Kevin Smith's Cop Out Aptly Named

Kevin Smith was given the biggest budget of his career for Cop Out, but most critics found the send-up of '80s buddy-cop movies, which stars Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan, a waste of talent.

• The movie is "foul-mouthed but not funny, bullet-riddled but not exciting, crammed with contrivances that go nowhere," complains Claudia Puig at USA Today, noting that it's often hard to tell whether Smith is spoofing the genre or just adding to it.

• This is the first film Smith has directed that he didn't write, notes Rene Rodriguez at the Miami Herald, and "it also is, without question, the worst picture he has made," the kind of soulless flick that "Smith once would have mocked mercilessly."
• Bill Goodykoontz is a bit more merciful at the Arizona Republic: Cop Out is hit-and-miss but has plenty of laugh-out-loud funny moments, with Smith "dipping into practically every buddy-cop comedy you've ever seen, and doing so with glee," he writes.
• The movie "is still funnier than the dreadful later Eddie Murphy cop pictures," writes Roger Moore at the Orlando Sentinel, "but it feels like an homage to a period best forgotten."

(More Bruce Willis stories.)