Is David Archuleta a humble, nice kid or cold, calculating and overwhelmingly ambitious?

Depends on whom you believe. And some of those writing about him simply cannot bring themselves to believe the former, so they've decided the latter must be true.

The Boston Globe's Joanna Weiss clearly thinks Archuleta, who performed Tuesday with the four other "American Idol" finalists, is somehow faking it.

"Archuleta has mastered the wide-eyed wonder, shyly mouthed 'thank you,' the look of relief, as if he's finally confident that somebody won't hit him with a stick," she wrote recently. "Some could find it charming. Others find false modesty a little off-putting."

It's a common theme — that Archuleta's shy modesty is just too good to be true.

Imagine that! A critic reacting cynically!

(It's understandable, of course, when you cover something as cynical as the entertainment industry.)

Not that everyone is overwhelmed by cynicism. Fresno Bee blogger Mary Lou Aguirre wrote, "My son-in-law, the American Idol, has a nice ring to it. No?"

At the other end of the spectrum, the gossip site TMZ.com questioned whether Archuleta is "a giant phony" for expressing doubts about his talent.

Scott Collins of the Los Angeles Times called Archuleta the "presumptive (but never presumptuous!) boy king."

"His enormous, obvious-even-to-the-tone-deaf vocal gifts have at times made him look like nothing so much as that beloved show-biz trope, the competition-crushing prodigy: Think Tom Hulce as Mozart in 'Amadeus.'"

Collins' L.A. Times colleague, Ann Powers, took the opposite view. She mocked Archuleta's reaction when the judges praised him.

"True to form, the Chosen One feigned mild astonishment, like a child gazing in wonder upon his birthday cake," she wrote after apparently using psychic powers to read the Murray teen's mind.

"The flaw in Archuleta's artistry is his complete lack of affect beyond bashful awe at everyone's enthusiasm," Powers wrote. "Chalk it up to youth, except this isn't how a real kid acts.... Archie is a creature of the stage — an interpreter of his own life — and that makes him just a little hard to trust, or love."

Ouch.

Cary Aspin Wall of the Tulsa World doesn't just think Archuleta isn't displaying true emotions, she apparently has decided he doesn't have any emotions:

"It was really mean of ('Idol' host Ryan) Seacrest to try and make CUTEBOT-5000 choose sides on stage," she wrote. "CUTEBOT-5000 is not programmed to understand evil, Ryan. Don't make him short circuit by forcing him to say who he thinks the worst singers are!"