Ghosts of Girlfriends Past

Chicago Reader Andrea Gronvall

Writers Jon Lucas and Scott Moore steal from the best, gleefully cribbing from "A Christmas Carol" to fashion a screenplay with heart and sharp one-liners.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The movie is cheesy, tacky, and gimmicky. But as directed by Mark Waters (Mean Girls), it's also prankish and inventive enough to be kind of fun.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Lacks the kind of forceful, attention-grabbing chemistry that elevates a movie in this genre from a passable diversion to a lasting source of entertainment.

Charlotte Observer Roger Moore

Ghosts finishes well, and the familiar McConaughey heel-grows-a-heart story arc is engaging.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

In terms of character, McConaughey is the toxin and Garner the antitoxin. It's not exactly chemistry, but as pharmacology it's effective.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

Despite my McConaughey resistance I got more guilty chuckles from Ghosts of Girlfriends Past than "Failure to Launch" or "Four Christmases."

New York Post Lou Lumenick

The season's first genuine guilty pleasure.

Film Threat Rick Kisonak

Likely to exceed expectations.

Los Angeles Times Betsy Sharkey

An amusingly sentimental whiff of a romantic comedy.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Ghosts is better-than-average McConaughey swill, but not by much - that's its pleasure and its curse.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

At least Douglas has a good time bringing the smarminess that McConaughey so studiously avoids.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Mostly clunky and vaguely unsavory.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

It's not particularly funny to hear women described and valued exclusively in terms of their function as disposable sexual partners. A lot of Connor's dialogue is just plain sadistic and qualifies him as that part of an ass it shares with a doughnut.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Ghosts can't make up its mind whether it wants to be a racy raunchfest or a sentimental celebration of soul mates. So it ends up being a sappy, sleazy hybrid.

TV Guide Perry Seibert

It's the movie equivalent of fast food -- nobody needs this to be good, just adequate. And Ghosts of Girlfriends Past is nothing if not thoroughly adequate.

Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell

The dialogue is almost primitive at times, almost every female character is an idiot and McConaughey grossly overplays the bachelor-sleazeball antics at the beginning.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Has some laughs - more than a few thanks to Michael Douglas as a dead swinger (the movie's Jacob Marley) - and some moments of tenderness, too.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

The movie clumps through one witless if not wince-evoking sequence after another without the relief of laughter.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

I guarantee you, if Charles Dickens were alive today, he might well be writing movies but he sure as shootin' wouldn't have written "Ghosts."

Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones

Ghosts indeed: This romantic comedy by name alone attempts to make funny – not to mention culturally relevant – the kind of swinging-dick misogyny that went out of fashion years ago.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Never comes as close as spitting distance to a laugh.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

Isn't just ordinarily lame, it easily exceeds any normal requirements for witless sleaze.

Premiere Staff (Not credited)

We don't needlessly hate on the romantic comedies, but this one takes the corniness and predictability of the genre to a whole new level.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

A bizarre conflation of chick flick and "A Christmas Carol."

New York Daily News Staff (Not credited)

Douglas is the only one who looks like he's actually having fun with the dim-witted script.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

A junky-looking romantic comedy that’s neither remotely romantic nor passably comic.

Washington Post Jan Stuart

The relentless vulgarities in Ghosts of Girlfriends Past would be almost tolerable if they were amusing, but Mark Waters's direction is so tentative that the film's single laugh happens more than an hour in.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past displays nary a wisp of life, let alone an afterlife.

Village Voice Melissa Anderson

Above all, it will make you long for a day when studio movies about relationships feel like they are by and for adults who have actually been in one.