Metacritic reviews

Like "Dogville," Neil Young's Greendale uses the deceptively simple "Our Town" foundation on which to build a platform for some highly personal sociopolitical criticisms, but unlike the contentious von Trier picture, the Young variation gets the job done in roughly half the time with a notable absence of histrionics, plus you can tap your toes to it.

Sublimely pointed in its idealistic simplicity yet willfully scruffy in presentation -- much like the enduring Young's best music.

By the time Greendale reaches its rousing crescendo with the anthem "Be the Rain" and Young and Crazy Horse have blown off the barn doors, the Canadian-born artist has crafted one genuinely tasty slice of Americana.

As a meditation of American life, Greendale is anything but coherent, but it is fluidly free-associative and shows bizarre wit, as when Young himself shows up to play Wayne Newton. [March 2004, p. 27]

It bears noting that Greendale is an awful lot like the town of Mayberry R.F.D. in that paragon of homespun virtue, "The Andy Griffith Show," but then again, it's probably equally wise to bear in mind that before Griffith was the sheriff of that hamlet, he was in "A Face in the Crowd" playing a character who, with his conniving, manipulative, black-at-heart ways, might well represent Greendale's dark and awful future.

When the crashing chords and defiant lyrics of "Be the Rain" close things out, there's a burst of idealism and energy that redeems everything. If you see Greendale, treat the movie charitably and dig the music.

Amateur in the true sense of the word -- plainly, proudly homemade.

It's perhaps Greendale's greatest flaw that, rather than stirring the blood, its heartfelt call to arms comes off as a sentimental, even trite, notion from an increasingly distant past.

It's more like a feature-length music video, with grainy images illustrating songs from (Youngs) recent album of the same title and actors lip-synching to his reedy vocals.

There's no forgiving the home-movie slackness of Greendale for its numbing dearth of imagination.