Metacritic reviews

Chemistry is king. It's one reason the rom-com has long seemed like the toughest code for Hollywood to crack. But never underestimate the power of snappy, rapid-fire banter, the paving stones of the Hollywood road to romance.

It works because Timberlake and Kunis are totally in control of their damaged characters without winking at the audience, as if to say: "Aren't we cute, behaving so naughty?" Their sex is amusingly awkward, and their repressed longings more so. It's the kind of chemistry that comes along once in a generation.

Goes a long way in bringing sexy back to a soggy genre, benefiting greatly from the presence of its likable leads.

The news about this movie is that it makes it clear that both Timberlake and Kunis are the real thing when it comes to light comedy.

The middle of a movie is often where filmmakers lose their way, but Friends With Benefits nails this stretch, in which nothing very remarkable happens as two people talk, in bed and out of bed. There's a fine line between fun-dirty and ick-dirty – sometimes you can't identify the line until it's been crossed – and this film keeps its toes on the right side of raunch.

The raunchy premise here is just a smokescreen for the sort of squarely moralistic, altar-bound comedy of which even Jane Austen would approve.

By poking fun at the cliches, director Gluck thinks he can turn an inevitability into an in-joke. Eh, it'll do.

Patricia Clarkson is kind of funny as Jamie's mom, an unreformed hippie. And Timberlake and Kunis get in a few good laughs before it's over. But with such a well-worn story, you can't shake the idea you've seen this kind of thing before.

The movie is pleasant overall and occasionally comes up with a big laugh. When the movie's over, though, it evaporates from memory, just like a one-night stand that didn't go nearly as well as you'd hoped.

For a film that had once made some pretense toward exposing such dangerously submissive attitudes toward Hollywood romance, Friends with Benefits's conclusion can't help but seem more than a wee bit disingenuous.