HairBrained play like a strangely adolescent offering, squandering its tiny gleams of talent for an onslaught of strained scenarios. Knowledge is power, generally speaking. Here, it's a notion exploited for deflating effect.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Aug 29, 2019

HairBrained is enjoyable, lightweight entertainment and, for a story about a genius, it requires very little thinking.

Full Review | Oct 31, 2014

Think a poor man's cross of Napoleon Dynamite (2004) and Old School (2003) where a coming-of-age tale merges with a midlife crisis.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Mar 1, 2014

Poorly thought-out serio-comedy

Full Review | Feb 28, 2014

A campus comedy that tries to transcend its many formulaic elements with an insufficient dose of absurdism.

Full Review | Feb 28, 2014

"HairBrained" is painfully contrived and self-consciously quirky from the word go.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | Feb 28, 2014

HairBrained is a rather dumb comedy about a sharply intelligent mind, failing due to flat characters, cliched plotting and minimal laughs.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/10 | Feb 27, 2014

Hairbrained has a lot of good stuff. There is nothing egregiously wrong with the film. It just needs more of that good stuff.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Feb 27, 2014

Unfortunately, the movie lacks strong enough players to fill in subtext to Mr. Kent's formulaic setups, and the story flounders once Ms. Posey is out of the picture.

Full Review | Feb 27, 2014

Aside from some nice autumnal shots of Ivy League college campuses, there's nothing in HairBrained to sustain much interest.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | Feb 27, 2014

Early potential fizzles away too quickly in this underachieving buddy comedy, which just barely skids along on the charm of its co-stars.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 27, 2014

Often caught trying too hard, forcing the feature into positions that fail to extract the simple joys of the premise and its idiosyncratic lead character.

Full Review | Original Score: D+ | Feb 27, 2014

"HairBrained" is stuck in one of those strained, superficial movie worlds that resemble Earth, but bear few commonalities with real life and human behavior. The experience of watching it is frustrating, then obnoxious in its too-cute adorkableness.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4 | Feb 26, 2014

Billy Kent's charming HairBrained comes from a long legacy of collegiate comedies but still finds its own identity.

Full Review | Feb 25, 2014

HairBrained[...] manages to play like a winning amalgam of Real Genius and Rushmore, even though it shouldn't work at all.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Feb 25, 2014

As a buddy comedy, HairBrained has a few precious moments of male bonding between Fraser and Wolff, but their mismatched friendship yields few laughs and never feels genuine.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Feb 18, 2014

HAIRBRAINED feels like a throwback to college comedies of 1980s cable TV.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10 | Feb 17, 2014

Too bad that the film's funniest personalities, Parker Posey and Fred Melamed, have the smallest parts.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Feb 4, 2014