Name : Molly Eichel / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
Goosebumps fulfills its purpose, and that's what matters.

Name : Inkoo Kang / Alias : TheWrap
Goofily self-aware and wholesomely boisterous, it's a children's picture whose sense of spooky fun readily diverts from its quibble-worthy messaging.

Name : Bill Goodykoontz / Alias : Arizona Republic
The film goes too wide and gets a little soft at the end, but not fatally so. It's the rare horror film - well, sort of horror - that you and your children can enjoy together.

Name : Geoff Berkshire / Alias : Variety
Turns an endearing collection of silly spooky stories into a busy, noisy, soulless eyesore.

Name : Tom Russo / Alias : Boston Globe
It's the best treat we've gotten this Halloween, and definitely not just a bigger-budgeted version of the "Goosebumps" seen on TV.

Name : Kevin P. Sullivan / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
It's a never-boring trip to a world, where stories and imagination are powerful tools, that just might inspire kids to do the scariest thing of all: pick up a book.

Name : Kate Taylor / Alias : Globe and Mail
It gently mocks the traditions of the genre - giant preying mantis rips roof off high school - while never getting too frightening.

Name : Nicolas Rapold / Alias : New York Times
"Goosebumps" would seem to yield the serial pleasures a voracious Stineophile might desire.

Name : Bruce Kirkland / Alias : Toronto Sun
This Goosebumps ride may be bumpy, but it works and it is worthwhile.

Name : A.A. Dowd / Alias : AV Club
As effects-heavy time-wasters go, Goosebumps is mostly harmless, even sporadically amusing. But it isn't likely to keep anyone up at night, out of fear or excitement.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
At a guess, I'd say that Goosebumps will satisfy its core audience - fans of R.L. Stine's popular children's books - and bore pretty much everyone else.

Name : Kyle Smith / Alias : New York Post
A special-effects extravaganza that skips over basics like coming up with an interesting origination myth for the creepy creatures who bring havoc to a sleepy suburb.

Name : Linda Barnard / Alias : Toronto Star
Jillian Bell's brief scenes as Zach's Bedazzling-obsessed singleton aunt are fun. So is Darren Lemke's solid script, which leans heavily on groaners and bad jokes to balance scares.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
The pace is great, with the last hour being an all-out monster attack, as all of Stine's creatures - a werewolf, zombies, a mummy, murderous garden trolls and a particularly sarcastic ventriloquist's dummy - go on the rampage.

Name : Alan Scherstuhl / Alias : Village Voice
The filmmakers, to their great credit, spend more than half the running time bending their studio tentpole release to the spirit of Stine rather than cramming Goosebumps into their template.

Name : Bilge Ebiri / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
It's a cheerful, nasty delight.

Name : Adam Graham / Alias : Detroit News
Goosebumps isn't detached or ironic, nor does it pretend to be something it's not. It's a bonus for fans who pored over the books and it celebrates the fun side of things going bump in the night.

Name : Glenn Whipp / Alias : Los Angeles Times
I have no idea as to the extent of the actual Stine's peculiarities, but just going from his weird, wonderful work, every scene in the movie feels authentic compared with the version I carry of him in my head.

Name : Stephanie Merry / Alias : Washington Post
The production values are better suited for a television movie, and the music, by Danny Elfman, is distractingly intrusive.

Name : Bill Zwecker / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
Black gets to show us his ability to play nasty, distant and angry - all in a way we really have never seen from him before. The bottom line is: It works perfectly.

Name : Peter Hartlaub / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
Happily, the filmmakers build a reservoir of goodwill in the first hour.

Name : Michael Rechtshaffen / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
An amusing, fearlessly over-the-top screen rendering of the book franchise.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
Jack Black fires up a stampede of comic terrors ready made for Halloween. Sure it's exhausting. But Goosebumps, knowing its audience, lets it rip.

Name : Colin Covert / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
A tongue-in-cheek love note to spook stories of yesteryear, "Goosebumps" is a kid-friendly crowd pleaser adults can love, too.

Name : Britton Peele / Alias : Dallas Morning News
Goosebumps is chock full of fun moments whether they're all logical or not, and it's an adventure that should appeal to both young viewers new the series and older readers who devoured them as kids.

Name : Kyle Smith / Alias : New York Post
As an actor, Rock doesn't create much of a spark with Dawson, and as a director, he tends to let scenes go on too long.

Name : Bill Goodykoontz / Alias : Arizona Republic
"Top Five" is a funny movie, but Rock has his sights set higher than lowbrow, and for the most part, he succeeds.

Name : Joshua Rothkopf / Alias : Time Out New York
On the surface, a lost-artist comedy in the vein of Woody Allen's Stardust Memories, but more deeply, a referendum on the dead-end choices Rock himself might be feeling.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
The sweetest surprise in this raunchy comic ride is how artfully Rock lets down his guard. His confident, prowling wit as a stand-up has finally found its way to the screen, enhanced by a bracing vulnerability.

Name : Brad Wheeler / Alias : Globe and Mail
Top Five finds Rock in an elevated form, at 49. Things change, sometimes for the better.

Name : Anna Silman / Alias : Salon.com
Rock still hasn't figured out exactly what he wants you to think of him, but the way the film reflects that uncertainty may be the most interesting thing about it.

Name : Calvin Wilson / Alias : St. Louis Post-Dispatch
With "Top Five," Rock has finally made the transition to true movie stardom.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
Welcome back, Chris Rock.

Name : Mick LaSalle / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
What lingers hours later aren't just the laughs but the people.

Name : Ignatiy Vishnevetsky / Alias : AV Club
A disorganized, dawdling mess of a movie that is rarely anything less than charming.

