Everybody's a critic - 'My Boss's Daughter'

One and a half stars (out of four)

Everything happens for a reason, but nothing in "The Boss's Daughter" seems to be the result of any thinking.

Tom (Ashton Kutcher) joins a company and gets the "hots" for Lisa (Tara Reid), the boss's daughter, who also works for the company. The boss (Terrance Stamp) is a tyrant who scares Tom when the daughter ropes Tom into house-sitting with her temperamental owl named O.J.

Things go from bad to worse. O.J. ends up on cocaine after getting hit in the head by a toilet seat. Next we see two men "wee-weeing" and Red (the schitzy son) and the boss showing their rears. Tom also gives two women breast exams.

This movie is silly and not worth seeing. I would give it the award for the sorriest movie to hit Cape Girardeau this year.

- Robert Aubuchon, retiree

One star (out of four)

This movie did surprise me by being slightly different than what I expected it to be. It did have the gross-out humor and slapstick that everyone would assume to be in it. What surprised me were the many racist and bigoted comments sprawled about throughout the film. I supposed this was a shot at racists and bigots themselves, but this made me very uncomfortable in a "Did they just say that?" type of way.

The movie had a few good one-liners and comical situations. Ashton Kutcher's character is pretty lovable. It made me feel warm and fuzzy when he got the girl and the job in the end.

All in all, I feel the writers tried too hard to be funny, and in this case the bad outweighed the good. I definitely would recommend renting this movie and saving $6.

- Hannah Stepenoff, high school student

Half a star (out of four)

Ashton Kutcher plays Tom, a man who never gets angry, but someone should have gotten furious about this script. I suppose the intention was to poke fun at political correctness by using offensive words to describe all kinds of people, with a sly sort of wink at the audience, as if to say, "Of course, we don't really feel that way." But the audience should wonder about that. It reminds me of this old joke: "No matter what they say, I don't think you're so stupid."

If there is one redeeming quality about this movie, it is Kutcher, who does play a nice well-intentioned guy who maintains his sense of decency in extreme situations. Actually, in the final scene everyone seems to have had a personality transplant, except for Audrey, the secretary, who still makes coffee that makes people gag. That did make me laugh.

- Bonnie Stepenoff, university professor