Name : Liz Braun / Alias : Toronto Sun
Only the impressive chemistry between Robert De Niro and Anne Hathaway will keep you watching; we haven't even mentioned the painfully ageist sex jokes or the silly plot developments that unfold like sitcom padding.

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
This clumsy comedy, written and directed by Nancy Meyers, turns an implausible but intriguing premise into a tale of generational collision that reflects dimly on old and young alike.

Name : Mick LaSalle / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
The success of this film may ride entirely on the alchemy of these particular actors, but whatever is carrying it, "The Intern" gets there.

Name : Richard Brody / Alias : New Yorker
This earnest, effusive haut-bourgeois fantasy, by the writer and director Nancy Meyers, runs roughshod over rational skepticism with the force of her life experience.

Name : James Rocchi / Alias : TheWrap
Considering the movie's fortune-cookie-style "insights" that old and young have much to learn from each other, it's only appropriate that De Niro and Hathaway's charms, and those alone, comprise the saving graces of "The Intern."

Name : Manohla Dargis / Alias : New York Times
Mr. De Niro owns the movie from the moment he opens his mouth, and is staring into the camera and right at you. (Oh, yes, he's lookin' at you.) You can't look away, and soon you don't want to.

Name : J. R. Jones / Alias : Chicago Reader
There are a few good laughs, but they struggle to survive amid the syrupy score, overlit interiors, and smothering sense of middle-class entitlement.

Name : Ty Burr / Alias : Boston Globe
"The Intern" is bizarrely retrograde, implying that every working woman only needs a cuddly Yoda daddy to make it in the world of business. It's soft in the heart - and soft in the head.

Name : Bill Goodykoontz / Alias : Arizona Republic
"The Intern" is idiotic, unrealistic, Boomer wish fulfillment that has no business working on any level. I quite enjoyed it.

Name : Stephen Farber / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
The movie offers more frustrations than rewards to discerning viewers of any age or gender.

Name : Sara Stewart / Alias : New York Post
Meyers' films have always been about basically decent people navigating life's various hurdles. Here, though, her characters have gone from "It's Complicated" to "It's Pretty Straightforward, Actually."

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
It's not much of a movie. But raging bull Robert De Niro, suited up to play for humor and heart, proves he can be a world-class charmer.

Name : Colin Covert / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
It spoon-feeds us vanilla fiction to the point of overdose.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
"The Intern" is like one of those candies you put in your mouth that starts off tasting sweet - until it suddenly turns lip-puckering sour.

Name : Guy Lodge / Alias : Variety
It takes all the leads' considerable combined charm to forestall the aftertaste of the pic's smug life lessons and near-comically blinkered worldview.

Name : Kate Taylor / Alias : Globe and Mail
A movie that doesn't do justice to an invigorating premise.

Name : Bilge Ebiri / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
The Intern degenerates into a series of monologues about ambition and relationships and having it all. As the speeches pile up, our goodwill dissipates, and so does the film's magic.

Name : Lindsey Bahr / Alias : Associated Press
In keeping everything so polite, The Intern, while being a pleasant and watchable movie, is also entirely ephemeral. Maybe that's why, like Meyers' other films, The Intern will likely be so re-watchable, too.

Name : David Sims / Alias : The Atlantic
Thanks largely to performances by De Niro and Hathaway, The Intern is a gentle, enjoyable fantasy-and certainly Meyers's best film in more than a decade.

Name : Moira MacDonald / Alias : Seattle Times
Slight but charming, Nancy Meyers' "The Intern" almost goes terribly wrong in its first minutes, but quickly rights itself.

Name : Rafer Guzman / Alias : Newsday
De Niro and Hathaway's charms plus a sparkling script make for feel-good fluff.

Name : Michael Phillips / Alias : Chicago Tribune
Meyers has wit and a solid sense of craft, but mainly she makes movies about high thread counts and comfy, pricey throw pillows.

Name : Calvin Wilson / Alias : St. Louis Post-Dispatch
These days, it's tough to find a comedy that even aspires to sophistication. "The Intern" entertainingly fills that slot.

Name : L.V. Anderson / Alias : Slate
Nobody does visually pleasing, occasionally funny escapist entertainment about goodhearted rich people trying their best to do the right thing better than Nancy Meyers.

Name : Wesley Morris / Alias : Grantland
There's not much here story-wise. But when Meyers wants to write an involving scene with characters thinking and feeling the way humans think and feel, you want to applaud.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
If only real life were like a Nancy Meyers movie.

Name : Ann Hornaday / Alias : Washington Post
"The Intern" feels a little bit like the tai chi exercises that Ben does in the park throughout the film - you look for something to react to and laugh at and maybe even shed a tear about, but you wind up pushing against a puff of air.

Name : Richard Roeper / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
With some genuinely insightful dialogue, a number of truly funny bits of physical business, and small scenes allowing us to get know and like a half-dozen supporting players, The Intern grows on us from scene to scene, from moment to moment.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
In terms of comedic and dramatic content, The Intern is hit-and-miss. Notions about ageism and corporate prejudice against female CEOs are grazed but not explored in a meaningful or compelling way.

Name : Stephanie Zacharek / Alias : Village Voice
The spongy subtext of this and every Meyers movie is "We're being serious, but we're also being FUN!" No viewer must ever be made to think too much, feel too much, or be left out. She doesn't so much tell a story as lead a team-building exercise.

