Name : Mick LaSalle / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
It has a screenplay of freshness and audacity that's brought to life by a director who understands its every psychological undercurrent. We might hope this kind of thing would happen all the time, but it's rare.

Name : Scott Foundas / Alias : Variety
'Prisoners' director Denis Villeneuve returns with a blisteringly suspenseful, ever surprising cartel thriller.

Name : Adam Graham / Alias : Detroit News
By the end, it packs a death stare so potent it will make you want to turn a blind eye to the shadowy brutality of its real-world horrors.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
An unforgettable motion picture that should be on the must-see list for anyone who appreciates films that deal in grays rather than blacks and whites.

Name : Tony Hicks / Alias : San Jose Mercury News
Director Denis Villeneuve delivers screenwriter Taylor Sheridan's story layer by layer, never overwhelming the audience while still challenging it to pay attention.

Name : Mike D'Angelo / Alias : AV Club
One can easily ignore the film's ambitious subtext and enjoy it strictly on the basis of its terrific performances and nonstop intensity.

Name : Chris Nashawaty / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
With a taut and timely screenplay by Taylor Sheridan, Sicario is a brilliant action thriller with the smarts of a message movie.

Name : Barry Hertz / Alias : Globe and Mail
We can thank Villeneuve and rookie screenwriter Taylor Sheridan's tight script, but also Blunt, Brolin and Del Toro, each of whom has never been better.

Name : Christopher Orr / Alias : The Atlantic
Sicario is a remarkable, thrilling, intermittently brilliant film-and yet nonetheless a mild disappointment.

Name : Todd McCarthy / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
The violence of the inter-American drug trade has served as the backdrop for any number of films for more than three decades, but few have been as powerful and superbly made as Sicario.

Name : Cary Darling / Alias : Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com
[Villeneuve] hasn't forgotten that he's making a thriller, and he's made one that's both nerve-shatteringly suspenseful and, thanks to noted cinematographer Roger Deakins, gorgeous to watch.

Name : Ty Burr / Alias : Boston Globe
Within this dark epic of American failure lives an effective but decidedly minor vigilante flick.

Name : Wesley Morris / Alias : Grantland
Villeneuve and screenwriter Taylor Sheridan aren't selling more than a tautological action movie with the dread and body count of a horror film.

Name : Sandy Cohen / Alias : Associated Press
Villeneuve has crafted a compelling, unflinching look at the deadly and complicated war on drugs, one that will challenge the attitudes of even the most straight-edged and law-abiding viewers.

Name : Colin Covert / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
Combining relentless action with the story of a woman confronting a corrupted system, it hits with the staggering energy of a visceral kick in the guts - causing a sensory recoil in every scene.

Name : Dana Stevens / Alias : Slate
Sicario opens on a power chord of fear, nausea, and dread that resonates throughout the whole movie.

Name : Rene Rodriguez / Alias : Miami Herald
This is not the first movie about the war being waged across the U.S.-Mexico border over the drug trade, but it's the first film in which the aura of constant menace and threat lingers and follows you home.

Name : A.O. Scott / Alias : New York Times
After a while these sounds and images start to feel like expressions of technique, and they become at once numbing and sensational, and instead of a movie about violence we're watching another violent movie, after all.

Name : Andrew O'Hehir / Alias : Salon.com
Villeneuve handles action scenes with impressive flair, but also understands that the key to effective action is to build up to it slowly and inexorably.

Name : David Edelstein / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
Denis Villeneuve's film turns out to be a stupendously unnerving descent into moral chaos, our presumed action hero Alice in Cartel-land.

Name : Joe Neumaier / Alias : New York Daily News
This dramatic thriller finds a spot somewhere between your brain and your stomach, and drills in.

Name : Kyle Smith / Alias : New York Post
Villeneuve, cinematographer Roger Deakins and composer Johann Johannsson combine to make the action scenes gorgeous, scary and exciting, while the script by Taylor Sheridan is mordant and smart, with not a wasted word.

Name : Richard Roeper / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
This is one of the best movies of the year.

