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Avg. Critic Score: 47 out of 100 Mixed or average reviews Metascore® based on all critic reviews
Information for Parents:
14 Iffy for 14+
Read Common Sense Media review

Critic scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.

  • 75
    San Francisco Chronicle | Peter Hartlaub

    If you can lighten up for an hour and a half, the film delivers one good laugh after another. Read full review

  • 70
    Variety | Justin Chang

    Sweetly amusing, gently anarchic and never mean-spirited. Read full review

  • 67
    Entertainment Weekly | Scott Brown

    Accepted's winning dumbness and breezy bons mots save it from the pit. Read full review

  • 63
    Boston Globe | Ty Burr

    Low of brow and pure of heart, the movie plays like "Animal House" extra-lite, and as such it's decent indecent fun. Read full review

  • 60
    The Hollywood Reporter | Michael Rechtshaffen

    After a very funny start, there just isn't enough content to fill the feature-length curriculum. Read full review

  • 50
    Philadelphia Inquirer | Carrie Rickey

    Paradoxically fast-talking and laid back, Long's Bartleby appears to be the illegitimate child of Groucho Marx and Ferris Bueller, one whose schemes are far more impressive than his deeds. Read full review

  • 50
    USA Today | Claudia Puig

    Mostly, it wallows in partying with a capital P. Read full review

  • 50
    The New York Times |

    Accepted will make for a passable alternative to sold-out shows of "Snakes on a Plane," but it's a disappointing debut for the director Steve Pink. Read full review

  • 40
    Washington Post |

    Take the cast of 1978's "Animal House" and 1984's "Revenge of the Nerds," toss them on a desert island, watch them breed and enroll their raucous, kvetching offspring at a college for rejects. A fluffy teen comedy, Accepted gets annoying fast. Read full review

  • 30
    Wall Street Journal |

    Go right ahead and skip this one at the Cineplex. You've got my word: It won't be on the final. Read full review

View more reviews for Accepted on Metacritic

Information for Parents
Common Sense Media says Iffy for 14+ Dumb comedy about college students partying.
What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that the movie's premise involves students creating a "sham" university and lying to parents and authorities to make a facility for the classes they want to take (which include references to drugs). The made-up school's name is South Harmon Institute of Technology (you can guess the visible acronym). Characters frequently use this word (at least 40 times). The fake dean uses especially colorful language. Students drink beer, smoke cigarettes, and talk about drugs and sex (language includes slang for genitals and sex acts). Stereotypes abound.
  • Families can talk about the pressures on college applicants to "get in": How might families work together to make this a less-stressful process? How might telling the truth be a more effective way for Bartleby to communicate with his parents? Families could also talk about the stereotyped portrayal of college life; what's it really like to be a college student?
The good stuff
  • message true0 Positive messages: Students make up a college, lie to their parents, and celebrate their "independence" with lots of partying.
What to watch for
  • violence false0 Violence: One student wants to learn how to make a "shank out of his toothbrush" while another teaches himself to "blow up stuff" with his mind (some comic explosions).
  • sex false3 Sex: Several masturbation jokes; gags about awkward college boys lusting after girls; references to sex organs and one art student makes a "fertility" statue with a huge erection.
  • language false3 Language: At least one f-word; frequent profanity ("s--t," "hell," "damn it," p---y", "a--hole").
  • consumerism false0 Consumerism: Repeated shots of Mac laptops; other brief mentions of products include Adidas.
  • drugsalcoholtobacco false5 Drinking, drugs and smoking: Much beer drinking by students; parents drink liquor; some pot smoking and references; drug-related jokes and language.
An independent nonprofit dedicated to providing families the information they need to help kids thrive in a world of media and technology. © Common Sense Media Inc. 2010. All rights reserved.

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