A thoroughly mediocre experience.

Rating: 5/10 (23 February 2008)

Let me make this clear. Juno is not a particularly bad movie. That being said, it's not a very good one, either.
To its credit, Juno does handle the sensitive issue of female pregnancy very tastefully. Unfortunately, that alone cannot save the movie from itself.
The film tries very hard to make the character of Juno into a quirky, offbeat-yet-lovable girl (a sort of American and pregnant version of Amélie Poulain, if you will). However, it fails miserably. Juno really just seems like a normal girl, but because of all of the stupid hipster slang they give her, she really just seems like a normal girl who's trying to be "unique." Juno and the father of her child have no chemistry whatsoever between them, which makes any contact between the two look forced and awkward.
The dialog in the movie is not nearly as funny as I expected it to be. True, there are some clever lines, but nothing is laugh-out-loud funny. I might have cracked a smile at one, but that's about it.
The pacing in the movie is overly slow, which is not helped by a pointless, almost five-minute last scene where we watch Juno and her baby's daddy play guitar and look at each other. If the movie had really been as funny as everyone said it would be, it probably wouldn't have seemed as slow.
As I said before, it's not an awful movie by any means, but it's not nearly as good as the hype says it is, and mostly forgettable. There are many other genuinely good movies out in theaters now, all of which are a better choice than this one.