French Kiss

Austin Chronicle by

What it all boils down to is that if you don't mind that artificially flavored, plastic-bagged, stale pink and purple stuff that gets passed off as cotton candy these days, you will probably like French Kiss. But if I'm going to indulge in the sweet stuff, it needs to be fresher than this.

Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt

Kevin Kline has some amusing moments, but Meg Ryan's acting runs out of energy, and Lawrence Kasdan's directing is too laid-back to help her out. [7 Jul 1995, p.13]

ReelViews by James Berardinelli

The delicate air of romance that often makes this sort of film worthwhile is absent. French Kiss does it by the numbers, not from the heart.

The New York Times by Janet Maslin

French Kiss may have a more putatively foolproof formula, but everyone here has done vastly more interesting work. Too much gets lost in translation.

Boston Globe by Jay Carr

French Kiss is a French miss. It's got the settings, but it has little magic, less charm and almost no chemistry between Meg Ryan's heartsick American innocent and Kevin Kline's shady Frenchman. [5 May 1995, p.57]

San Francisco Chronicle by Mick LaSalle

Ryan's comic timing continues to delight, while Kline is touchingly heartfelt as a man doing what is evidently all too easy to do -- fall in love with Meg Ryan.

Los Angeles Times by Peter Rainer

French Kiss tries to be a glass of pink champagne, but some of the fizz has gone out of the bottle. But director Lawrence Kasdan and screenwriter Adam Brooks cram so many potshots into the piece that, after a while, it makes you laugh anyway.

Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert

Kline's Frenchman is somehow not worldly enough, and Ryan's heroine never convinces us she ever loved her fiance in the first place. A movie about this kind of material either should be about people who feel true passion or should commit itself as a comedy. Compromise is pointless.