Comment 5 for bug 61436

The solution is here:
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=233514&highlight=acroread

It seems to be related to the upgrade to gtk 2.10.1 (according to that thread).

All I need to do is:

sudo vim /usr/bin/acroread

and change this line:
echo $mfile| sed 's/libgtk-x11-\([0-9]*\).0.so.0.\([0-9]\)00.\([0-9]*\)\|\(.*\)/\1\2\3/g'

with the following:
echo $mfile| sed 's/libgtk-x11-\([0-9]*\).0.so.0.\([0-9]*\)00.\([0-9]*\)\|\(.*\)/\1\2\3/g'

And acroread will work.

I hope acroread can be patched and repackaged soon