Name : Liz Braun / Alias : Toronto Sun
The sequel swaps cunning for brutal violence and turns Banning into a one man killing machine.

Name : Christian Holub / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
By casting its villain as a suspiciously ISIS-like Middle Eastern terrorist network, London Has Fallen makes itself into a political movie-but its politics are heinous.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
It makes the 2013 original Olympus Has Fallen - loglined as "Die Hard in the White House" - seem in nostalgic comparison like quality entertainment and a model of logic and good taste.

Name : Neil Genzlinger / Alias : New York Times
President Benjamin Asher needs two things: better security personnel and better scriptwriters.

Name : Kate Lloyd / Alias : Time Out
Joyously ridiculous.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
For this even crasser sequel [Fuqua has] been replaced by director Babak Najafi, who thinks that if four people with assault weapons are good, than 40 are even better.

Name : Steven Rea / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
An impossibly enjoyable live-action cartoon that plays on our real-life anxieties about vengeful cadres of foreign radicals blowing up people - and places.

Name : Stephanie Merry / Alias : Washington Post
"London Has Fallen" is remarkable only because of how much worse it is than its inane predecessor, 2013's "Olympus Has Fallen."

Name : Todd McCarthy / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
Butler manfully dispenses justice here many times over, and even if the other main actors are in it strictly for the paycheck, they've all been in a whole lot worse in their time.

Name : Michael Phillips / Alias : Chicago Tribune
This one's strictly for Butler fans, and for R-rated action audiences hungry for a scenario in which the good, and mostly white, people pick off the brown, completely inhumanly bad people by the dozen.

Name : Andy Klein / Alias : TheWrap
Agent Banning is the latest in a long line of heroes whose every bullet kills someone while the bad guys constantly spray him with hundreds of bullets from machine guns, none of which seem to hit the target.

Name : Robert Abele / Alias : Los Angeles Times
Represents a geopolitical obliteration fantasy flushed from the mind of the angriest and dumbest and most conspiracy-minded among us.

Name : Soren Anderson / Alias : Seattle Times
The action is pumped up. The destruction is extreme. The whole thing is absurd.

Name : Colin Covert / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
I don't know the best way to deal with America's enemies, but I suspect a jingoistic macho-porn slaughterfest is not likely to win hearts and minds.

Name : Guy Lodge / Alias : Variety
Cruddily crafted, grimacingly performed and effortlessly racist, this sloppy dish of Gruel Britannia may just go down well enough to green-light a continuing franchise of global destruction. World capitals quiver.

Name : Lou Lumenick / Alias : New York Post
Racist, stupid and boasting cheesy effects that wouldn't pass muster on basic cable.

Name : Matthew Lickona / Alias : San Diego Reader
Somewhere along the line, it may occur to you that Babak Najafi's sequel to 2013's president-in-peril pic Olympus Has Fallen is a sly attack on America masquerading as a celebration of same.

Name : Amy Nicholson / Alias : MTV
Butler doesn't even have his own catchphrase. He just poaches two of Schwarzenegger's, bellowing both "Get to the chopper!" and "I'll be back!"

Name : David Lewis / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
You've seen everything on the screen before - many, many times. For every bullet, and you will lose count, there is a cliche.

Name : Brad Wheeler / Alias : Globe and Mail
Butler's dark gusto is unexplained, and his character lacks the charisma and one-liners of fellow macho world-savers Rambo, James Bond and John McClane.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
director Babak Najafi, who not surprisingly staged something called Easy Money II, botches the action sequences so crudely, consistently and cynically that he makes Michael Bay look like Kurosawa.

Name : Richard Roeper / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
Like the original, London Has Fallen features a top-notch cast and some crackling good action sequences. And, alas, like the original, this is a cliche-riddled, aggressively violent, laughably plotted exploitation flick.

Name : Adam Graham / Alias : Detroit News
It's rarely exciting or suspenseful, and some of the digital effects are also reminiscent of a 1980s action movie level.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
London Has Fallen is competently made and offers what any viewer would reasonably expect. There's plenty of action, a fair amount of wide-scale destruction, and a rousing climax.

Name : Christy Lemire / Alias : ChristyLemire.com
London Has Fallen is Donald Trump in film form.

Name : Tom Russo / Alias : Boston Globe
While taking the action to an international stage, the lumbering story isn't at all concerned with legit drama, let alone intelligently considering the ramifications of the mayhem it imagines.

Name : Tim Grierson / Alias : The New Republic
"London" is deeply dumb, so anything offensive is more a byproduct of thoughtlessness than an act of willful intention. Still, Najafi's ambition to make an old-fashioned action flick means reverting to a bygone way of seeing America's place in the world.

Name : Bill Goodykoontz / Alias : Arizona Republic
It's all silly and meant to be fun, except when Najafi tries to throw in some serious bits, which wind up being sillier still.

Name : Ignatiy Vishnevetsky / Alias : AV Club
London Has Fallen is one of those rare films that is good at absolutely nothing.

Name : Leah Pickett / Alias : Chicago Reader
[Butler and Eckhart's] mildly diverting performances aren't enough to dislodge the film's troubling pro-engagement message.

Name : Lindsey Bahr / Alias : Associated Press
This sort of movie was made for television viewing. You could tune in or out at any moment and really not miss anything. Or just have a drink beforehand and bring your rowdiest friends to the theater.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
The bare necessities are there, the performances are competent, and there are some strong moments but Race suffers from a lack of ambition. It's too safe and that quality mutes its impact and limits its ability to be more than a history lesson.

