Name : Rex Reed / Alias : New York Observer
Watching Amy is a torturous but endlessly hypnotic experience.

Name : Rafer Guzman / Alias : Newsday
A loving but honest portrayal of a doomed talent.

Name : Ben Sachs / Alias : Chicago Reader
Kapadia and King provide some worthy insights about the damaging effects of celebrity on psychologically fragile individuals. And the music is fantastic.

Name : Guy Lodge / Alias : Variety
This lengthy but immersive portrait will hit hard with viewers who regard Winehouse among the great lost voices not just of a generation, but of an entire musical genre.

Name : Ann Hornaday / Alias : Washington Post
In Kapadia's assured and careful hands, the film becomes less a portrait of a tragic artist, whose downward spiral was exacerbated by opportunistic family members and colleagues, than a discomfiting mirror held up to her audience.

Name : David Edelstein / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
Amy is alternately thrilling and devastating, throwing you back and forth until the devastation takes over and you spend the last hour watching the most supernaturally gifted vocalist of her generation chase and find oblivion.

Name : Jim Farber / Alias : New York Daily News
The result may be depressing, but the performance footage balances it with rousing evidence of Winehouse's eternal talent.

Name : Lisa Kennedy / Alias : Denver Post
One thing is for certain: It will be much harder to hear that handful of powerful, lush, carnal songs on Back to Black without the wallop of melancholy.

Name : Jordan Levin / Alias : Miami Herald
You don't need to be a fan of British singer Amy Winehouse to be moved by the documentary Amy, a devastating examination of the deadly effect that celebrity culture, media and drugs can have on artists.

Name : Kerry Lengel / Alias : Arizona Republic
It's hard to watch. And even harder to look away.

Name : Kyle Ryan / Alias : AV Club
Winehouse was a complicated artist who deserved a nuanced, honest look at her life. In lesser hands, Amy could be a feature-length E! True Hollywood Story, but Kapadia treats his subject with respect and heart.

Name : Steve Pond / Alias : TheWrap
Heartbreaking and wrenching, if not always satisfying.

Name : Dave Calhoun / Alias : Time Out
Anyone with a beating heart will be forgiven for allowing it to break during this unflinching and thoughtful account of the life and death of the soul singer.

Name : Preston Jones / Alias : Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com
The ugly unraveling of Winehouse's life infuriates and saddens anew, as Kapadia's poignant documentary reminds viewers of what was and what might have been, but was ultimately, tragically never to be.

Name : Chloe Schama / Alias : The New Republic
[An] unpredictably graceful film (given its sometimes ugly material).

Name : Inkoo Kang / Alias : TheWrap
Like all theories, the doc's "truth vs. phoniness" narrative has a few blind spots.

Name : Paul de Barros / Alias : Seattle Times
"Amy," Asif Kapadia's documentary about the short, tragic life of British retro soul singer Amy Winehouse, is a heartbreaker.

Name : Kenneth Turan / Alias : Los Angeles Times
[An] accomplished, quietly devastating documentary .

Name : Tom Long / Alias : Detroit News
Plenty of folks praise Winehouse in "Amy." But no one was there to save her. Perhaps it wasn't possible. But perhaps it was.

Name : Steven Rea / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
The film is remarkable not just for the immense talent there to see in Winehouse's performances, but the fact that there is so much to see.

Name : Jake Coyle / Alias : Associated Press
Amy is a clear-eyed, deeply empathetic view of Winehouse, whose huge talent and sudden fame made too many forget she was still just a vulnerable young woman in serious need of help.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
It's Amy's words, her music, her voicemails, her home videos, her friends, her family, her tormentors, and her timeless incandescence. Look, listen and weep.

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
One of Mr. Kapadia's most inspired strokes in this valuable documentary is to put her lyrics on screen as she sings them, so we can see for ourselves the essential elements of her songs as they reflected, and intertwined with, her tumultuous life.

Name : Stephanie Zacharek / Alias : Village Voice
Even if the last third of Amy is painful to watch, Kapadia takes care not to lose sight of the human being behind the mythology.

Name : Stephen Dalton / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
Amy is an emotionally stirring and technically polished tribute, its sprawling mass of diverse source material elegantly cleaned up, color-corrected and shaped into a satisfying narrative.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
Kapadia's illuminating, compassionate and tragic doc goes way up and way, way down with the gone-too-soon Amy Winehouse.

Name : Walter V. Addiego / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
"Amy" is a film about the waste of a great talent, and you dread the inevitable ending.

Name : Wesley Morris / Alias : Grantland
There are a couple of scenes in Asif Kapadia's new Amy Winehouse documentary, Amy, that make the fame-industrial complex seem rock-bottom awful.

Name : Sara Stewart / Alias : New York Post
It's clear the smart, passionate singer knew her own mind - and the consequences of what she was doing to her body. But her tragic end, and the highly publicized chaos leading up to it, shows self-awareness wasn't enough.