Name : Guy Lodge / Alias : Time Out
Denis Villeneuve takes on the Mexican drug trade in this stern, robust, abandon-hope-all-ye-who-enter thriller.

Name : Lou Lumenick / Alias : New York Post
A well-deserved showcase for Emily Blunt.

Name : Moira MacDonald / Alias : Seattle Times
There are no rules, and no reason, in this world of death and revenge, and we see it through Kate's eyes: fascinated, repelled, ultimately haunted.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
Sicario paints the bleakest of portraits of a realistic situation, drawn from headlines about Mexican cartels that stack bodies with savage efficiency.

Name : J. R. Jones / Alias : Chicago Reader
This is suspenseful stuff, but hanging over the action is the pungent smell of social failure, as the drug war turns both sides into monsters.

Name : Stephanie Merry / Alias : Washington Post
Villeneuve's movies occupy a spectrum between thought-provoking and mind-bending, and it's clear that he wants to guide Taylor Sheridan's script into similar territory.

Name : Amy Nicholson / Alias : L.A. Weekly
Villeneuve's proven he's got a strong punch. The trouble is, he barely aims.

Name : Alonso Duralde / Alias : TheWrap
Mixes arthouse and grindhouse into a most satisfying cocktail.

Name : Calvin Wilson / Alias : St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Far from being just another crime story, "Sicario" is cinema at its most ambitious.

Name : Anthony Lane / Alias : New Yorker
If "Sicario" does not collapse under its own grimness, that is because of the pulse: the care with which Villeneuve keeps the story beating, like a drum, as he steadies himself for the next set piece.

Name : Steven Rea / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
Succeeds in evoking the anarchic violence of the drug wars raging on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border.

Name : Mark Olsen / Alias : Los Angeles Times
Directed by Denis Villeneuve from a script by Taylor Sheridan, the film manages to somehow be sleek and sprawling, focused and cagey at the same time, often in the same scene.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
A gripping and tension-packed spin through America's covert War on Drugs. Prepare to be haunted for a good long time.

Name : Liz Braun / Alias : Toronto Sun
Director Denis Villeneuve, aided and abetted by cinematographer Roger Deakins, fills Sicario with dread and a violence that happens to be stunning to look at.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
If the film is a little too macho and far too Anglo to tell the full, ugly story of all the villains and victims, it is, like all of Villeneuve's films, a bravura piece of filmmaking.

Name : Michael Phillips / Alias : Chicago Tribune
The first hour of this latest film from French-Canadian director Denis Villeneuve is sleek, terrific pulp.

Name : Adam Graham / Alias : Detroit News
With this hapless entry, even fans of the series will have their allegiance tested.

Name : Mara Reinstein / Alias : Us Weekly
Let's be Candor: This franchise is tumbling downhill at an alarming speed.

Name : Bill Zwecker / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
The special effects are among the more positive aspects of Allegiant, but those alone cannot rescue this highly flawed sequel.

Name : Jordan Mintzer / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
More like redundant.

Name : Jeannette Catsoulis / Alias : New York Times
A story that kicked off two years ago at a reasonable gallop has now slowed to barely a limp.

Name : Randy Myers / Alias : San Jose Mercury News
The second to last entry in what is a so-so franchise, "The Divergent Series: Allegiant" is squirrelly, chasing from one big concept to another without satisfactorily executing most of them.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : New York Daily News
Woodley remains grimly committed, and Naomi Watts turns in a serious performance as our new, slightly more complicated villain, but the rest of the characters barely exist.

Name : Scott Tobias / Alias : NPR
Creatively speaking, if not financially, the Divergent series is less a franchise than a quagmire, an unwinnable war that nonetheless must be fought until the bitter end.

Name : Tom Russo / Alias : Boston Globe
This setup creates real anticipation about where the story might be headed, at least for those who haven't read Roth's books. Frustratingly, though, the movie devolves into a derivative muddle by the second act.