Name : Rene Rodriguez / Alias : Miami Herald
The movie, which alternates between hilariously vulgar gags and some electric improvs and riffs by Rock and his cast of all-stars, has the crackle and pop of a live performance - it energizes you.

Name : Wesley Morris / Alias : Grantland
The mess never coheres, but it sends off you on a high anyway.

Name : Michael Phillips / Alias : Chicago Tribune
In "Top Five," you sense Rock trying to load all these disparate talents onto a conventional romantic-comedy structure. It's a close call, but it holds.

Name : Colin Covert / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
Raunchy in extremis, often funny and at times touching, "Top Five" is Chris Rock's sincere attempt to craft a film career largely detached from his stand-up clowning.

Name : Tony Hicks / Alias : San Jose Mercury News
You'll likely leave the theater smiling. And when's the last time you cold say that about a Chris Rock movie?

Name : Betsy Sharkey / Alias : Los Angeles Times
To the writing, Rock brings the discipline of his stand-up. Even with some improvisation, there is not one throwaway line in this fat-free script.

Name : Moira MacDonald / Alias : Seattle Times
Rock's fast-talking rhythms are all over this movie, and they lift it up; it's like dropping in on a party full of funny people, and leaving before the evening fades.

Name : Steven Rea / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
An innovative take on familiar material, Top Five is an exquisitely paced, rich, idiosyncratic, satirical, yet deeply moving free-form comedy about a Hollywood star who is shadowed for one day by a New York Times reporter.

Name : Ann Hornaday / Alias : Washington Post
"Top Five" has the bright, high-gloss feel of the most delicious wish-fulfillment fantasies, but it derives its spiky, propulsive energy from the adamantly forthright figure at its center.

Name : Scott Foundas / Alias : Variety
It can be hard for a movie to dwell on the problems of the rich and famous without seeming a touch self-serving, but Rock always keeps things in perspective.

Name : Rafer Guzman / Alias : Newsday
It can be delightful, intelligent, crude, clumsy and culturally tone-deaf, depending on which scene is rolling by. One minute it's a major letdown, the next minute a joy to watch.

Name : James Rocchi / Alias : TheWrap
"Top Five" may be Chris Rock's biggest and boldest film as a director and writer, but a sharper, smarter, realer script would have made it far more than just a lazy, lightweight laughfest.

Name : Richard Brody / Alias : New Yorker
Chris Rock wrote, directed, and stars in this genial, splendidly constructed, occasionally hilarious comic drama with a reflexive twist.

Name : Manohla Dargis / Alias : New York Times
A romantic comedy that's also an extended riff on art, identity, authenticity and what it means to be a black entertainer .

Name : Lisa Kennedy / Alias : Denver Post
Like Rock's best stand-up shows, Top Five mixes the sweet with the salty, the naughty with the remarkably kind. It celebrates the darkly hilarious with the light of whip-smart observations.

Name : Peter Rainer / Alias : Christian Science Monitor
For an ostensibly soul-deep movie like this to work, we need more than smirks and scowls.

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
Mr. Rock has made a pyrotechnic pinwheel of a personal comedy, and he's had the wisdom to share it with a strong co-star. While he sends sparks flying every which way, Rosario Dawson keeps the story grounded in calm intelligence and classic romance.

Name : Chris Nashawaty / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
You come away from it with the thrilling sensation that you're seeing an artist you thought you knew reinvent himself.

Name : J. R. Jones / Alias : Chicago Reader
Top Five is Rock's most accomplished work yet, a truly personal story whose comedic riffs on love, race, sex, and celebrity are carefully woven into a credible romantic plot.

Name : Linda Holmes / Alias : NPR
It's fun to watch Chris Rock; it's just fun. And there are parts of this film where it's fun to watch him in exactly the ways he wants it to be.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
Rock is on a roll again.

Name : Chris Vognar / Alias : Dallas Morning News
The movie marks the first time Rock's stand-up persona - cutting, vulnerable, afraid of no sacred cows - has survived intact on the way to the multiplex. That alone is reason for fans to celebrate.

Name : Jordan Mintzer / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
The writing is strong enough that when the humor gives way to drama in the second half, there's enough at stake to keep us interested, although Rock still has plenty of jokes in store for the finale.

Name : Ty Burr / Alias : Boston Globe
It's a slap-happy movie and often scurrilously funny - the sound of a gifted comic mind finally finding its onscreen voice.

Name : Lindsey Bahr / Alias : Associated Press
Rock has said that he wanted to make a movie that captures the energy of his stand-up. Top Five fits the bill.

Name : Claudia Puig / Alias : USA Today
Rock's ambitious passion project - he wrote, directed and stars in it - is a bawdy, uninhibited yet thoughtful social satire about fame vs. artistic fulfillment.

Name : Stephanie Zacharek / Alias : Village Voice
Top Five is a reminder that as often as comedy fails us, sometimes it's our best hope for resuscitation. Seeing it at the end of a crap week, I suddenly felt I could breathe again.

Name : Richard Roeper / Alias : Richard Roeper.com
A seriously funny, semi-autobiographical film that might be the most accomplished work Chris Rock has ever done for the big screen.

Name : Adam Graham / Alias : Detroit News
[Rock is] still not all the way there in "Top Five," his third effort as writer-director-star. But the movie has so many laughs it hardly matters.

Name : Joe Neumaier / Alias : New York Daily News
Just when it seemed like Chris Rock had already done plenty for the culture, along comes his latest work as a writer and director, "Top Five." And it's one of the most vibrant, sly romantic comedies this year.

Name : David Haglund / Alias : Slate
Extremely enjoyable .