"A dizzyingly witty new musical...Mr. Karl is so outrageously inventive in ringing changes on the same old, same old, that you can’t wait for another (almost identical) day to dawn...Mr. Karl turns these different feelings into a replete gallery of self-portraits, drawn with both comic panache and genuine feeling...He uses every tool in the musical arsenal, too, often to devastating effect...NY audiences have the rare chance to witness the full emergence of a newborn, bona fide musical star."
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"While there are likable, inspired elements...time crawls as you wait for boorish weatherman Phil to surrender to human kindness...The tone throughout is gratingly cartoonish, replacing the dry whimsy of the movie with overwrought clownishness...The story lacks focus and drive. We don’t care enough about the crucial, deepening romance...Even for all the structural problems of the book and score, Karl’s turn is undeniably strong—just not enough to fix the skipping-record world around him."
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"It’s hard to imagine another musical leading man who could handle the relentless physical comedy, balance the character’s smarm and charm, then take the portrayal to the darker place where it finally needs to go...Not to say that the manic business of the first act is entirely excused by the richer reflectiveness of the second...Despite the musical’s theatrical cleverness it is often literal and choppy, like word-by-word Google translation. But at least it gets better as it loops along."
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"A good-looking, magnetically charismatic fellow with a rich singing voice and the effortless moves of an old-time hoofer, Mr. Karl did the impossible: He made you forget about Bill Murray...I won’t try to tell you, however, that 'Groundhog Day: The Musical' is a great show...The production is a bit too busy but is for the most part satisfyingly elaborate, while the staging is as fine as you’d expect from Mr. Warchus...'Guys and Dolls' it isn’t, but you won’t be even slightly sorry you saw it."
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"While 'Groundhog Day' may not actually be the best musical, it is, as I said, very good...The story works. So does the cast...Yes, the show frequently seems on the verge of spinning out of control. But there is neat whimsy — I doubt you’ll soon forget the best car chase I’ve ever seen on stage — and genuine feeling, in part because Karl is a deeply appealing guy... In all, there’s a tremendous amount of pleasure to be had here. "
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"Two hours and 45 minutes of kinetic and sometimes witty but ultimately wearying antics. Fortunately, there’s a silver lining: musical-comedy dreamboat Andy Karl...Built-in repetition is a challenge. Director Matthew Warchus tries to solve it by keeping things in motion. The show whirs, buzzes, blinks and throws in playful mirages and fast-paced, if finicky, special effects. The frolics lead to diminishing returns — and don’t make up for the shortage of songs you’d love to hear again."
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"Under Warchus’s helming, Phil’s adventures in Punxsutawney are like Alice’s adventures in Wonderland—fantastical and fun...Minchin’s lyrics turn out to be much cleverer than the introductory number would indicate. Unfortunately, his music lacks a distinctive sound and doesn’t rise above monotony...Karl’s charismatic perf and Warchus’s inventive staging are in the service of the book...Although the story holds up, it doesn’t entirely make sense here, given Phil’s nice-guy persona."
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"The fiendishly crafty creative team has devised a musical that cracks open the source material to amplify its themes...It requires resourcefulness to take an iconic character and reshape it from the ground up. But that's exactly what Karl does...The humanizing of a heel is a story as old as time, but the miracle of what Rubin, Minchin and Warchus have pulled off here is to tell it without resorting to treacle."
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