Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
A delayed and dismal attempt to marry screwball comedy with socially aware drama.

Name : Tom Long / Alias : Detroit News
Where to begin with Aloha? Begin by not going to the movie.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
At least this feels like a Cameron Crowe movie.

Name : Chris Vognar / Alias : Dallas Morning News
Aloha, for all its spasms of charm, feels like a push-button romance, its heroes glibly spouting lines with the hope that the words come to mean something.

Name : Bill Goodykoontz / Alias : Arizona Republic
It's a big soap opera set against blastoffs, none of which is convincing.

Name : Bilge Ebiri / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
It comes at us in choppy bursts of brilliance and dopiness. That is at once its great charm and its great curse.

Name : Gwynedd Stuart / Alias : Chicago Reader
Even if this were well made in a technical sense, it would still be a weird heap of patriotism, astronomy, and Hawaiian folklore, piled atop a pat and predictable love story.

Name : Richard Roeper / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
Aloha is a great-looking movie with just enough bright spots to get us past the cloudy moments.

Name : Rafer Guzman / Alias : Newsday
"Aloha" is one of those films whose characters behave and speak so irrationally that they no longer make any human sense at all. Crowe may have had us at hello, but he's losing us with "Aloha."

Name : Rene Rodriguez / Alias : Miami Herald
This is the kind of film that is easier to mock than to grapple with on its own terms. It's littered with flaws, but sometimes those movies can be the most interesting ones. The Aloha cult fan club is officially open. I'll take one ticket, please.

Name : Christy Lemire / Alias : RogerEbert.com
"Aloha" feels like several films at once, crammed together and sped up, with results that are emotionally hollow and narratively confusing.

Name : Mark Olsen / Alias : Los Angeles Times
Even with its off-balance, overstuffed storytelling, the film maintains a charm and energy that never flags, with brisk pacing and generally engaging performances from its deep-bench cast.

Name : Michael Phillips / Alias : Chicago Tribune
The first encounter among Cooper, McAdams and Stone is so awkward and unsettled that it becomes the movie's own albatross. There are some moments, most of them thanks to McAdams.

Name : Colin Covert / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
How delightful to see a film that begins and closes in outer space be so warmly stargazing.

Name : Joe Williams / Alias : St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Blessed with a stellar cast and idyllic locale, Crowe seems reluctant to waste anything, including his own half-baked themes.

Name : Alonso Duralde / Alias : TheWrap
The deepest understanding we get of any of these characters is that none of them would say the things that Crowe makes come out of their mouths.

Name : Ann Hornaday / Alias : Washington Post
Aloha is such an inchoate mess, such a forced, insular, self-pleasing misfire, that plotting it out can be a challenge.

Name : Alan Scherstuhl / Alias : Village Voice
Cameron Crowe writes movies like he's calling us in eighth grade with his heart on fire.

Name : Sheri Linden / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
If Aloha's earthbound elements are uneven, its rocket-launch aspects are downright confounding.

Name : A.A. Dowd / Alias : AV Club
Perhaps the energy Crowe could have expended on shaping believable characters went instead to the cultural context.

Name : Mick LaSalle / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
Crowe introduces a serious topic without really examining it, and even the romance feels off, with a pair of lovers who seem mismatched. To complete the picture, Crowe tags on an ending that's convenient but not convincing.

Name : A.O. Scott / Alias : New York Times
The plot is a hash when it's not a drag, and the 100-odd-minute cut of the film arriving in theaters on Friday seems hacked from something longer and baggier.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
Filmmaker Cameron Crowe can't catch a break with Aloha, a Hawaii-set romcom that is a handful of stories struggling for a unifying tone, but is nowhere near as toxic as its advance buzz.

Name : Nathan Rabin / Alias : Globe and Mail
Aloha is a marshmallow of a film: soft on the inside, soft on the outside and wholly devoid of substance.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
It's hard to find a level on which Aloha works. It's a murky, muddled mess.

Name : Steven Rea / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
For all the screwball patter, smart-aleck similes, and zingy one-liners that Crowe has handed his mismatched cast, a kerplunking emptiness runs through Aloha.

Name : Lisa Kennedy / Alias : Denver Post
This is a romantic comedy that has more than hearts on its mind. In addition to teasing the uneasy and complicated partnership of the military and the private sector, Crowe takes on issues integral to Hawaii.

Name : Andrew Barker / Alias : Variety
Unbalanced, unwieldy, and at times nearly unintelligible, Aloha is unquestionably Cameron Crowe's worst film.

