Name : John Semley / Alias : Globe and Mail
Say what you will about the sneering, misanthropic political dramas of previous eras (Blow Out, JFK and so on). But at least they came by their cynicism in good faith.

Name : Soren Anderson / Alias : Seattle Times
"Crisis" squanders its intriguing premise.

Name : Chris Nashawaty / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
For a movie about political messaging, Our Brand Is Crisis doesn't know what it's selling besides Sandra Bullock's lusciously buttery dye job.

Name : Rex Reed / Alias : New York Observer
The movie wafts and drones and shifts gears so many times that it is never as funny, pointed, jaundiced or clever as it could have been, and much less politically significant than it should be.

Name : Bill Goodykoontz / Alias : Arizona Republic
Despite Sandra Bullock's best efforts, she can't make "Our Brand Is Crisis" much more than what it is: A predictable political comedy that hits all the expected beats and goes sappy exactly when you think it will.

Name : Tony Hicks / Alias : San Jose Mercury News
The overriding message, which certainly isn't new, is that power corrupts and politics is a nasty game not meant for the little people. But in "Crisis," the point is not powerfully made.

Name : David Edelstein / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
Our Brand is Crisis hits a lot of clunky notes and the end is unforgivably cornball, but it's still one of the liveliest political black comedies I've seen in a while.

Name : Peter Keough / Alias : Boston Globe
The film indulges in the unabashed goofiness that stoked Green's "Pineapple Express," and which Sandra Bullock demonstrated to raucous effect in "The Heat."

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
Like the ruthless political strategists the film both satirizes and celebrates, Our Brand Is Crisis speaks out of both sides of its mouth.

Name : Calvin Wilson / Alias : St. Louis Post-Dispatch
In Bullock, "Crisis" has a star who makes the whole thing seem better than it probably is.

Name : Todd McCarthy / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
David Gordon Green's latest unpredictable addition to his resume is offbeat and appealing on some levels but is neither as funny nor as trenchant as it might have been.

Name : Kenneth Turan / Alias : Los Angeles Times
Like the politicians and political consultants it mocks, "Our Brand Is Crisis" doesn't completely deliver on what it promises.

Name : Amy Nicholson / Alias : L.A. Weekly
A horror film wrapped in a fast-talking political comedy.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
A slick political dramedy with bursts of personal humor but an overdose of Hollywood gloss .

Name : Alonso Duralde / Alias : TheWrap
Much of what the film considers fodder for satire is too familiar to feel revelatory or shocking, while characters that start out believable behave in unrecognizably ludicrous ways simply because the script forces them to.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
stumbles over a vast terrain of self-serving scoundrels (Trump trumps anything they can make up), but livewire Bullock never lets hypocrisy out of her comic kill zone.

Name : Jocelyn Noveck / Alias : Associated Press
An excellent supporting cast includes Anthony Mackie and the terrific Ann Dowd as fellow consultants. Yet it all rests on Bullock. She's fun to watch.

Name : Mick LaSalle / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
"Our Brand Is Crisis" is in that annoying category of movie that sends audiences away thinking, "It's almost good, but something is off."

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
It's a case study, if nothing else, of starting with a dubious idea and making it downright awful.

Name : Stephanie Merry / Alias : Washington Post
If it's satire, it's neither sharp nor especially funny. Yet it doesn't deliver emotionally, either.

Name : Bruce Kirkland / Alias : Toronto Sun
[Bullock] has the knack of playing someone who is seriously flawed, yet still appealing for her smarts, her broken heart and her sharp wit.

Name : Richard Brody / Alias : New Yorker
Green . has little feel for the movie's comic turns, and his way with the drama is held back by his obvious and conventional sympathies.

Name : Andrew O'Hehir / Alias : Salon.com
The most important aspects of this striking story have been scrubbed away or laundered into Hollywood-style pseudo-psychological neutrality.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
The movie is funny enough to get its share of laughs but, in its angry heart, it's a tragedy - and the saddest part is that too much of this story is true.