Name : Michael Phillips / Alias : Chicago Tribune
"Amy" makes you wonder about a lot of things, one being the oldest cliche in show business - the one about the high price of notoriety, whether you have the money to cover the bill or not.

Name : Manohla Dargis / Alias : New York Times
Mr. Kapadia isn't simply revisiting Ms. Winehouse's life and death, but also - by pulling you in close to her, first pleasantly and then unpleasantly - telling the story of contemporary celebrity and, crucially, fandom's cost.

Name : Peter Rainer / Alias : Christian Science Monitor
A powerful, and powerfully sad, experience.

Name : Christy Lemire / Alias : ChristyLemire.com
A mesmerizing yet devastating look at a singular talent.

Name : Ty Burr / Alias : Boston Globe
"Amy" doesn't depart from the standard behind-the-music template, but it does deepen the format immeasurably, through the intimacy of its archival materials and the focus of its approach.

Name : Ella Taylor / Alias : NPR
"All I'm good for is making tunes," she tells one interviewer. "So leave me alone to do that." Her time ran out far too early, but the luck is all ours - we still have the voice.

Name : Miriam Di Nunzio / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
The film is often uncomfortable to watch, prompting that little voice inside each of us to scream out "Somebody help her!"

Name : Dana Stevens / Alias : Slate
Forster, a director of upscale tearjerkers, has no feel for action sequences. The big chases, of which there are several, could all be replaced with a title card reading, 'Insert action here'.

Name : Roger Ebert / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
I repeat: James Bond is not an action hero! Leave the action to your Jason Bournes. This is a swampy old world. The deeper we sink in, the more we need James Bond to stand above it.

Name : Kenneth Turan / Alias : Los Angeles Times
All dressed up with no particular place to go, this 22nd Bond film tries hard but ends up an underachiever.

Name : Tom Long / Alias : Detroit News
Forster is indeed a fine director, but he's hardly a specialist in action films, and it shows. He can't quite keep things moving fast enough to speed past the absurdity of the premise.

Name : Tom Maurstad / Alias : Dallas Morning News
The problems can be traced to a screenplay that is stuffed with internecine plot points and shades-of-gray complexities, but little else: no character-sharpening details and none of the wit and charm that buoyed Casino Royale.

Name : Bill Goodykoontz / Alias : Arizona Republic
Enjoy Quantum of Solace for what it is: a high-octane, winning installment of the Bond series that hits the ground running and never lets up.

Name : Richard Corliss / Alias : TIME Magazine
Director Marc Forster turns out to be a natural as the helmer of a high-energy, high-gloss action film.

Name : Ben Mankiewicz / Alias : At the Movies
Mark Forester did a great job.

Name : Mick LaSalle / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
Quantum of Solace benefits from imaginatively conceived action sequences and from a director, Marc Forster, who knows how to film them.

Name : Rick Groen / Alias : Globe and Mail
A silly spy may be laughable, but a sulking thug is just a bore.

Name : Robert Wilonsky / Alias : Village Voice
If nothing else, there's no need to worry about where Quantum of Solace fits in the Bond pantheon - it's easily one of the worst.

Name : Stephanie Zacharek / Alias : Salon.com
Quantum of Solace is best when director Marc Forster allows his star the latitude to explore emotions that, until Craig stepped into the shoes of the character, we didn't know Bond had.

Name : Steven Rea / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
Quantum - the 22d 'official' Bond picture, 24th including the rogue Bonds - is never less than engaging.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
Quantum of Solace won't trust its own darker instincts. It delivers the popcorn goods, but it ignores the poison eating at Bond's insides. Killer mistake.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
There isn't much plot between the action set pieces, and precious little character development beyond Craig's and Dench's continuing evolution.

Name : Ben Lyons / Alias : At the Movies
While charm and a quick wit made Connery the best of the Bonds, it's Craig's brute force and Jackie Chan-style stunts that will come to define this latest reincarnation.

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
Quantum of Solace is a model of mediocrity, even though Daniel Craig gives his all to a production that doesn't deserve him.

Name : David Ansen / Alias : Newsweek
Quantum of Solace isn't frivolous or cheesy, but it isn't all that much fun either. Craig is still the right guy for the job, but for his boiling-on-the-inside performance to work, he needs more to play with.

Name : Rex Reed / Alias : New York Observer
Quantum of Solace, the 22nd entry in the interminable franchise, is one of the most pointless, chaotic and forgettable of them all. It is also one of the dullest.

Name : Peter Debruge / Alias : Variety
[A] reasonably clever genre entry .

Name : Mark Rahner / Alias : Seattle Times
Marc Forster seems like a counterintuitive choice to direct an action spectacle. But any doubts I might have had flew out the window and splattered onto the hood of a parked car during an early, hellacious brawl.