Name : Joe Neumaier / Alias : New York Daily News
"Aloha" isn't horrible, but it does have a pitiable odor about it, like a dog that's sat too long on the beach.

Name : Sara Stewart / Alias : New York Post
There are grand, romantic speeches that will endure forever from Crowe's earlier work - "Jerry Maguire," "Say Anything . . ." - but you can't build an entire movie on them. Nobody wants two hours of "You had me at hello."

Name : Wesley Morris / Alias : Grantland
None of this "works." But it usually worked on me.

Name : Lindsey Bahr / Alias : Associated Press
Another fascinating mess from an earnest and occasionally excellent filmmaker who can't seem to recreate the enveloping magic and charm of his earlier films.

Name : Moira MacDonald / Alias : Seattle Times
The result is a movie that's well-meaning but nearly unwatchable. Stay home and watch a better Crowe movie instead, and ponder what went wrong.

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
I've never seen a movie quite like Aloha. That's meant neither as praise nor as a backhanded compliment; it's offered more in the spirit of one hand clapping.

Name : Chris Nashawaty / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
It happens. Really talented directors sometimes step into the batter's box, take a gigantic swing, and whiff.

Name : Ty Burr / Alias : Boston Globe
"Aloha" is as generic as its title. The islands exist solely as an exotic backdrop for the pretty Hollywood haoles to play in. Business as usual, and I never thought I'd say that about a Cameron Crowe movie.

Name : Andrew Lapin / Alias : NPR
Crowe displays a willingness to reach for ambitious ideas and big-hearted, emotionally naked moments that other name-brand filmmakers are too terrified to explore. Aloha is a big mess, but it's also at war with American cynicism, and wars get messy.

Name : Preston Jones / Alias : Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com
Now, Cameron Crowe's name above the title feels less like an invitation, and more like a warning.

Name : Peter Rainer / Alias : Christian Science Monitor
Crowe is deft at keeping the various plots spinning, but there are too many of them, and they don't intersect pleasingly.

Name : Calvin Wilson / Alias : St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"Annie" is not a great movie musical - but it's a fun time at the movies.

Name : Amy Nicholson / Alias : L.A. Weekly
This is an Annie for adults, only now the spin is less "Remember the social-welfare lessons of the Great Depression?" and more "Hey, rich people are nice, too."

Name : Richard Brody / Alias : New Yorker
The vigorous display of good feelings and comforting resolutions has an unusually effervescent sincerity, even if the rags-to-riches wish-fulfillment leaps over all the hard knocks.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
Think you've got a hard-knock life? Try sitting through the new "Annie."

Name : David Edelstein / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
In all the ways that matter it's a missed opportunity to take a flawed musical and transform it into a powerful new myth with a particular African-American slant.

Name : Maricar Estrella / Alias : Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com
Phenom Quvenzhane Wallis proves her Oscar nomination for Beasts of the Southern Wild was no fluke. As a modern-day Annie, Wallis shines with her sweet portrayal. However, her performance alone can't save the film from being a dim adaptation.

Name : Nancy Churnin / Alias : Dallas Morning News
Most of the cast can't sing or dance, and Gluck, who co-wrote the screenplay, has no clue why this story has endured.

Name : Moira MacDonald / Alias : Seattle Times
Musical purists should stay away, but little girls should have fun here, and the movie's full of goofball touches that help pass the time for the grown-ups bringing them.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
Most remakes are unnecessary but Annie is a bigger offender than many.

Name : Ty Burr / Alias : Boston Globe
By the end, the movie resembles just another formulaic, family-friendly piece of product, one the kids will enjoy and you'll endure as it goes in the DVD player for the 40th time.

Name : David Ehrlich / Alias : Time Out New York
Annie deserves credit for illustrating that old racial prejudices don't have to be preserved by new entertainments, but this remixed rendition doesn't speak to the kids of today so much as it does to their parents' wallets.

Name : Lindsey Bahr / Alias : Associated Press
This "Annie" was supposed to be for a new generation. In the harsh light of 2014, it's never looked so dated.

Name : Steven Rea / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
Quvenzhane Wallis, the Oscar-nominated star of the trippy bayou indie Beasts of the Southern Wild, simply has to skip into a room - and into the frame - to light things up.

Name : Courtney Shea / Alias : Globe and Mail
Engaging characters, infectious melodies, suspense, drama and dance extravaganzas appeal to children of all eras. If only the powers that be behind the new Annie movie had kept this basic truth in mind.

