Name : Andrew O'Hehir / Alias : Salon.com
I was simply exhausted by Zemeckis' oppressive insistence that I was being told a valuable, thrilling and humorous story, and was having a good time.

Name : Elaine Teng / Alias : The New Republic
Even in its greatest moment, The Walk breaks the spell with an unnecessary narration about how Petit felt in that moment, how the sky looked to him, how a bird came soaring towards his head.

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
Then we're finally aloft, with the man on his wire, and Mr. Zemeckis and his colleagues lift their groundbound production into the realm of high art.

Name : Bill Goodykoontz / Alias : Arizona Republic
Zemeckis . nearly sinks the film before redeeming it in spectacular fashion.

Name : Brian Truitt / Alias : USA Today
For those who want to feel like they're 110 stories up and living in the clouds, Hollywood does its job conjuring movie magic with a breathtaking Walk to remember.

Name : Lou Lumenick / Alias : New York Post
Zemeckis finally delivers the goods in abundance in the section that really counts: A vertigo-inducing digital re-creation of Petit's famous walk back and forth between the towers.

Name : Joe Neumaier / Alias : TIME Magazine
The Walk is a visionary high-wire act.

Name : Moira MacDonald / Alias : Seattle Times
While it's clearly constructed with meticulous care, with the wire-walking scenes as breathtaking as CGI allows, it lacks a certain, well, je ne sais quoi.

Name : Scott Tobias / Alias : NPR
Zemeckis throws all of the emphasis on the walk itself, which minimizes the film's annoyances and justifies the groundwork necessary for the big payoff.

Name : Ann Hornaday / Alias : Washington Post
"The Walk" satisfies as an absorbing yarn of authority-flouting adventure and as an example of stomach-flipping you-are-there-ness. The journey it offers viewers doesn't just span 140 feet, but also an ethereal, now-vanished, world.

Name : David Edelstein / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
By some standards, this isn't much of a movie. But it is a hell of a monument.

Name : Richard Roeper / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
The last 30 minutes or so are all about the walk. Dariusz Wolski's cinematography is beautiful. and Gordon-Levitt does some of his best acting when he's out on the wire and mostly silent, his face glowing from the sheer crazy joy he's feeling.

Name : Stephanie Zacharek / Alias : Village Voice
The Walk, in its last half at least, is a dazzling piece of work, particularly in 3-D; even so, its most luminous effect is an actor.

Name : Adam Graham / Alias : Detroit News
As it comes together, the film becomes just as much a tribute to those massive Towers as it is to Petit.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
It is, as it should be, a slight, mischievous, light-footed film, full of imagery.

Name : A.O. Scott / Alias : New York Times
You can't help but hold your breath and clutch the armrests when Philippe steps out into the sky.

Name : Peter Rainer / Alias : Christian Science Monitor
The walk itself is the film's central, and only, real achievement, but it's a doozy.

Name : Alex Pappademas / Alias : Grantland
For at least the duration of the 25-minute wire sequence, The Walk is a breathless, exhilarating moviegoing experience. It's just not much of a movie.

Name : Jim Slotek / Alias : Toronto Sun
The Walk becomes a first-rate caper movie, with a thrilling finish that can't help but move you (if you haven't covered your eyes).

Name : A.A. Dowd / Alias : AV Club
It's when the walk portion of The Walk arrives that this unevenly scripted, fact-based thriller achieves its full potential.

Name : Kenneth Turan / Alias : Los Angeles Times
It would be swell if all of "The Walk" came together as beautifully as the computer effects do, but it would also be churlish not to appreciate what we do have.

Name : Michael Phillips / Alias : Chicago Tribune
The film gets better as it goes, and the last half-hour (especially in 3-D on an Imax screen) is nearly everything it should be: scary, visually momentous, meticulously realized.

Name : Tom Russo / Alias : Boston Globe
These dizzying IMAX 3-D visuals truly are big-screen magic, taking us inside Petit's transcendent experience as he navigates his preternatural path, indulges his showman's flair, and - agh! - reclines to commune with the heavens.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
Expect the worst from the first half- that's before Philippe Petit (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) strings up a wire between the World Trade Center towers. But then, oh, baby, does this movie fly.

Name : David Sims / Alias : The Atlantic
Zemeckis's failing is his inattention to every other detail, but The Walk undeniably exists for its climax: one stunt it does manage to pull off flawlessly.

