3 Days to Kill 2014

Kyle Smith, New York Post: Besson provided the story and co-wrote the screenplay for a film directed by McG, who does his usual McGhastly job with action and is McGruesome when it comes to comedy. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: "3 Days," though not without pleasures, doesn't seem to know what it is; it's three not-quite-good-enough movies, all in one. Read more

Geoff Berkshire, Variety: Any possibility of sleeper-hit status has been fatally compromised by watered-down fight scenes and misguided family man dramatics. Read more

A.A. Dowd, AV Club: 3 Days To Kill is one Liam Neeson shy of a Liam Neeson vehicle. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: Points for effort all the way around, and welcome back, Costner. Let's hope things get better from here. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: Every so often a bad movie will become so mind-bogglingly, existentially bad that it turns perversely good. Unfortunately, "3 Days to Kill" isn't that bad. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: Every gag is premised on the fact that Renner allows his work and personal lives to overlap, though this contradicts everything we've been told about him and would obviously heighten the risk to his loved ones. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: Just sit back and enjoy. "3 Days to Kill" is big dumb fun anchored by a good actor's refusal to take himself too seriously. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: The movie never finds a way to blend the emotional and the rat-a-tat-tat into one seamless package the way that Besson did in his one and only good movie, The Professional. Read more

Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter: Costner effortlessly blends deadpan comic flair with action movie heroics in this preposterous but entertaining genre mashup. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: The result is a little like baby bear's porridge, neither all bad nor all good, though not quite right yet either. Read more

Amy Nicholson, L.A. Weekly: A scattershot McG action/comedy/romance/drama, the closest our era has to the audience-pleasing ambitions of William Wyler, if Wyler had first gotten drunk on Bud Light Lime. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: It's like a bad Liam Neeson actioner crossed with a worse American sitcom, and it's a mess. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: Costner seems bored by most of the convoluted goings-on. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: The idea seems to have been to explore how little sense a movie could make, and how little that could matter, and also to allow Mr. Costner to indulge in some good-natured sadism and a bit of middle-aged sentimentality. Read more

Michael Sragow, Orange County Register: [A] bloated, queasy, quasi-comical extravaganza. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: It's the modern dilemma: how to balance work with family, get the job done, and still have time to share a meal with the wife and kid. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: How did 3 Days to Kill, which doesn't have the worst imaginable premise, turn out this bad? Read more

Richard Roeper, Richard Roeper.com: Pure trash but it's entertaining as hell. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Kids, don't drink and write or you could cause an accident like the script for "3 Days to Kill." Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: To the degree that the film works, it's because Costner plays the straight man. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Long before Kevin Costner is demanding pasta sauce info at gunpoint from a terrified Italian hostage in 3 Days to Kill, it's obvious no one is following any kind of coherent recipe for this movie. Read more

Todd Gilchrist, TheWrap: A movie primarily distinctive as a jacob's ladder of choices that make less and less sense, McG's latest is an ambitious disaster that tries to be two things at once - an action movie and a domestic comedy - but does neither well. Read more

Tom Huddleston, Time Out: Charlie's Angels director McG used to know how to marshal a decent action scene (if nothing else), but that touch seems to have deserted him. Read more

Scott Bowles, USA Today: Contrived and manic, Days can't decide whether it's a thriller, comedy or feel-good family film. Read more

Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine/Vulture: A comic-tragic-sentimental genre hodgepodge that wants to make you feel all the feelings amid all that action spectacle. It doesn't entirely deliver, but at times you can't help but admire its strangeness. Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: Like Ethan, "3 Days to Kill" has a job to do, but it prefers to shoot first and ask questions later. Read more