Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : New York Daily News
It's like the movie was written in crayon, in the margins of a comic book.

Name : Matthew Lickona / Alias : San Diego Reader
All the ingredients are there for a pleasant pander to grumpy old white men: the craggy actors, the foreign bad guys wielding confusing technology, the kindness of beautiful young women, and the nobility of sacrifice.

Name : Mark Jenkins / Alias : NPR
With its European locations, electro-thump score, and near-ceaseless violence, the movie plays like something tooled in French producer-scripter Luc Besson's factory for international action mashups.

Name : Kate Taylor / Alias : Globe and Mail
Neither scriptwriters Douglas Cook and David Weisberg nor Vromen in the director's chair are subtle enough to figure out how to do both action and character.

Name : Mick LaSalle / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
"Criminal" depicts a compelling situation, made rich and entertaining through its extreme characters.

Name : Andrew Barker / Alias : Variety
Struggling to generate much tension, the film opts for sensory battery in the action scenes, rendering gunshots as loud as cannon fire and splashing blood every which way.

Name : Joe McGovern / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
Criminal's story moves like a fat cow.

Name : Bruce Kirkland / Alias : Toronto Sun
Criminal is a screwed-up mess as a story and as an action movie with a so-called moral lesson in it. In fact, the more I think about it, the less I like it.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
So much wasted talent. Downright Criminal, it is.

Name : Tom Huddleston / Alias : Time Out
The fact that it's all played completely straight only makes it funnier.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
Criminal is an action-thriller with a science fiction twist. To the extent that its purpose is to energize and involve an audience, it succeeds.

Name : Todd McCarthy / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
Even if you've allowed yourself to hope that the redoubtable actors might tilt the proceedings in a positive direction, almost every choice made by director Ariel Vromen. sends Criminal spiraling toward overwrought silliness.

Name : Soren Anderson / Alias : Seattle Times
"Criminal" is as by-the-numbers as thrillers come. But a payday is a payday, I guess. Bank those bucks, people, and go on to something better.

Name : Steven Rea / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
Egregiously silly, generic .

Name : Sara Stewart / Alias : New York Post
Guns, gore and good actors shoehorned into one-note parts.

Name : Peter Keough / Alias : Boston Globe
Kevin, why don't they just let you be bad as you want to be?

Name : Michael O'Sullivan / Alias : Washington Post
Like its brain-damaged protagonist, "Criminal" just shouts and shoots its way into, not out of, an oblivion of illogic, plot holes and emotionally unengaging scenery-chewing.

Name : Randy Cordova / Alias : Arizona Republic
You may never believe one minute of "Criminal," but Costner sure does.

Name : Neil Genzlinger / Alias : New York Times
It's best not to think about this preposterous story too hard. Just ride it to its even more preposterous climax, enjoying Mr. Costner and a steady supporting cast (Gary Oldman as the C.I.A. honcho; Gal Gadot as Bill's wife) along the way.

Name : Richard Roeper / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
Given the lurid, stupid, loony and unintentionally laughable nature of this espionage thriller, I found some measure of entertainment studying the vastly different approaches taken by Costner, Jones and Oldman.

Name : Rafer Guzman / Alias : Newsday
So-so pulp, elevated by Costner as a feral felon.

Name : Ignatiy Vishnevetsky / Alias : AV Club
Perhaps it's almost too perfect that the movie should suffer from a personality conflict of its own; too bad that it's the uninspired direction and not the demented pulpiness that dominates in the end.

Name : Kenneth Turan / Alias : Los Angeles Times
Half science-fiction tale, half espionage thriller, it's a pleasantly far-fetched endeavor that moves along so briskly that it leaves no time to consider its implausibilities, which are many.

Name : John DeFore / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
A trapped-in-a-house thriller pitting thieves against an unexpectedly resourceful victim, the lean and mean pic offers scares aplenty and at least a couple of game-changing twists.

Name : Dennis Harvey / Alias : Variety
A muscular exercise in brutal, relentless peril.

Name : Eric Kohn / Alias : indieWIRE
The ending leaves room for a sequel, but it's not just a half-baked teaser. As with all strong horror stories, the conclusion of one dangerous scenario feeds the fear of more to come.

Name : Edward Douglas / Alias : New York Daily News
The type of edge-of-your seat thrills promised by its commercials, but also takes you into far darker territory than anticipated.