Name : Joe McGovern / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
The occasional hokum cannot cloud the stunning, incandescent craftsmanship of the movie's third act.

Name : Colin Covert / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
I'd love to say that I was delighted by Robert Zemeckis' "The Walk" from start to finish. But I can't. Not that I was disappointed. Simply underwhelmed. It just didn't click for me.

Name : Lindsey Bahr / Alias : Associated Press
The Walk serves its purpose by showing you something you've never seen before, from perspectives as impossible as the stunt itself. Zemeckis just chose for too long to luxuriate in the fantasy of it all, when the reality was more than enough.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
Somehow The Walk succeeds in spite of its immoderation, especially when the stunt is at hand - in 3D IMAX, no less - which is so often the way of Zemeckis movies.

Name : Calvin Wilson / Alias : St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Gordon-Levitt beguilingly captures Petit's irresistible charisma in a performance that completes his transition from indie-film favorite to big-budget star.

Name : Rene Rodriguez / Alias : Miami Herald
The Walk has been made with the same genial spirit a judge used when he sentenced Petit to perform a free show for children in Central Park for his crime. This is a love letter to lunacy that lets you feel what it's like to tread where only gods dare.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
It's two-thirds of a great film but the slow start and unremarkable first hour hold it back. Still, for those who buy into the precept that "good things are worth waiting for," The Walk unquestionably delivers.

Name : David Rooney / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
The film's payoff more than compensates for a lumbering setup, laden with cloying voiceover narration and strained whimsy.

Name : Chris Vognar / Alias : Dallas Morning News
The line between gimmicky and magic can be mighty fine, but Robert Zemeckis masters it like a seasoned pro in The Walk.

Name : Mick LaSalle / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
After two hours of "The Walk," I felt as if I'd walked the wire myself.

Name : Steven Rea / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
It may not get inside the head of its pole-balancing protagonist - it doesn't really even try - but Zemeckis' movie takes you skyward.

Name : Kate Taylor / Alias : Globe and Mail
The film limps through its first two acts, putting in time until the big moment.

Name : Joshua Rothkopf / Alias : Time Out
Ultimately there's enough daredevil verve here to offset the pedestrian comedy undergirding it.

Name : Rafer Guzman / Alias : Newsday
A razzle-dazzle thriller with eye-popping visuals, white-knuckle tension and just the right note of melancholy.

Name : Dan Callahan / Alias : TheWrap
"'The Walk' is that rare movie that might please practically everyone, from viewers just looking for a thrill to those who might enjoy a story that sounds like a tall tale but winds up being discreetly poignant."

Name : Peter Debruge / Alias : Variety
A filmmaker with a gift for overcoming the seemingly impossible puts audiences in the place of the man who walked between the Twin Towers in this gripping human-interest story.

Name : J. R. Jones / Alias : Chicago Reader
This delivers some frighteningly vertiginous moments once Petit steps off the South Tower into empty space, and Zemeckis wisely milks the climactic wire walk, which lasted 45 minutes and drew a crowd of breathless onlookers below, for all it's worth.

Name : Rafer Guzman / Alias : Newsday
Better than you might think, thanks to strong work from Costner and a cast of fresh faces.

Name : Justin Chang / Alias : Variety
Where the picture excels is as a straightforward sports drama, and Caro delivers the satisfactions of the genre with unfussy verve.

Name : Stephen Farber / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
While the beats of the story are often stock, the picture benefits from sensitive direction by New Zealander Niki Caro and from a most appealing performance by Kevin Costner.

Name : Jesse Hassenger / Alias : AV Club
Caro keeps the material picturesque, respectful, and respectable-without crossing the line into real inspiration.

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
If they gave Oscars for overcoming mechanical plotting and perfunctory dialogue, Mr. Costner would be this year's shoo-in.

Name : Mick LaSalle / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
"McFarland, USA" could have been a sentimental film, but it's not, because Caro and the screenwriters bothered to know what that they were talking about.

Name : John Hartl / Alias : Seattle Times
Based on the lives of several cross-country runners whose success story began in 1987, the script is crowded with scenes that ring true and rarely stray into conventional exposition.

