 | 2012-10-11 | Lisa Schwarzbaum

A cloddish, harmlessly drecky comedy from the Sandler factory of crude mush.

40 | 2012-11-18 | Ken McIntyre

Cue 105 painful minutes of a fat guy getting punched in the face and falling down.

40 | 2012-10-12 | Mike Scott

Few people will be surprised by how it all unfolds or by how it all ends. This is a movie about lightweight entertainment and heavyweight fighters, not a movie about surprises.

40 | 2012-10-11 | Mark Olsen

The film works hard at its inoffensiveness. Throughout, jokes are left on the table, setups never pay off in any significant way.

40 | 2012-10-11 | Nick Pinkerton

Boom was produced under the auspices of pal Adam Sandler's Happy Madison Productions, which has a tendency toward broad-comic morality tales and multiplex populism that often shades into remedial-level pandering.

40 | 2012-10-11 | Joe Neumaier

All banality, though it delivers some goodwill even as it pulls a muscle trying to get its premise going.

40 | 2012-10-10 | Inkoo Kang

The first half hour of Here Comes the Boom is so good moviegoers might be fooled into expecting something better than an obvious wish fulfillment fantasy so patently implausible it's almost insulting.

40 | 2012-10-10 | John Anderson

Hands of stone meet heads of air in Here Comes the Boom, a sports story so daffy it may as well star Kevin James.

38 | 2012-10-14 | Lou Lumenick

Low on raunch but even lower on laughs. It also looks like half the lighting crew failed to show up.

38 | 2012-10-12 | Joe Williams

Loud, incoherent and unfunny, Here Comes the Boom is the sound of American culture imploding.

33 | 2012-10-10 | Nathan Rabin

Here Comes The Boom seems to have made it from the pitch stage - Kevin James does MMA to save his school or something! - to the big screen without an iota of inspiration, ambition, or personality seeping in at any juncture.

20 | 2012-10-17 | Marc Savlov

"Here Comes the Bomb" would've been a more fitting title, but props to Henry Winkler for rising to the occasion and turning in a sweet, idealistic performance in a film that otherwise feels like a tawdry commercial for the UFC and MMA.