Name : Kate Taylor / Alias : Globe and Mail
Hopkins films all the races with suitable elan - since Owens was a sprinter, accomplishing his feats in a matter of seconds, they are relatively easy to dramatize - but you don't leave the theatre with much understanding of how he did it.

Name : Ty Burr / Alias : Boston Globe
"Race" wants so badly to get every last bit of the big picture that it dashes past the little details that actually tell a story. Like an over-trained athlete who pulls a hamstring in the big race, the movie tries to do it all and comes up short.

Name : Jesse Hassenger / Alias : AV Club
Ultimately, it offers history told as a series of passing anecdotes.

Name : Calvin Wilson / Alias : St. Louis Post-Dispatch
James makes for a charismatic hero, and former "Saturday Night Live" star Sudeikis is a revelation as the steadfast Snyder.

Name : Kyle Smith / Alias : New York Post
"Race" is disappointing in parts, but Stephan James makes for an appealing star .

Name : Richard Brody / Alias : New Yorker
A wallpaper-thin but sentimentally effective hagiography.

Name : Christian Holub / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
The title is on-the-nose but rather fitting for the story of Jesse Owens, the black track-and-field athlete who stunned the world by winning four gold medals at the 1936 Olympics in Adolf Hitler's Berlin .

Name : Stephanie Zacharek / Alias : TIME Magazine
Where is Owens in all of this? By the end of Race, we don't know much more about him as an individual than we did when the movie began.

Name : Rene Rodriguez / Alias : Miami Herald
A dull portrait of an extraordinary man.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
Director Stephen Hopkins plods when he needs to sprint, but Jesse Owens is a great movie subject. His triumph at the 1936 Olympics left Hitler to suck it up and watch a black man shatter his cuckoo theories of an Aryan master race.

Name : Scott Tobias / Alias : Village Voice
Race follows the pattern of so many other sports biopics in which it's white patronage that makes black triumphs possible.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : New York Daily News
As a Hollywood biography of the great Jesse Owens, it's meant to be epic. But its characters feel flat and unreal. Apart from a few big moments, it's as cheap and false as a 1970s TV flick.

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
It's a saga of unquenchable spirit and fast-twitch muscles shot in slow-twitch style.

Name : Alan Zilberman / Alias : Washington Post
The script and direction of "Race" are both workmanlike and serve the film well, helping us to see Owens and Snyder as ordinary people with extraordinary gifts.

Name : Tirdad Derakhshani / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
The film delivers what it promises - an education and a thrill.

Name : Colin Covert / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
Hopkins, a prolific producer/director of B movies, moves things at a steady pace through the film's two-plus hours, getting many facts right, fudging a few and ignoring some. Those it shows with sensitivity are breathtaking.

Name : Tony Hicks / Alias : San Jose Mercury News
"Race" is the story of Owens in his finest moments, and it succeeds in telling it. Just don't expect more than that.

Name : Linda Barnard / Alias : Toronto Star
Owens's story is certainly one that needs telling, although Race isn't as strong as it could be, even if it does include a larger narrative than one man's rise to greatness.

Name : Brian Truitt / Alias : USA Today
At a time when the Oscars and movies, in general, struggle with finding racial balance, two guys of different skin colors coming together for some sports-movie magic is a fitting and truly welcoming lapping of the competition.

Name : Inkoo Kang / Alias : TheWrap
A keen exploration of how to make a political statement without saying a word, and how best to stay true to one's self while making necessary compromises and calculations.

Name : Jim Slotek / Alias : Toronto Sun
A glossy, superficial biopic set in a historical context that begs for more, Race can at least claim to be one of the two best movies ever made about Olympic hero/Hitler-embarrasser Jesse Owens.

Name : Cary Darling / Alias : Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com
There are reasons to wish that Race.offered a broader, deeper portrait of the man. Yet, as a celebration and evocation of a stunning moment in time, it's an engrossing and occasionally surprising take on an iconic event in sports history.

Name : Richard Roeper / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
"Race" tells the story of a brave and gifted and determined man who accomplished great feats during a pivotal moment in world history - but it's a by-the-numbers sports biopic with little nuance and a penchant for saccharine-soaked dramatic moments.

Name : Joshua Rothkopf / Alias : Time Out
Race is the most timid, lackadaisical movie that could have been made out of potentially classic material.

Name : Andrew Barker / Alias : Variety
Making a few admirable attempts to complicate what could have been a standard-issue inspirational sports narrative, "Race" is better than it has to be, but not by too much .

Name : Mick LaSalle / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
It's amazing, the power of drama to make audiences worry about an outcome that is part of the historical record, but "Race" accomplishes just that.

Name : David Sims / Alias : The Atlantic
Race wants to end, unsurprisingly, on a note of uplift-but for a film with so much dark, unexplored potential, it's an unsatisfying finish line to cross.

Name : Michael Phillips / Alias : Chicago Tribune
"Race" can't help but engage when it gets to the games. But what's the point of telling Jesse Owens' story if you don't get into what made him tick, and drove his success as an athlete?

Name : Stephen Holden / Alias : New York Times
"Race" reminds us that long before television elevated black sports heroes into gods, there were athletes like Jesse Owens who paved the way.

Name : Soren Anderson / Alias : Seattle Times
Directed by Stephen Hopkins from a screenplay by Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse, "Race" is a well-made biopic about Owens at the Berlin Games and the events leading up to his extraordinary accomplishment.

Name : Ella Taylor / Alias : NPR
A handsomely mounted drama about a pivotal moment in the life of track star Jesse Owens .

Name : Adam Graham / Alias : Detroit News
A so-so movie about an extraordinary athlete.