Name : Tom Long / Alias : Detroit News
Yes, it's a bit corny and convenient at times, but there's an admiration here for hard work, ambition and battling adversity that overrides cynicism. "McFarland, USA" is a good film about good people; nothing wrong with that.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
Inspiration is for sale in here. And though more than a spoonful of sugar is slathered over the fact-based script, the movie delivers as promised on the thrill of the race and the lump in the throat.

Name : Alan Scherstuhl / Alias : Village Voice
The film's well made, well acted, and sometimes beautiful.

Name : Bilge Ebiri / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
Here's a movie that should be disposable at best, and racially condescending at worst, and yet it sticks with you. It comes by its emotions honestly and wins you over.

Name : Lisa Kennedy / Alias : Denver Post
It took a village of fine performers to depict this close-knit town. And the list is too long to give a shoutout to everyone.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
McFarland USA has a distinction in that it's the rare sports movie directed by a woman. Caro's perspective is invaluable to the film's trajectory.

Name : Claudia Puig / Alias : USA Today
The premise may sound obvious and potentially forced, but it comes off as authentic.

Name : James Rocchi / Alias : TheWrap
A feel-good movie that earns all those good feelings, "McFarland, USA" might be running on a predetermined track, but the heart it shows along the journey is what makes it a winner.

Name : Sara Stewart / Alias : New York Post
Given the film's Disney stamp, you can see the feel-good coming a mile away, though the plot's never fleshed out enough to really distinguish it within the underdog-team genre.

Name : Joe Neumaier / Alias : New York Daily News
"McFarland, USA" invokes an old sports movie trope: the inspiring coach and his noble, suffering team. But the good intentions can't help it sprint past cliche.

Name : Bill Goodykoontz / Alias : Arizona Republic
Caro's direction, Costner's performance and the winning cast, along with the shining of a sliver of light on the plight of field workers, however thin that sliver may be, combine to make "McFarland" a much better movie than it has any right to be.

Name : David Ehrlich / Alias : Time Out
The latest in a long line of condescendingly inspirational sports movies about a catalog Caucasian who learns that people of other races are also capable of being decent.

Name : Tom Russo / Alias : Boston Globe
Kevin Costner's signature knack for sports movies does little to buoy a stilted culture-clash dynamic.

Name : Kenneth Turan / Alias : Los Angeles Times
A canny combination of elements unites with an unlikely true story to make this more effective than you might be expecting.

Name : Michael Phillips / Alias : Chicago Tribune
A less talented and more shameless director might've turned it into cornmeal mush, but Niki Caro ("Whale Rider") has delivered unto the Disney corporation a Kevin Costner sports movie that works.

Name : Linda Barnard / Alias : Toronto Star
Based on the true story of a fledgling high school cross country team from an economically depressed Latino community, McFarland neatly delivers an uncomplicated, heartwarming message.

Name : A.O. Scott / Alias : New York Times
[It] aims to be rousing rather than revelatory, and it mostly succeeds.

Name : J. R. Jones / Alias : Chicago Reader
At this point the inspirational coach drama has become as ritualistic as the Catholic mass, but it's also developed an admirable social agenda of breaking down racial divisions, which is exemplified by this heartwarming Disney release.

Name : Stephanie Merry / Alias : Washington Post
You've seen feel-good football and baseball movies, plus great underdog stories of boxing, basketball, soccer and cycling. So what's left?

Name : Brad Wheeler / Alias : Globe and Mail
It's all a bit much.

Name : Steven Rea / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
There are good things to say about the inspirational Disney sports film McFarland, USA, starting with its up-from-the-scrap-heap story, which happens to be true.

Name : Peter Rainer / Alias : Christian Science Monitor
[Costner] could have sailed through this film but he gives his role an ingrained orneriness and melancholy that lifts the entire enterprise.

Name : Richard Roeper / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
Yes, "McFarland USA" has the obligatory coda where we found out how everything played out for the coach and the key members of that 1987 team. You should stick around for that.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
The movie can risk being patronizing, at times. And boy, is it manipulative. But all art is manipulative, in some way. And maybe being manipulated to have a little hope isn't such a bad thing after all.

Name : Andrew Lapin / Alias : NPR
Yes, there's a formula. Yes, it's corny. But running is about the journey, not the destination, and Disney sports movies don't know how to quit until everyone has crossed the finish line. Bless them for it.

Name : Wesley Morris / Alias : Grantland
You fall for the kids playing the runners because Caro lets their souls come through in the bus rides and the race sequences and the shameless scenes of cabbage picking.