Shoot 'Em Up 2007

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: One can certainly be amused and entertained by writer-director Michael Davis's hyperbolic action frolics -- I was -- but not without feeling pretty low and stupid. Read more

Ted Fry, Seattle Times: Jaw-dropping only hints at the reaction to the intricately staged fights, especially a shootout between Smith and a dozen or so villains as they step out of a jet and plummet toward Earth sans parachutes. Read more

Tasha Robinson, AV Club: Giamatti plays his villain role with a purring fervency that implies he wishes he had a properly twirlable mustache. Read more

Kerry Lengel, Arizona Republic: With its absurd anti-gun "message," the film certainly could be called a satire, yet it remains firmly within the genre it is satirizing. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: It's a cocktail made up of three parts testosterone to one part brains. Read more

Kevin Crust, Los Angeles Times: Over-the-top doesn't begin to describe Shoot 'Em Up's set-pieces, most of which are undeniably entertaining. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: Really, this thing is pretty rank. Read more

Amy Biancolli, Houston Chronicle: Like Quentin Tarantino without the aesthetic posturing, the film is giddy with pop references -- and embraces the sloshy fun of exploitation genre-tweaking... Read more

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: After about an hour, though, it all becomes a mind-numbing barrage. Read more

Roger Ebert, Denver Post: The most audacious, implausible, cheerfully offensive, hyperactive action picture I've seen since, oh, Sin City, which in comparison was a chamber drama. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: Bang. Bang. Bang-bang blood, blood, blood. There, you've seen the movie. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Smith, in other words, does exactly what you'd expect the hero of a bloody, trashy, volcanically depraved action movie to do. He just does it a little bit...more so, and that's the rollicking good joke of Shoot 'Em Up Read more

Mark Bourne, Film.com: ...an affectionate, often very funny Simpsons parody of its whole eponymous genre. It's a live-action McBane as co-directed by Quentin Tarantino and Chuck Jones.... Shoot 'Em Up is Hot Fuzz gone to the Dark Side. Read more

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: The ultimate target audience will undoubtedly have the added benefit of libations. Read more

Chuck Wilson, L.A. Weekly: It's hard to get too worked up about a film whose very title announces its maker's intent. Read more

Gene Seymour, Newsday: Everything about this neo-noir version of an Itchy & Scratchy marathon is casually ludicrous, right down to its back-handed advocacy of - wait for it - gun control. Read more

Jack Mathews, New York Daily News: This is likely the fastest-moving intentionally funny action movie ever made. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: You know Quentin Tarantino is probably over the hill when he can be so parodied with such deadly precision in Shoot 'Em Up. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: The most amoral action film since Crank. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: For sheer audacity and adrenaline-fueled carnage, Shoot 'Em Up hits its target pretty much dead on. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Drinking the full adrenaline-with-a-wink cocktail might be too much, but there's nothing wrong with sampling it. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Shoot 'em Up will become, I suspect, some kind of legend in the murky depths of extreme action. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com: The sum of the movie's exploding parts adds up to nothing -- not even just good, sick fun. Read more

Ruthe Stein, San Francisco Chronicle: Even more distressing is the presence of Owen and Paul Giamatti. I understand the concept of working as much as possible while you're hot, but it's a slippery slope. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: I get it that as soon as graphic novels or video games are invoked as references in a movie, we're all supposed to chuckle indulgently at the content. But I refuse to relinquish my right to be repelled by this nasty piece of work. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Deliriously tasteless and shamelessly entertaining, Shoot 'Em Up is the guiltiest pleasure of the year. Read more

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Read more

Stephen Cole, Globe and Mail: There is no wisdom or critical acumen in evidence in Shoot 'Em Up, however. Just 100 or so cool scenes masquerading as a movie. Read more

Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star: If John Woo had directed a Bugs Bunny cartoon written by the creators of South Park, the result might be something like Shoot `Em Up, but with a crucial difference: Bugs Bunny cartoons were always less than 10 minutes long. Read more

Hank Sartin, Time Out: Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: Read more

Derek Adams, Time Out: This is seedy, morally defunct, low-IQ cinema for airheads: it's toe-curlingly violent and mostly plain nasty, but quite fun in a debauched kind of way. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: For mainstream audiences, its whiplash pacing, frenetic camera work and offhand manner toward blood spillage probably will be disturbing. Read more

Peter Debruge, Variety: Good taste is the first fatality in this gonzo thrill-seeker, sure to offend mainstream dispositions, yet too stylistically audacious to dismiss outright. Read more

Stephen Hunter, Washington Post: It's just gunfights strung together, without a whisper of coherence or meaning. Read more