Name : Soren Anderson / Alias : Seattle Times
A picture that crams elements of eugenics and dystopian fantasizing into a turgid sci-fi movie full of howling mobs, seemingly endless shoot-'em-up episodes, clunky-looking special effects and unconvincing relationships.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
egregiously padded piffle

Name : Leah Pickett / Alias : Chicago Reader
This penultimate installment in the dour dystopian franchise offers stronger visual effects and more thought-provoking biopunk notions about genetic engineering than the two previous films, but even star Shailene Woodley looks bored.

Name : Jim Slotek / Alias : Toronto Sun
As always, the narrative mostly goes: fight, save Tris, Four and Tris kiss. Repeat.

Name : Bill Goodykoontz / Alias : Arizona Republic
If you think the name is inelegant, wait until you see the movie.

Name : Connie Ogle / Alias : Miami Herald
The film moves jerkily, in fits and starts, squandering its promising setup and bogging down in explanation.

Name : Ben Croll / Alias : TheWrap
Brings back the same cast of characters to do more or less exactly what they did in the previous films, only this time in sets with more sci-fi gloss than postapocalyptic grunge.

Name : Michael O'Sullivan / Alias : Washington Post
Nuance, subtlety, feeling - anything that might help an audience relate to what is happening rather than passively experience it, like a roller coaster - apparently are luxuries this movie could not afford.

Name : Kenneth Turan / Alias : Los Angeles Times
Because the series' plot reveal turns out to be more confusing than compelling, and because turning a novel into two films invariably leads to inflated productions, only the most devoted fans of the book will pledge allegiance to what's on the screen.

Name : Ariana Bacle / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
Allegiant aches to be a thought-provoking, moving allegory of the current world. Instead, it's an unwieldy two hours too unintentionally silly to validate how seriously it takes itself.

Name : Amy Nicholson / Alias : MTV
Divergent feels like a hasty idea scribbled on construction paper, crumpled into a ball, and ditched in a mud puddle. Even it can't tell what it wanted to say.

Name : Mick LaSalle / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
Except in the highly visual or action sequences, Robert Schwentke's direction has a peculiar quality, in which you can almost hear him yelling "Action" and "Cut."

Name : Julia Cooper / Alias : Globe and Mail
The movie desperately wants a sleek and goth-inspired aesthetic in the spirit of Rick Owens. What it ends up with is more of an unfortunate Anne Klein-meets-The Jetsons reality.

Name : Colin Covert / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
The closing shot is pure marketing, reminding us that the final installment is still a year away. If you feel like there's no point in going through the motions any further, I agree.

Name : Peter Debruge / Alias : Variety
This first half of the artificially split two-part finally may diverge from Veronica Roth's source material, but doesn't necessarily solve its problems.

Name : Bilge Ebiri / Alias : Village Voice
These movies were never going to transform cinema, but watching Allegiant, it's hard not to feel as if someone has pulled the rug out from under an otherwise modestly entertaining franchise.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
Allegiant exemplifies what happens when a book or movie exists solely for the purposes of placating fans and maintaining a revenue stream.

Name : Tom Huddleston / Alias : Time Out
Miles Teller is brilliantly typecast as a mouthy douchebag that no one likes.

Name : Michael Phillips / Alias : Chicago Tribune
It's a pretty dull picture, I must say, because it's my duty to say it. And it's a pretty dull picture, I must say, because something about its particular grade of dullness may cause memory loss.

Name : Steven Rea / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
The worn and weathered third installment in the four-part film adaptation of Veronica Roth's postapocalyptic dystopian YA books.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
The third and most useless chapter of the continuing sci-fi bloatfest called The Divergent Series.

Name : Jesse Hassenger / Alias : AV Club
After about 30 minutes of agreeably junky sci-fi that often exceeds the energy levels of its predecessors, the inevitable happens: Allegiant becomes a Divergent movie.

Name : Matthew Lickona / Alias : San Diego Reader
There's a lot of standing and talking, a lot of clothes-wearing (and even some doffing), and a lot of very loving set design. What there isn't is tension. Or feeling.