Name : Guy Lodge / Alias : Variety
A smutty but strained spy spoof in which most of the human-based comedy stays comparatively flaccid.

Name : Lindsey Bahr / Alias : Associated Press
Ultimately, the jokes are more stupefying than funny and no one's anatomy is safe from a gratuitous close-up, whether it's that of a wild animal or an Oscar nominee.

Name : Gersh Kuntzman / Alias : New York Daily News
Full disclosure: I was the lone critic in America to unabashedly recommend "Zoolander 2," so I'm certainly not ashamed to even less abashedly beg you to go see "The Brothers Grimsby."

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
Sacha Baron Cohen's new comedy brings the raunch - but the sharp satire is M.I.A.

Name : Brian Truitt / Alias : USA Today
At the very least, it's more entertaining than the time Baron Cohen dumped ashes on Ryan Seacrest at the Oscars but only barely.

Name : Rene Rodriguez / Alias : Miami Herald
Compared to glib junk like Zoolander 2, The Brothers Grimsby is practically high art.

Name : Robert Abele / Alias : Los Angeles Times
It's not unfunny in spots, but it huffs and puffs (among other bodily functions) more often than it splits the sides.

Name : Tim Grierson / Alias : The New Republic
The movie has plenty of terrible scenes but also three very, very funny ones. I laughed a lot during those three moments, sometimes rather guiltily, but barely managed more than a chuckle elsewhere.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
His obsession with anal cavities and what goes in and comes out of them suggest Cohen is auditioning to be the after-dinner amusement at a proctologists' convention.

Name : Amy Nicholson / Alias : MTV
Grimsby's balls - actual balls - broke my dignity.

Name : Jesse Hassenger / Alias : AV Club
The movie's scant 83 minutes dictate that The Brothers Grimsby proceed impatiently; the movie feels cut to fit the running time, rather than for the effectiveness of either the story or the comedy.

Name : Anthony Lane / Alias : New Yorker
Sacha Baron Cohen takes a backward lurch.

Name : Darren Franich / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
God help me, I laughed.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
"Grimsby" punches down - at the sick, at the poor, at anyone who's not quick enough to get out of its sloppy roundhouse rights. Boy, chronically unemployed drunks sure are funny, aren't they?

Name : Leslie Felperin / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
Baron Cohen and Strong are both robustly physical performers, and their finest moments are when they're grappling with each other, producing a great tangle of limbs and teeth. But the script. is not especially generous to the other members of the cast.

Name : Kyle Smith / Alias : New York Post
As a comedy, "The Brothers Grimsby" is weak and scattershot, but it's useful as an unintended self-indictment of the chattering classes' disgust and disdain for white working folk.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
A production that fails in every way at every turn.

Name : Dave Calhoun / Alias : Time Out
Chaotic and crude - but its lack of sophistication feels like a badge of honour.

Name : Manohla Dargis / Alias : New York Times
While there may be comedy gold in an elephant's vagina, Mr. Cohen fails to find it here.

Name : Tim Cogshell / Alias : TheWrap
Do note, it's not dumb. Stupid, occasionally, but never dumb, not even when our heroes are inside the elephant vagina.

Name : Bilge Ebiri / Alias : Village Voice
Mostly, The Brothers Grimsby simply wants to make you laugh. And it will.

Name : Brad Wheeler / Alias : Globe and Mail
I hear Hollywood whispers. I feel something is amiss. I see dead directorial reputations. And I smell a comeback.

Name : Steve Tilley / Alias : Toronto Sun
Fortunately, The Visit has a lot of (intentional!) laughs between the creepy bits and jump scares, and never takes itself too seriously.

Name : Richard Brody / Alias : New Yorker
For all its intelligence and craft, M. Night Shyamalan's foray into the genre of found-footage horror has the feeling of homework done well.

Name : Brian Truitt / Alias : USA Today
The low-budget thriller deftly mixes horror-movie moments, pure strangeness and comedy like a family-friendly David Lynch effort as it takes audiences on one really oddball trip to grandma's house.

Name : Colin Covert / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
By remaining a smartly staged thriller rather than a formula shocker, it does quite well with precisely what it set out to do: play on all our fears like a Steinway grand piano.

Name : Michael O'Sullivan / Alias : Washington Post
An effective if flawed psychological thriller, a modest campfire story with a solid, genuinely startling twist that is likely to restore the faith of some of [Shyamalan's] critics.

Name : Moira MacDonald / Alias : Seattle Times
It's creepy, sure, but not very enjoyable, basement or no.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
Despite a promising premise and effective "Shyamalan twist", this low-budget horror film still underwhelms.

Name : Randy Cordova / Alias : Arizona Republic
A scary fun-house ride that expertly blends jittery tension and laugh-out-loud humor, it will make you forgive the filmmaker for such major time-wasters as "Lady in the Water," "After Earth" and "The Happening."

