Name : Ty Burr / Alias : Boston Globe
Within this dark epic of American failure lives an effective but decidedly minor vigilante flick.

Name : Calvin Wilson / Alias : St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Far from being just another crime story, "Sicario" is cinema at its most ambitious.

Name : Moira MacDonald / Alias : Seattle Times
There are no rules, and no reason, in this world of death and revenge, and we see it through Kate's eyes: fascinated, repelled, ultimately haunted.

Name : Tony Hicks / Alias : San Jose Mercury News
Director Denis Villeneuve delivers screenwriter Taylor Sheridan's story layer by layer, never overwhelming the audience while still challenging it to pay attention.

Name : Adam Graham / Alias : Detroit News
By the end, it packs a death stare so potent it will make you want to turn a blind eye to the shadowy brutality of its real-world horrors.

Name : Michael Phillips / Alias : Chicago Tribune
The first hour of this latest film from French-Canadian director Denis Villeneuve is sleek, terrific pulp.

Name : Barry Hertz / Alias : Globe and Mail
We can thank Villeneuve and rookie screenwriter Taylor Sheridan's tight script, but also Blunt, Brolin and Del Toro, each of whom has never been better.

Name : Dana Stevens / Alias : Slate
Sicario opens on a power chord of fear, nausea, and dread that resonates throughout the whole movie.

Name : Joe Neumaier / Alias : New York Daily News
This dramatic thriller finds a spot somewhere between your brain and your stomach, and drills in.

Name : Colin Covert / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
Combining relentless action with the story of a woman confronting a corrupted system, it hits with the staggering energy of a visceral kick in the guts - causing a sensory recoil in every scene.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
A gripping and tension-packed spin through America's covert War on Drugs. Prepare to be haunted for a good long time.

Name : David Edelstein / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
Denis Villeneuve's film turns out to be a stupendously unnerving descent into moral chaos, our presumed action hero Alice in Cartel-land.

Name : Wesley Morris / Alias : Grantland
Villeneuve and screenwriter Taylor Sheridan aren't selling more than a tautological action movie with the dread and body count of a horror film.

Name : Rene Rodriguez / Alias : Miami Herald
This is not the first movie about the war being waged across the U.S.-Mexico border over the drug trade, but it's the first film in which the aura of constant menace and threat lingers and follows you home.

Name : Anthony Lane / Alias : New Yorker
If "Sicario" does not collapse under its own grimness, that is because of the pulse: the care with which Villeneuve keeps the story beating, like a drum, as he steadies himself for the next set piece.

Name : Kyle Smith / Alias : New York Post
Villeneuve, cinematographer Roger Deakins and composer Johann Johannsson combine to make the action scenes gorgeous, scary and exciting, while the script by Taylor Sheridan is mordant and smart, with not a wasted word.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
Sicario paints the bleakest of portraits of a realistic situation, drawn from headlines about Mexican cartels that stack bodies with savage efficiency.

Name : Stephanie Merry / Alias : Washington Post
Villeneuve's movies occupy a spectrum between thought-provoking and mind-bending, and it's clear that he wants to guide Taylor Sheridan's script into similar territory.

Name : Liz Braun / Alias : Toronto Sun
Director Denis Villeneuve, aided and abetted by cinematographer Roger Deakins, fills Sicario with dread and a violence that happens to be stunning to look at.

Name : Andrew O'Hehir / Alias : Salon.com
Villeneuve handles action scenes with impressive flair, but also understands that the key to effective action is to build up to it slowly and inexorably.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
An unforgettable motion picture that should be on the must-see list for anyone who appreciates films that deal in grays rather than blacks and whites.

Name : Christopher Orr / Alias : The Atlantic
Sicario is a remarkable, thrilling, intermittently brilliant film-and yet nonetheless a mild disappointment.

Name : Amy Nicholson / Alias : L.A. Weekly
Villeneuve's proven he's got a strong punch. The trouble is, he barely aims.

Name : Steven Rea / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
Succeeds in evoking the anarchic violence of the drug wars raging on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border.

Name : J. R. Jones / Alias : Chicago Reader
This is suspenseful stuff, but hanging over the action is the pungent smell of social failure, as the drug war turns both sides into monsters.

Name : Todd McCarthy / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
The violence of the inter-American drug trade has served as the backdrop for any number of films for more than three decades, but few have been as powerful and superbly made as Sicario.

Name : Richard Roeper / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
This is one of the best movies of the year.