Name : Mary Houlihan / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
Even Sandy the dog looks like he's had enough.

Name : Michael Phillips / Alias : Chicago Tribune
The overall vibe of this folly is curdled and utterly blase; it's a 118-minute foregone conclusion, finesse-free and perilously low on the simple performance pleasures we look for in any musical, of any period.

Name : A.O. Scott / Alias : New York Times
The cast would have been better served by a middle school production overseen by a creatively frustrated, inappropriately ambitious drama teacher than by this hacky, borderline-incompetent production .

Name : Katie Rife / Alias : AV Club
Any scene without Wallis and her gang of remarkably symmetrical, well-groomed orphans feels like a chore-"Let's just get through this," the movie seems to be saying, "Then we'll show you that cute little girl and her puppy again."

Name : Michael Ordona / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
"Annie" is a shiny little pebble with nothing close to a surprise in it, set in a New York that would cause Martin Scorsese to burst into flame if he walked into it. And young kids just might like it.

Name : Stephanie Merry / Alias : Washington Post
Ultimately, "Annie" is so fixated on being current that it will never be more than a passing fancy.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
It falls ignominiously on its fat one. The Sony hackers, the so-called Guardians of Peace, have leaked the new Annie online so everyone can have free access. It's their cruelest trick to date.

Name : Linda Holmes / Alias : NPR
Despite any reservations about the music, it is a charming, lovely little movie.

Name : David Rooney / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
The sun'll come out tomorrow, by which time this toxic mess should be forgotten.

Name : Lou Lumenick / Alias : New York Post
Leapin' lizards! The evergreen Broadway musical "Annie'' strays far from its Depression-era roots with truly dismaying results in this crass, charmless, tineared and lead-footed update.

Name : Ben Sachs / Alias : Chicago Reader
There's a surprising amount of bite: the filmmakers openly acknowledge the similarities between the Great Depression and the present, and the populist message, however overstated, always registers as sincere.

Name : Rafer Guzman / Alias : Newsday
Wallis is adorable, but there's little magic in the new music or the barely-there choreography. A missed opportunity.

Name : Betsy Sharkey / Alias : Los Angeles Times
Hard to believe the sun will come out tomorrow for the new "Annie."

Name : Ronnie Scheib / Alias : Variety
While there are several possible good reasons to remake the Depression-set musical "Annie" in 2014, none of them seem to have informed Will Gluck's overblown yet undernourished treatment.

Name : Peter Rainer / Alias : Christian Science Monitor
Considering this musical has its roots in Depression-era American, Gluck's contemporary take on the material is eerily lacking in observations about the rich/poor divide in this country.

Name : Wesley Morris / Alias : Grantland
Did I really just watch Foxx and Wallis do an entire musical number set inside a moving helicopter? I did, and I've never felt more embarrassed for two actors, mostly because Foxx seems embarrassed for himself.

Name : Claudia Puig / Alias : USA Today
Banal, shallow and markedly cynical.

Name : Christine Dolen / Alias : Miami Herald
The new Annie is jam-packed with Glee-style choreography and greed-is-good luxury. Like its predecessors, it's a fantasy. But unlike them, it's not so much heartwarming as warmed-over.

Name : Linda Barnard / Alias : Toronto Star
A movie that coasts on a disturbing greed-is-good vibe. And one that looks strangely cheap doing it.

Name : Kerry Lengel / Alias : Arizona Republic
The feel-good story and sing-along production numbers are likely to please the movie's target audience of tween girls, but there's not a whole lot in "Annie" to win their parents over.

Name : Neal Justin / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
There's still a good film to be made of "Annie," but it'll take Broadway veterans, not box-office stars, to pull it off.

Name : Elizabeth Weitzman / Alias : New York Daily News
For all the talent involved, the overall effect is surprisingly flat. Foxx appears disconnected, Byrne is wasted and a painfully hammy Diaz seems to be in another movie altogether.

Name : Inkoo Kang / Alias : TheWrap
"[A] disenchantment, even misanthropy, seeps through Will Gluck's reinterpretation of the Broadway classic."

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
Where to begin in describing the awfulness of "Annie"?

Name : Richard Corliss / Alias : TIME Magazine
A teeter-totter between O.K. and Meh.

Name : Jason Clark / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
Aside from an unintentional homage to Zoolander that is so tone-deaf it'll make you guffaw, Annie goes out of its way to make viewing it a hard-knock life.for us.