The Hollywood Reporter

Everywhere Man is a sprawling film, one that goes from exciting and unpredictable to the stuff of countless rock-n-roll biopics, but the directors treat everything equally — or else lack the material to make the second half of the documentary anywhere near as engaging as the first.

There have been plenty of horror movies involving murderous children over the years, such as Village of the Damned and its sequel and, of course, Children of the Corn. But Roth doesn’t hide his desire to outdo them all with this effort that can only be described as sick and twisted. And I’m sure he’ll take that as a compliment.

A slender slice of a famous life, the movie feels a little wispy in its mix of scrappy and sweet, rough-edged and yet bathed in the balming glow of nostalgia. But it has an idiosyncratic charm that fits the title character, without ever sanding down the abrasive side of a chronic liar or masking his insecurities.

The dynamic of these three together — and of Holland, Zendaya and Batalon in the roles — has been lovingly nurtured over four films and pays off here with genuinely affecting moments that will have some fans getting misty-eyed.

Any stabs at cultural satire about, say, Gen Z’s addiction to documenting their lives on social media, are subsumed by the crazy action-comedy shenanigans, with the younger cast, all of whom have proven themselves funny on prior occasions, unable to elevate the pedestrian material.

Even an ensemble stacked with veterans of standup, sitcoms and sketch comedy fails to bring much edge to the material.

Young lead Porcaroli and the even younger Guglielmino show off terrific comic timing while colorful cameos from an assortment of mesmerizing character actors, especially Eva Robin’s as a kooky aging showgirl, add sparkle. Still, this is evanescent stuff, hardly weighty enough to get mad about with respect to the aforementioned problematic areas.

While The Odyssey is uneven, and no match for the sure-footedness and intellectual complexity of Oppenheimer, it’s elevated by the blindingly charismatic ensemble.

Sincere, smart and sweet without ever being saccharine, Chernick’s (Itzhak) film is also wisely limited, telling its paired story in an efficient 82 minutes — an economy that critics of all stripes will surely appreciate.

While the live-action remake knows better than to tamper with the story’s sturdy bones, this charming new iteration stands confidently on its own.