Name : Tom Long / Alias : Detroit News
Offers some nice behind-the-scenes glimpses of how political sausage is made just as America's political sausage is sizzling on the fire.

Name : Brian Truitt / Alias : USA Today
The movie unfortunately gets stuck between edgy drama and broad comedy, and most of the humor lands with a thud, unless animals getting run over or an A-list actress mooning bus passengers get your vote.

Name : A.A. Dowd / Alias : AV Club
Here, Green disappears deeper than he ever has before into workmanlike competence; the only personal signature is a funky, slow-mo dance party, which the filmmaker somehow manages to insert into every movie he makes.

Name : Peter Debruge / Alias : Variety
Green and company put an artificial ceiling on the pic's satirical potential. Had they fictionalized the country, "Crisis" could have joined the ranks of "Duck Soup" or "The Mouse That Roared."

Name : Rafer Guzman / Alias : Newsday
Ultimately, "Our Brand Is Crisis" isn't as hard-hitting, trenchant or angry as it should be.

Name : Scott Tobias / Alias : NPR
The film becomes a Sandra Bullock vehicle, and while it's buoyed by her typical comic aplomb, it loses sight of the bigger picture.

Name : J. R. Jones / Alias : Chicago Reader
[Bullock's] role as a weary Machiavelli in sunglasses and trench coat gives her little to work with but a stream of jaded one-liners.

Name : Alex Pappademas / Alias : Grantland
It's the first time I've watched a David Gordon Green movie and found myself wishing I was in the capable hands of a set-'em-up-knock-'em-down director like Jay Roach.

Name : Manohla Dargis / Alias : New York Times
You want to know how the Janes of the world happen. Is it money? Power? Ideology? You never find out.

Name : Lou Lumenick / Alias : New York Post
Can Sandra Bullock in top form overcome longtime American audience resistance to comedies about politics and maybe even get another nomination in the process?

Name : Moira MacDonald / Alias : Seattle Times
The blend of Johnson's laid-back hero-dudeness and Hart's whippet-fast comic timing should have been good fun. But somebody, alas, had an idea, though not a good one: Make Johnson the comedian and Hart the straight man.

Name : Colin Covert / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
Johnson and Hart are performers of trustworthy charisma, but their personal appeal hits its limits when they are recruited to perform in a film that is hard to sit through.

Name : J. R. Jones / Alias : Chicago Reader
This has a pretty good laugh quotient as far as big-budget action comedies go.

Name : Bilge Ebiri / Alias : Village Voice
Central Intelligence won't blow you out of the theater, but you might be surprised at how well it works - how genuinely funny it is - given the familiarity of this concept.

Name : Alison Willmore / Alias : BuzzFeed News
The film has a firm grasp of Johnson's appeal as a leading man: He is Hollywood's most imposing ray of sunshine.

Name : Stephanie Zacharek / Alias : TIME Magazine
No one can steal the show from Johnson and Hart. Their dual rhythms, alternately laid back and hyperactive, end up in a glorious and ridiculous kind of syncopation, unicornlike in its rarity and oddness.

Name : David Sims / Alias : The Atlantic
If you're a fan of either Hart or Johnson's usual movie shtick, Central Intelligence is just about fun enough to recommend.

Name : Barry Hertz / Alias : Globe and Mail
A buddy comedy that's pleasant enough without ever reaching the full comic heights that Johnson's casting implicitly promises.

Name : Jeannette Catsoulis / Alias : New York Times
An odd-couple caper of staggering dopeyness that makes you long for the snap and sizzle of the buddy movies of the 1980s, "Central Intelligence" is a clean-out-the-fridge soup of celebrity cameos and C.I.A. confusion.

Name : Rafer Guzman / Alias : Newsday
Hart and Johnson make a terrific team, though it's the latter who really shines in this action-comedy.