Name : Chris Nashawaty / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
With a taut and timely screenplay by Taylor Sheridan, Sicario is a brilliant action thriller with the smarts of a message movie.

Name : Alonso Duralde / Alias : TheWrap
Mixes arthouse and grindhouse into a most satisfying cocktail.

Name : Scott Foundas / Alias : Variety
'Prisoners' director Denis Villeneuve returns with a blisteringly suspenseful, ever surprising cartel thriller.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
If the film is a little too macho and far too Anglo to tell the full, ugly story of all the villains and victims, it is, like all of Villeneuve's films, a bravura piece of filmmaking.

Name : A.O. Scott / Alias : New York Times
After a while these sounds and images start to feel like expressions of technique, and they become at once numbing and sensational, and instead of a movie about violence we're watching another violent movie, after all.

Name : Lou Lumenick / Alias : New York Post
A well-deserved showcase for Emily Blunt.

Name : Sandy Cohen / Alias : Associated Press
Villeneuve has crafted a compelling, unflinching look at the deadly and complicated war on drugs, one that will challenge the attitudes of even the most straight-edged and law-abiding viewers.

Name : Guy Lodge / Alias : Time Out
Denis Villeneuve takes on the Mexican drug trade in this stern, robust, abandon-hope-all-ye-who-enter thriller.

Name : Mick LaSalle / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
It has a screenplay of freshness and audacity that's brought to life by a director who understands its every psychological undercurrent. We might hope this kind of thing would happen all the time, but it's rare.

Name : Mike D'Angelo / Alias : AV Club
One can easily ignore the film's ambitious subtext and enjoy it strictly on the basis of its terrific performances and nonstop intensity.

Name : Mark Olsen / Alias : Los Angeles Times
Directed by Denis Villeneuve from a script by Taylor Sheridan, the film manages to somehow be sleek and sprawling, focused and cagey at the same time, often in the same scene.

Name : Cary Darling / Alias : Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com
[Villeneuve] hasn't forgotten that he's making a thriller, and he's made one that's both nerve-shatteringly suspenseful and, thanks to noted cinematographer Roger Deakins, gorgeous to watch.

Name : Betsy Sharkey / Alias : Los Angeles Times
Hard to believe the sun will come out tomorrow for the new "Annie."

Name : Ronnie Scheib / Alias : Variety
While there are several possible good reasons to remake the Depression-set musical "Annie" in 2014, none of them seem to have informed Will Gluck's overblown yet undernourished treatment.

Name : Michael Ordona / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
"Annie" is a shiny little pebble with nothing close to a surprise in it, set in a New York that would cause Martin Scorsese to burst into flame if he walked into it. And young kids just might like it.

Name : Calvin Wilson / Alias : St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"Annie" is not a great movie musical - but it's a fun time at the movies.

Name : Amy Nicholson / Alias : L.A. Weekly
This is an Annie for adults, only now the spin is less "Remember the social-welfare lessons of the Great Depression?" and more "Hey, rich people are nice, too."

Name : Linda Holmes / Alias : NPR
Despite any reservations about the music, it is a charming, lovely little movie.

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
Where to begin in describing the awfulness of "Annie"?

Name : Michael Phillips / Alias : Chicago Tribune
The overall vibe of this folly is curdled and utterly blase; it's a 118-minute foregone conclusion, finesse-free and perilously low on the simple performance pleasures we look for in any musical, of any period.

Name : Richard Brody / Alias : New Yorker
The vigorous display of good feelings and comforting resolutions has an unusually effervescent sincerity, even if the rags-to-riches wish-fulfillment leaps over all the hard knocks.

Name : Claudia Puig / Alias : USA Today
Banal, shallow and markedly cynical.

Name : Maricar Estrella / Alias : Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com
Phenom Quvenzhane Wallis proves her Oscar nomination for Beasts of the Southern Wild was no fluke. As a modern-day Annie, Wallis shines with her sweet portrayal. However, her performance alone can't save the film from being a dim adaptation.

Name : Neal Justin / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
There's still a good film to be made of "Annie," but it'll take Broadway veterans, not box-office stars, to pull it off.

Name : Nancy Churnin / Alias : Dallas Morning News
Most of the cast can't sing or dance, and Gluck, who co-wrote the screenplay, has no clue why this story has endured.

Name : Ty Burr / Alias : Boston Globe
By the end, the movie resembles just another formulaic, family-friendly piece of product, one the kids will enjoy and you'll endure as it goes in the DVD player for the 40th time.