Name : Derek Elley / Alias : Variety
Stripped of Royale's humor, elegance and reinvented old-school stylishness, Quantum has little left except its plot, which is rudimentary and slightly barmy, in the line of the Roger Moore pics of the '70s and '80s.

Name : Amy Nicholson / Alias : I.E. Weekly
Forster is elbowing us to agree that the franchise in his reins is just another spectacle.

Name : Noah Berlatsky / Alias : Chicago Reader
A few years back, the easy sexism and narcissism of the James Bond series looked dated to the point of obsolescence, but Quantum of Solace proves that a revenge motive is just what's needed to rejuvenate all the Bond cliches.

Name : Christy Lemire / Alias : Associated Press
Despite his innate intensity, Craig seems a bit. bored, maybe? Underutilized, despite appearing in nearly every frame of the film.

Name : A.O. Scott / Alias : New York Times
Quantum of Solace prompts the question: Is revenge the only possible motive for large-scale movie heroism these days?

Name : David Edelstein / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
If the staging were as witty as the plotting, Quantum of Solace might have been a corker like Casino Royale.

Name : Roger Moore / Alias : Orlando Sentinel
It fairly races by, a sexy, sadistic, cruel and crackling thriller that is the shortest Bond film since Goldfinger, and certainly the most brisk.

Name : Ray Bennett / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
[An] all-out thriller with few Bond touches but plenty of high-octane action.

Name : Michael Phillips / Alias : Chicago Tribune
Not every director is well-suited to Bondland. "There's something horribly efficient about you," Kurylenko says to Craig at one point. The same goes for the film.

Name : Keith Phipps / Alias : AV Club
Quantum is content merely to be the second episode in what's shaping up to be a viable series, good enough but disappointing for those expecting greatness.

Name : Colin Covert / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
The film makes such headlong leaps of motivation and locale that it would take a master spy to decipher why Bond is going where he goes and doing what he does.

Name : Dre Rivas / Alias : Film.com
Go see Quantum of Solace. Not that you weren't going to anyway.

Name : Rene Rodriguez / Alias : Miami Herald
Quantum of Solace never really engages you in the mechanical but transporting way the best Bond movies do.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
In the end it's all too fast and too furious - and far too obsessed with exercising its license to thrill.

Name : Ben Kenigsberg / Alias : Time Out
Much has been made of the absence of Bond's signature quips, but there's something else that's absent: interest.

Name : Amy Biancolli / Alias : Houston Chronicle
If you held up your thumb over Daniel Craig's face and took in the mayhem around him, you'd think you were watching The Bourne Simulation rather than the 22nd (and shortest-ever) ode to Ian Fleming's suave government killer.

Name : Kyle Smith / Alias : New York Post
Revenge is a dish best served with bullets, high explosives and giant rolling flameballs. In Quantum of Solace, James Bond orders the revenge buffet, deluxe.

Name : Peter Rainer / Alias : Christian Science Monitor
It's ironic: After all these years of surviving everything that has been thrown at him, James Bond is finally being undone by his own team.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
This is the least satisfying production since The Living Daylights.

Name : Bernard Besserglik / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
The chemistry [Anthony Hopkins and Colin Farrell] achieve is a powerful argument for giving Solace its chance on the multiplex circuit.

Name : Wesley Morris / Alias : Boston Globe
Frankly, Quantum of Solace is just one exasperated dressing down away from being Lethal Weapon 9.

Name : Anthony Lane / Alias : New Yorker
Quantum of Solace is too savage for family entertainment, but, as a study in headlong desperation, it's easier to believe in than many more ponderous films.

Name : Lisa Kennedy / Alias : Denver Post
With [this] too-shaken sequel, the Bond market experiences a dip.

Name : Wally Hammond / Alias : Time Out
A slightly disappointing, furiously-paced, hi-tech, slash-and-burn sequel to the more leisurely, luxurious first 'reboot', 'Casino Royale'.

Name : Rafer Guzman / Alias : Newsday
The action and eye candy may be worth the ticket price, but this Bond needs to get back to business.

Name : Christopher Orr / Alias : The New Republic
Mr. White ultimately leads Bond to one Mr. Slate, who in turn leads him to a Mr. Greene. That's right: The global conspiracy this time around isn't SPECTRE, but some rogue wing of the United Colors of Benetton.

Name : Claudia Puig / Alias : USA Today
The stunts are as muscular and the film as handsome to look at as the hero who so ably pulls them off. But the story linking it all together is thin and weak.

Name : Lisa Schwarzbaum / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
I mean it as a cockeyed compliment to the reborn Bond franchise, then, when I say that Quantum of Solace is an unnecessarily cramped arena for such an interesting cat.

Name : Joe Neumaier / Alias : New York Daily News
The result isn't bland, but it's not exactly Bond either.

Name : Ann Hornaday / Alias : Washington Post
The Quantum of Solace filmmakers have produced a super-serious, often visually incoherent travelogue of revenge and trumped-up angst.