Stephen Hunter

The menace never becomes palpable, whether because of illogical plot lines or questionable casting. The stakes are so high, but the suspense never rises to the occasion.

It's an astonishing movie, with a real-life feel.

A brilliant film--vivid, haunting, intelligent and in good taste, wonderfully acted, wonderfully written and directed.

It's a celebration of young American women, finding them smarter, tougher, shrewder, more rigorous, more persistent and more honest than any movie in many a moon.

But [Raimi]'s instructed his fabulous Style to take a hike, and, working from Scott Smith's brilliantly reconfigured script from Smith's own (much darker) novel, delivers a piece that is severe and disciplined in its evocation of the cold terrors of fate.

A superior adaptation that bypasses the Ann Reinking version now on Broadway.

A wonderful, piercing and hilarious examination of high school politics and how bitter and ruinous it can become.

Gripping, whole and nourishing. Certainly of the fantasy film series currently in American theaters -– I include "Harry Potter and the Secret Toity" and "Star Trek: Halitosis" -– The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers is the best, and not by just a little.

A beautiful story, told in measured cadences by a master of old-timey narrative compression and expression.

Payne is a comic miniaturist, who works in a small compass, as if through a magnifying glass with tweezers.