Name : Peter Rainer / Alias : Christian Science Monitor
Considering this musical has its roots in Depression-era American, Gluck's contemporary take on the material is eerily lacking in observations about the rich/poor divide in this country.

Name : Ben Sachs / Alias : Chicago Reader
There's a surprising amount of bite: the filmmakers openly acknowledge the similarities between the Great Depression and the present, and the populist message, however overstated, always registers as sincere.

Name : David Edelstein / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
In all the ways that matter it's a missed opportunity to take a flawed musical and transform it into a powerful new myth with a particular African-American slant.

Name : David Rooney / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
The sun'll come out tomorrow, by which time this toxic mess should be forgotten.

Name : Courtney Shea / Alias : Globe and Mail
Engaging characters, infectious melodies, suspense, drama and dance extravaganzas appeal to children of all eras. If only the powers that be behind the new Annie movie had kept this basic truth in mind.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
Think you've got a hard-knock life? Try sitting through the new "Annie."

Name : Lindsey Bahr / Alias : Associated Press
This "Annie" was supposed to be for a new generation. In the harsh light of 2014, it's never looked so dated.

Name : Stephanie Merry / Alias : Washington Post
Ultimately, "Annie" is so fixated on being current that it will never be more than a passing fancy.

Name : Moira MacDonald / Alias : Seattle Times
Musical purists should stay away, but little girls should have fun here, and the movie's full of goofball touches that help pass the time for the grown-ups bringing them.

Name : Steven Rea / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
Quvenzhane Wallis, the Oscar-nominated star of the trippy bayou indie Beasts of the Southern Wild, simply has to skip into a room - and into the frame - to light things up.

Name : A.O. Scott / Alias : New York Times
The cast would have been better served by a middle school production overseen by a creatively frustrated, inappropriately ambitious drama teacher than by this hacky, borderline-incompetent production .

Name : Richard Corliss / Alias : TIME Magazine
A teeter-totter between O.K. and Meh.

Name : Christine Dolen / Alias : Miami Herald
The new Annie is jam-packed with Glee-style choreography and greed-is-good luxury. Like its predecessors, it's a fantasy. But unlike them, it's not so much heartwarming as warmed-over.

Name : Wesley Morris / Alias : Grantland
Did I really just watch Foxx and Wallis do an entire musical number set inside a moving helicopter? I did, and I've never felt more embarrassed for two actors, mostly because Foxx seems embarrassed for himself.

Name : Linda Barnard / Alias : Toronto Star
A movie that coasts on a disturbing greed-is-good vibe. And one that looks strangely cheap doing it.

Name : David Ehrlich / Alias : Time Out New York
Annie deserves credit for illustrating that old racial prejudices don't have to be preserved by new entertainments, but this remixed rendition doesn't speak to the kids of today so much as it does to their parents' wallets.

Name : Elizabeth Weitzman / Alias : New York Daily News
For all the talent involved, the overall effect is surprisingly flat. Foxx appears disconnected, Byrne is wasted and a painfully hammy Diaz seems to be in another movie altogether.

Name : Lou Lumenick / Alias : New York Post
Leapin' lizards! The evergreen Broadway musical "Annie'' strays far from its Depression-era roots with truly dismaying results in this crass, charmless, tineared and lead-footed update.

Name : Mary Houlihan / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
Even Sandy the dog looks like he's had enough.

Name : Kerry Lengel / Alias : Arizona Republic
The feel-good story and sing-along production numbers are likely to please the movie's target audience of tween girls, but there's not a whole lot in "Annie" to win their parents over.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
It falls ignominiously on its fat one. The Sony hackers, the so-called Guardians of Peace, have leaked the new Annie online so everyone can have free access. It's their cruelest trick to date.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
Most remakes are unnecessary but Annie is a bigger offender than many.

Name : Katie Rife / Alias : AV Club
Any scene without Wallis and her gang of remarkably symmetrical, well-groomed orphans feels like a chore-"Let's just get through this," the movie seems to be saying, "Then we'll show you that cute little girl and her puppy again."

Name : Rafer Guzman / Alias : Newsday
Wallis is adorable, but there's little magic in the new music or the barely-there choreography. A missed opportunity.

Name : Jason Clark / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
Aside from an unintentional homage to Zoolander that is so tone-deaf it'll make you guffaw, Annie goes out of its way to make viewing it a hard-knock life.for us.

Name : Inkoo Kang / Alias : TheWrap
"[A] disenchantment, even misanthropy, seeps through Will Gluck's reinterpretation of the Broadway classic."