Name : Chris Packham / Alias : Village Voice
Through photos and family lore, but mostly through Dayton's own eloquence, Mitchell assembles a biographical portrait that's inspiring in the best possible way.

Name : Sheila O'Malley / Alias : RogerEbert.com
There's always a lot to look at. The script is so-so, but the total lack of snark and cynicism in the film is refreshing.

Name : Tom Russo / Alias : Boston Globe
The animators are clearly trying to craft something bubbly, but they misguidedly go all in on imitating the contemporary Disney model - or DreamWorks', at least - rather than offering anything different.

Name : Adam Graham / Alias : Detroit News
"The Wild Life" is an import from Belgium that should have been left at customs.

Name : Rafer Guzman / Alias : Newsday
A confused, charmless take on the Robinson Crusoe story.

Name : Helen T. Verongos / Alias : New York Times
"The Wild Life" is pretty to look at, with its skies and ocean, calm or stormy, and it has a driving soundtrack. But the story lacks that extra layer of complexity and meaning that parents can appreciate.

Name : Anita Gates / Alias : New York Times
The burning question is why Mr. Hyde's story has never been made into a feature film.

Name : Sara Stewart / Alias : New York Post
Belgians may have bragging rights on waffles, but judging from "The Wild Life," their animated fare needs help.

Name : Claudia Puig / Alias : TheWrap
A dull, uninspired and frantically tedious animated re-telling of the Robinson Crusoe story, complete with a menagerie of ditzy, caterwauling beasts. Consequently, this cacophonous misfire feels a good deal longer than its 91-minute running time.

Name : Jody Mitori / Alias : St. Louis Post-Dispatch
It's like the generic version of a Disney movie.

Name : Stephanie Merry / Alias : Washington Post
It's no great shock when a movie based on a beloved book falls short of the original, but few fail as confoundingly as "The Wild Life."

Name : Andrew Parker / Alias : Globe and Mail
Has a handful of novel 3-D effects, lots of bright colours, competent animation and little else.

Name : Christy Lemire / Alias : RogerEbert.com
Pacing can be painfully languid, to the point of being nap-inducing.

Name : Ignatiy Vishnevetsky / Alias : AV Club
The sort of uninspired international pre-sales item that usually goes straight from a basement booth at the Cannes film market to a Netflix parent's peripheral vision.

Name : Soren Anderson / Alias : Seattle Times
All things considered, this pitifully plotted Belgian-French production represents the nadir of animated movies released so far this year, a farrago of frantic action and mindless cacophony.

Name : Michael Ordona / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
It exists in the kids-only zone where parents go to pay for their sins or, hopefully, get a nap.

Name : Peter Debruge / Alias : Variety
Whether dangling characters off the edge of a cliff or zooming around Crusoe's rickety wooden waterslide, the story is constantly on the go, launching objects and characters along the Z axis - and out over the audiences' heads.

Name : Raakhee Mirchandani / Alias : New York Daily News
Kids might be amused, but adults will find the jokes weak, the narrative bleak and little to pass the time between animal chase scenes.

Name : Jordan Mintzer / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
An impressively made if highly juvenile version of a literary classic.

Name : Christy Lemire / Alias : Associated Press
Notable for a chilling lead performance from Rebecca De Mornay and not much else.

Name : Andrew Barker / Alias : Variety
Atrociously written, begrudgingly acted, haphazardly assembled and never more backward than when it thinks it's being progressive .

Name : Peter Keough / Alias : Boston Globe
It's like a nightmare in which you are trapped in an endless Kmart aisle of horrible holiday cards.

Name : Charles Gant / Alias : Variety
Undistinguished apart from Rebecca De Mornay's performance as an unhinged mama.

Name : Molly Eichel / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
The problem with this type of movie is ingrained in the structure: There's so much going on that there's no time to build characters that make sense or any sort of meaningful relationships.

Name : Jen Chaney / Alias : Washington Post
When Aniston's character casually mentions Groundhog Day and Flag Day in conversation, I immediately thought to myself, "Be quiet, you, or Garry Marshall will get even more bad ideas."

Name : Jon Frosch / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
A movie not even a mother could love.

Name : Alonso Duralde / Alias : TheWrap
Too innocuous to inspire actual rage yet too utterly tepid and bland to elicit a single laugh.

Name : Randy Cordova / Alias : Arizona Republic
Sure, you'll forget all about it a week after you've seen it, but it's mostly pleasant and occasionally touching, even though it's a lot closer to an episode of "The Love Boat" than "Love Actually."

Name : Robert Abele / Alias : Los Angeles Times
The ready crackle of [De Mornay's] studiously demonic performance brings welcome distraction from this otherwise crude litany of torture and wretched death.

Name : Trevor Johnston / Alias : Time Out
Excruciatingly misguided.

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
You can survive this comedy, which was directed by Garry Marshall and written by too many people to shame by naming, but only if you're immune to febrile calculation complicated by chronic ineptitude.

Name : Richard Roeper / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
Like just about everything else in Mother's Day, the nod to the earlier movies are clumsy and pointless and obvious.

Name : Sara Stewart / Alias : New York Post
The cinematic equivalent of a paper plate with macaroni and glitter haphazardly glued onto it, "Mother's Day" is a film only its creators could love (and even they must be having some misgivings).

Name : Jeannette Catsoulis / Alias : New York Times
Stuffed with secrets and characters who can't wait to betray one another, the film offers no one to root for except Mother, whose perverted family values at least remain consistent.

Name : Nick Pinkerton / Alias : Village Voice
Mother's Day is distinguished, at least, by De Mornay's porcelain-smile lampoon of castigating matriarchy.

Name : Jim Slotek / Alias : Toronto Sun
Mother's Day seems more like a contractual commitment than a creative exercise.

Name : Glenn Kenny / Alias : New York Times
There are laughs, albeit inadvertent; the biggest comes courtesy of the production's no-doubt overworked sound department, when Ms. Robertson utters "I have abandonment issues" without moving her mouth.

Name : Moira MacDonald / Alias : Seattle Times
A two-hour movie so forgettable that I'm not convinced it actually exists.