Name : Joey Nolfi / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
The hows and whys of the quest at hand aren't exactly important, as Central Intelligence is far more concerned with squeezing its leading men together-often literally-and kicking back to enjoy the juice, and that's a wise move.

Name : Chris Klimek / Alias : NPR
What Central Intelligence lacks in depth or inventiveness, it makes up for in personality, steaming along on the robust comic rapport between Johnson and Hart.

Name : Ignatiy Vishnevetsky / Alias : AV Club
A shambolic high-concept farce that doubles as a cautionary tale of where studio comedies go wrong.

Name : Owen Gleiberman / Alias : Variety
It delivers - on some basic, giddy, turn-off-your-frontal-lobes level. It's an action-comedy utensil, like "Rush Hour" crossed with an old Arnold Schwarzenegger shoot-'em-up, with a few goofy added sprinkles of "Romy and Michele's High School Reunion."

Name : Bruce Kirkland / Alias : Toronto Sun
I like Central Intelligence, even when it is being stupid.

Name : Tom Huddleston / Alias : Time Out
There's literally nothing unloveable about Johnson's performance - think peak-form John Candy trapped in the body of, well, The Rock.

Name : Lindsey Bahr / Alias : Associated Press
Central Intelligence, a buddy action-comedy starring Kevin Hart and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, doesn't pack many big laughs, but it is likely to keep a smile on your face for the duration.

Name : Justin Chang / Alias : Los Angeles Times
"Central Intelligence" is dumb in all the right ways, and also a bit smarter than you might expect.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
You go along for the ride because Kevin Hart and Dwayne Johnson promise something they can't deliver: a movie as funny as they are.

Name : Joe Dziemianowicz / Alias : New York Daily News
Yes, the appealing mismatched megastars earn their paychecks with game performances. But other than an occasional zinger hitting the mark, laughs are in short supply.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
With its canned, predictable action sequences and mirthless attempts at humor, it displays an ineptitude that is frankly shocking considering the talent involved.

Name : Richard Roeper / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
"Central Intelligence" is one of those slick, gunplay-riddled, stupidly plotted, aggressively loud buddy movies - so formulaic and dumb, even if you see it you'll probably forget you've seen it by the end of the year.

Name : Stephanie Merry / Alias : Washington Post
"Central Intelligence" won't win any points for originality, but that doesn't make it any less funny.

Name : Ty Burr / Alias : Boston Globe
Painless, strained, occasionally amusing, and utterly disposable - just another studio buddy comedy/action movie that forgot where it put the script.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
A mostly dumb but often weirdly sweet action comedy about bullies, high-school friendships and grown men who still love John Hughes movies. Oh, and who happen to be spies.

Name : Richard Brody / Alias : New Yorker
The window-smashing and car-crashing offer some giddy surprises, but the ridiculous yet bland gunplay is as generic as the setup.

Name : Jon Frosch / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
It capitalizes on the chemistry between Hart and Johnson, who convey what seems like genuine delight in each other's company - something that gives this bromantic diversion a giddy kick.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
Johnson and Hart actually do have potential as a comic duo - better than Ice Cube and Hart in the already stale Ride Along franchise - but Central Intelligence isn't smart enough to make the most of their pairing.

Name : Sara Stewart / Alias : New York Post
We're here for the Johnson and Hart show, and they deliver.

Name : Matthew Lickona / Alias : San Diego Reader
The eventual resolution is entirely too neat 'n tidy in light of the (sometimes funny) crazy that precedes it: what began as a dark comedy finishes as a cheerful action drama.

Name : Tirdad Derakhshani / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
Central Intelligence is actually funny.

Name : Adam Graham / Alias : Detroit News
Johnson brings the funny. Underneath all that muscle, a comedy star is wrestling to get out, and he's finally emerged.

Name : Bill Goodykoontz / Alias : Arizona Republic
It's a trip we've been on before. Johnson and Hart make the journey a little more pleasant than it could have been.