Name : Brian Truitt / Alias : USA Today
The story isn't even contrived, it's ridiculous.

Name : Leah Greenblatt / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
The tone remains as plush and soft-cornered as one of Meyers' ubiquitous throw pillows (though it's also knowing enough to toss off a good joke about them).

Name : Cath Clarke / Alias : Time Out
The movie's ideas run out quickly, but De Niro is easygoing, and The Intern is indulgent good fun. Just don't go in expecting nutrition.

Name : Jesse Hassenger / Alias : AV Club
This kind of unhurried, low-conflict story coming from a mainstream filmmaker might be more invigorating if not for the eventually wearying idealization of the De Niro character and the odd implications that come along with it.

Name : Mark Olsen / Alias : Los Angeles Times
A better, funnier and more considered movie than much of what passes for nonfranchise studio filmmaking, even as it shows a world almost exclusively white, straight and upmarket.

Name : Steven Rea / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
There'd be a lot less strife and starvation, disease and dread, if Nancy Meyers ruled the world.

Name : Tom Long / Alias : Detroit News
"The Intern" may be predictable, but it's far from empty.

Name : Tom Russo / Alias : Boston Globe
It's the best treat we've gotten this Halloween, and definitely not just a bigger-budgeted version of the "Goosebumps" seen on TV.

Name : Britton Peele / Alias : Dallas Morning News
Goosebumps is chock full of fun moments whether they're all logical or not, and it's an adventure that should appeal to both young viewers new the series and older readers who devoured them as kids.

Name : Stephanie Merry / Alias : Washington Post
The production values are better suited for a television movie, and the music, by Danny Elfman, is distractingly intrusive.

Name : Alan Scherstuhl / Alias : Village Voice
The filmmakers, to their great credit, spend more than half the running time bending their studio tentpole release to the spirit of Stine rather than cramming Goosebumps into their template.

Name : Kevin P. Sullivan / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
It's a never-boring trip to a world, where stories and imagination are powerful tools, that just might inspire kids to do the scariest thing of all: pick up a book.

Name : Colin Covert / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
A tongue-in-cheek love note to spook stories of yesteryear, "Goosebumps" is a kid-friendly crowd pleaser adults can love, too.

Name : Bill Zwecker / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
Black gets to show us his ability to play nasty, distant and angry - all in a way we really have never seen from him before. The bottom line is: It works perfectly.

Name : Bruce Kirkland / Alias : Toronto Sun
This Goosebumps ride may be bumpy, but it works and it is worthwhile.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
Jack Black fires up a stampede of comic terrors ready made for Halloween. Sure it's exhausting. But Goosebumps, knowing its audience, lets it rip.

Name : Molly Eichel / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
Goosebumps fulfills its purpose, and that's what matters.

Name : Nicolas Rapold / Alias : New York Times
"Goosebumps" would seem to yield the serial pleasures a voracious Stineophile might desire.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
The pace is great, with the last hour being an all-out monster attack, as all of Stine's creatures - a werewolf, zombies, a mummy, murderous garden trolls and a particularly sarcastic ventriloquist's dummy - go on the rampage.

Name : Peter Hartlaub / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
Happily, the filmmakers build a reservoir of goodwill in the first hour.

Name : Kate Taylor / Alias : Globe and Mail
It gently mocks the traditions of the genre - giant preying mantis rips roof off high school - while never getting too frightening.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
At a guess, I'd say that Goosebumps will satisfy its core audience - fans of R.L. Stine's popular children's books - and bore pretty much everyone else.

Name : Kyle Smith / Alias : New York Post
A special-effects extravaganza that skips over basics like coming up with an interesting origination myth for the creepy creatures who bring havoc to a sleepy suburb.

Name : A.A. Dowd / Alias : AV Club
As effects-heavy time-wasters go, Goosebumps is mostly harmless, even sporadically amusing. But it isn't likely to keep anyone up at night, out of fear or excitement.

Name : Bilge Ebiri / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
It's a cheerful, nasty delight.

Name : Glenn Whipp / Alias : Los Angeles Times
I have no idea as to the extent of the actual Stine's peculiarities, but just going from his weird, wonderful work, every scene in the movie feels authentic compared with the version I carry of him in my head.

Name : Adam Graham / Alias : Detroit News
Goosebumps isn't detached or ironic, nor does it pretend to be something it's not. It's a bonus for fans who pored over the books and it celebrates the fun side of things going bump in the night.

Name : Inkoo Kang / Alias : TheWrap
Goofily self-aware and wholesomely boisterous, it's a children's picture whose sense of spooky fun readily diverts from its quibble-worthy messaging.

Name : Linda Barnard / Alias : Toronto Star
Jillian Bell's brief scenes as Zach's Bedazzling-obsessed singleton aunt are fun. So is Darren Lemke's solid script, which leans heavily on groaners and bad jokes to balance scares.

Name : Geoff Berkshire / Alias : Variety
Turns an endearing collection of silly spooky stories into a busy, noisy, soulless eyesore.

Name : Michael Rechtshaffen / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
An amusing, fearlessly over-the-top screen rendering of the book franchise.

Name : Bill Goodykoontz / Alias : Arizona Republic
The film goes too wide and gets a little soft at the end, but not fatally so. It's the rare horror film - well, sort of horror - that you and your children can enjoy together.