Date Night

Directed by Shawn Levy

(PG-13)

**

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

At its best, Date Night is a “lively, often astute piece of marital sociology,” said Mary Pols in Time. The Office’s Steve Carell and 30 Rock’s Tina Fey play a brilliantly matched, fully believable New Jersey couple who attempt to spice up their marriage by switching the venue of their weekly date night from the suburbs to a Manhattan restaurant. When their evening out begins to go awry, however, so does the film. If director Shawn Levy were smart, he would have left the laughs to his stars, said Michael Phillips in the Chicago Tribune. Instead, he interrupts Carell and Fey with routine action sequences. As Date Night tediously explores “how danger and near-death experiences can reignite a marriage,” the film is left to coast on its stars’ “durability and wiles.” The outtakes, which run during the closing credits, make clear what a natural chemistry these two have, said Lou Lumenick in the New York Post. That alone makes Date Night a “reasonably amusing way to pass Saturday night with a significant other.”