Metacritic-Rezensionen

Not just the funniest but the smartest comedy around by a mile.

The races are scorchingly shot, and they lend the movie a zest.

Reilly can play nuts, too, and in a lower gear that reins Ferrell in. They're a great team.

From its pitch-perfect title through just about every detail, this sendup of sports-triumph movies maintains the right parodic pitch, if not always the highest mph on the laugh speedometer.

Simultaneously teasing and loving a subject doesn't make for easy comedy, but writer-star Will Ferrell and director/co-writer Adam McKay pull it off with good-ol'-boy good nature in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.

Ferrell reminds the audience of why he matters: because he's the loudest, driest, and most fearless comic actor working.

A bit of a mess, but it is a genial mess, and one that will make you laugh. Which is the whole idea.

When the crazy comes, it's pretty good crazy. Ferrell is in full-on brazen redneck mode, doing a variation on his "Saturday Night Live" George W. Bush impression.

Silly, inconsistent, and completely frivolous, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby also happens to be one of the funniest movies this side of 2006.

You laugh a few times but, in the end, you wonder why you bothered.