Name : Randy Myers / Alias : San Jose Mercury News
Frightfully fun, with Shyamalan relentless toying with us and cramming in horror genre references.

Name : Tom Huddleston / Alias : Time Out
The result is a bizarre, conflicted mess, horrifying when it's trying to be funny, oddly appealing when it turns the screws.

Name : Bruce Demara / Alias : Toronto Star
M. Night Shyamalan's latest film may well have been his last chance at redemption. Fortunately, he rises to the challenge and makes The Visit good, scary fun.

Name : Manohla Dargis / Alias : New York Times
The director M. Night Shyamalan has a fine eye and a nice, natural way with actors, and he has a talent for gently rap-rap-rapping on your nerves.

Name : Richard Roeper / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
Alas, it's a dopey, only mildly chilling, uneasy mix of horror and dark comedy, scoring few points in either category.

Name : Peter Hall / Alias : New York Daily News
A messed-up fairy tale that often nails the sweet spot between scaring us and letting us laugh at how scared we are. It's crowd-pleasing horror, the kind that can push moviegoers to the edge of their seats and send them to the water cooler the next day.

Name : Ben Sachs / Alias : Chicago Reader
[Shyamalan's] manipulation of tone is impressive - he gets you to laugh at the grandparents' strange behavior, only to shift gears into horror when you least expect it.

Name : Ignatiy Vishnevetsky / Alias : AV Club
Following a creative low period that found the director trying his hand at effects-driven fantasy and sci-fi, it can't help but come across as a comeback.

Name : Christopher Orr / Alias : The Atlantic
It is with some surprise-and perhaps even a hint of disappointment-that I must report that The Visit is merely mediocre and not the breathtaking calamity that we've come to anticipate from its author.

Name : James Rocchi / Alias : TheWrap
Startling but never terrifying, "The Visit" may make a little money, but it does not mark a return to long-lost greatness for Shyamalan. It's more of the same, presented on a smaller, cheaper canvas where you can see every flaw all the more clearly.

Name : Cary Darling / Alias : Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com
The Visit is lightweight and doesn't have the emotional resonance of The Sixth Sense, but it's a welcome return to form for a director who seemed doomed to a future of remembering better days.

Name : Rene Rodriguez / Alias : Miami Herald
Here is a movie in which old people are scary because they're senile and icky and incontinent and do baffling things. And they're, you know, so old and wrinkly.

Name : Tom Russo / Alias : Boston Globe
A relentlessly tense journey into the bizarre, with jolts that linger and some nicely played melancholy. What's more, the movie is often surprisingly, wickedly funny .

Name : Wesley Morris / Alias : Grantland
It was fun watching this with a gasping and screaming audience. For horror-goers, the comparative competence must hit the spot. But there's nothing new here - and what I sensed for 94 minutes was compromise.

Name : Michael Sragow / Alias : Los Angeles Times
The honorable tradition of American moviemakers wringing laughs and gasps from bucolic lunatics dates back to "Murder, He Says" (1945). Unfortunately, "The Visit" isn't part of it.

Name : Clark Collis / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
Suffice to say that the result is an effective scare machine and a semi-return to form for its creator.

Name : Steven Rea / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
Isn't the whole handheld "real-video" thing kind of old by now? Isn't the Shyamalanian-twist thing kind of old by now, too?

Name : Alan Scherstuhl / Alias : Village Voice
The best studio horror flick in recent years, combining the but-what's-in-those-shadows? immersion of The Conjuring, James Wan's basement-wandering simulator, with the crack scripting and meta-cinematic surprises of Shyamalan's best early films.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
While the production values are simple, the script is sneakily complex. Like the best horror merchants, Shyamalan exploits our secret fears - in this case, of old age, ill health and dementia.

Name : Geoff Berkshire / Alias : Variety
Even if there's less chance the audience will burst out in fits of inappropriate chuckles, as was often the case in, say, "The Happening" or "Lady in the Water," Shyamalan still can't quite pull off the delicate tonal balance he's after.

Name : Peter Hartlaub / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
Much like Shyamalan's flawed/interesting films "Signs" and "The Village," the filmmaker promises more than he can deliver.

Name : Sara Stewart / Alias : New York Post
Dunagan and McRobbie have a blast in their respective roles, alternating between everyday grandparent oddities and behavior that wouldn't be out of place at the Overlook Hotel. And overall, the young duo makes an affable pair of narrators.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
Not in the same league as The Sixth Sense, but Shyamalan ends a long dry spell with The Visit. No spoilers, except to say that cheap thrills can still be a blast.

Name : Tom Long / Alias : Detroit News
There's undeniable fun in watching a couple of veteran actors get strange with two newcomers. "The Visit" may be worth one.

Name : David Edelstein / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
An unoriginal faux-doc horror picture that actually works like a demonic charm.