Critic Reviews

There are quite a few genuine laughs along the way. Director Ken Marino has a firm hand with big, silly slapstick, but he also knows how to make the most of dialogue.

Marino...is equally at home directing the broader physical comedy and sweeter bonding sequences between Maximo and Hugo, even as the overlong film's two distinct personalities never manage to coalesce into a self-contained whole.

The humor is both broad and lowbrow, yet often extremely funny.

There are some very funny bits and pieces scattered amid the proceedings, along with a few darkly comical gags that appear to belong in a different movie, but are more than welcome here.

Derbez brings warmth and intermittent goofy humor to this too-broad and uneven comedy.

Its humor is broad, but most of the jokes work for the intended audience — with a few even breaking through to more resistant viewers.

The whole enterprise is so fundamentally good-natured and fluffy that it’s sometimes hard to stay annoyed by it.

Starting off as a strained farce before segueing into a sappy family film, How To Be A Latin Lover has its likeable, goofy moments, although it is consistently undercut by a main character who is very difficult to love.

The difference between this film and the majority of late-period Sandler flicks—besides the fact that nobody goes on vacation and that the dialogue is partly in Spanish—is that it’s pretty funny in spots.

It’s promising in premise, but limply plotted, offering Derbez too few chances to cut loose even as he makes the most of a game and goofy Hollywood-supplied supporting cast.