No Reservations

No Reservations (Rent) A perfectionist chef addicted to her work struggles to adjust when her sister passes away leaving her with a little girl to raise and a new sous-chef threatens to take over her kitchen with his high-spirited and free-wheeling ways. No Reservations (Buy)

CRITIC REVIEW

No Reservations , starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Aaron Eckhart, is the third movie of the summer set primarily in the kitchen of a restaurant -- the first two being Waitress and Ratatouille. But compared to those two, Joanne Kaufman writes in the Wall Street Journal, "No Reservations is strictly cordon blah." Likewise, Lou Lumenick in the New York Post calls it "terminally bland ... neither totally inedible nor especially appetizing." John Anderson in Newsday suggests that the film "should come with bicarbonate." Michael Phillips in the Chicago Tribune opines that the real star of the movie may be the "salacious" food, shot by cinematographer Stuart Dryburgh. He remarks, "After seeing No Reservations you'll be hungry for a really top-flight meal. And, to go with it, a better film." But several critics find the film quite tasty in its own right. Amy Biancolli of the Houston Chronicle is one of them. She writes: "It has the smooth, caramelized sheen of a confection that goes down easy -- but won't be too hard to forget."