Name : Wesley Morris / Alias : Grantland
This is a tiresome interracial custody dramedy in which white non-guilt righteously dukes it out with black melodrama.

Name : Scott Foundas / Alias : Variety
Kevin Costner shines in Mike Binder's disappointingly dull and safe-playing race relations drama.

Name : Inkoo Kang / Alias : TheWrap
"If I were as unfair as director Mike Binder is to his African-American characters, I'd say this project is a white filmmaker's rationalization to have a white character occasionally say (and certainly think) the N-word while raising a black child."

Name : Gary Goldstein / Alias : Los Angeles Times
The filmmaker and his on-screen proxies boldly go places our national discourse desperately needs to go, yet rarely does.

Name : Jordan Mintzer / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
A broad but touching dramedy about the racial barriers that divide us and the family ties that bind.

Name : Scott Foundas / Alias : Variety
Kevin Costner shines in Mike Binder's disappointingly dull and safe-playing race relations drama.

Name : Wesley Morris / Alias : Grantland
This is a tiresome interracial custody dramedy in which white non-guilt righteously dukes it out with black melodrama.

Name : Gary Goldstein / Alias : Los Angeles Times
The filmmaker and his on-screen proxies boldly go places our national discourse desperately needs to go, yet rarely does.

Name : Jordan Mintzer / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
A broad but touching dramedy about the racial barriers that divide us and the family ties that bind.

Name : Inkoo Kang / Alias : TheWrap
"If I were as unfair as director Mike Binder is to his African-American characters, I'd say this project is a white filmmaker's rationalization to have a white character occasionally say (and certainly think) the N-word while raising a black child."

Name : Alonso Duralde / Alias : TheWrap
Director Tom Harper and screenwriter Jon Croker offer up plenty of atmosphere, but every good idea this sequel has to offer winds up taking a backseat to the most obvious cat-in-the-closet "BOO!" moments imaginable.

Name : Bilge Ebiri / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
It's a dour, drab, dark movie, enlivened by some moderately effective chills in the first half but ultimately undone by its downbeat aimlessness.

Name : Scott Foundas / Alias : Variety
A handsomely made but dramatically inert and not very scary sequel to 2012's surprise-hit ($127 million worldwide) Edwardian chiller.

Name : Bruce Demara / Alias : Toronto Star
She's back, the Woman in Black, and it does give one pause to wonder if it's for no better reason than to scare up some more box office lucre.

Name : Gary Goldstein / Alias : Los Angeles Times
The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death is an improvement on its predecessor. That said, the new installment is, at best, a serviceable creep show, one with far more chills than thrills.

Name : Jesse Hassenger / Alias : AV Club
Redundancy is about all it offers, despite an entirely new set of characters and a story set 40 years after the early 20th-century original.

Name : Ben Kenigsberg / Alias : New York Times
The director, Tom Harper, seems less interested in allegory than in monotonous, conventional goosing, the kind that involves flickering lights and a creaky rocking chair.

Name : Simon Abrams / Alias : Village Voice
Flawed but genuinely creepy ghost story The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death is disappointing, but only because it comes close to greatness.

Name : Claudia Puig / Alias : USA Today
It's mostly deadly dull, and when it does liven up a tad, the haunted house tale offers only wan shock tactics.

Name : Kyle Anderson / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
The Woman may be back for another fright, but Angel of Death doesn't haunt like it should.

Name : Jordan Hoffman / Alias : New York Daily News
The 1940s setting gives the film's first half some unearned gravity, but by the end the jump-scares and rote plot frightens away the good will.

Name : Tom Huddleston / Alias : Time Out
Predictable shock tactics, drippy wartime romance and scenes in which the characters leaf tremulously through Victorian photo albums and spout exposition.

Name : Justin Lowe / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
The material feels stale from nearly the first scene featuring the threatening old manse.

Name : Sara Stewart / Alias : New York Post
The transparent title character from 2012's "The Woman in Black" is resurrected in this sequel, which abandons atmosphere for cheap scares.