Reviews provided by RottenTomatoes
Glenn Lovell, San Jose Mercury News: Propaganda doesn't get any more entertaining. Read more
Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: At its best, the film is a nightmare embossed on a postcard -- horrific and ominously gorgeous. Read more
Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: As generic as its title. Read more
Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: A really, really strong piece of work by [Willis]. Read more
Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune: Flashy on the surface, Tears of the Sun is shallow at the heart. Read more
A.O. Scott, New York Times: The audience's tears are more likely to result from boredom, irritation at Hans Zimmer's wretched fake-world-music score and inadvertent amusement at the thunderously earnest dialogue and Ms. Bellucci's awkward line readings. Read more
Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Cries a river of cliches, but gets the job done. Read more
Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Handsomely made, well-meaning but finally frustrating and unsatisfying, this perplexing film is an example of a previously unseen hybrid, the socially conscious, humanitarian action movie. Read more
Eric Harrison, Houston Chronicle: What's noteworthy is that Tears is simultaneously a gripping action tale and a plea for a policy of engagement, of humanitarian intervention, in parts of the world where oil is not at stake. Read more
Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Antoine Fuqua, coming off Training Day, knows how to stage a skirmish in the foliage so that each leaf glistens with waxy moonlit peril. Read more
Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: Like most politicians and some columnists, the script kindly spares us any historical context or confusing detail. Read more
Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: Just smart and novel enough to not be mistaken for military propaganda. Read more
John Powers, L.A. Weekly: Its moral and political viewpoint is so crushingly simple-minded that one yearns for the intellectual nuance of George Bush. Read more
Peter Rainer, New York Magazine/Vulture: In a movie with so much graphic suffering by innocent Africans, it's a bit disconcerting that so much loving attention is paid to Bruce Willis's anguished mug. Read more
Jami Bernard, New York Daily News: Will a thinking audience really buy the image of helpless, grateful people bestowing kisses and victory songs upon Willis as the representative of all things American: power, guts, compassion? Read more
Rex Reed, New York Observer: Raping and pillaging and blowing things up is mainly what this movie is about, although it claims to show how the most robotic, dehumanized soldiers can be transformed by human suffering. Read more
Andrew Sarris, New York Observer: Deserves the bad reviews and the lackluster earnings it has accumulated thus far. Read more
James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Tears of the Sun is not a great movie, but it is satisfying, and represents an example of accomplished filmmaking. Read more
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Until it descends into mindless routine action in the climactic scenes, Tears of the Sun is essentially an impressionistic nightmare ... Read more
Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com: Can Bruce Willis save Africa from the Africans? Not in Antoine Fuqua's overwrought, blood-drenched fable of bogus Hollywood heroism, he can't. Read more
Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: At its best, it's a little hard to sit through. At its worst, it's like every other picture about soldiers on a tough mission. What pushes it above mediocrity is that it ends better than it begins. Read more
Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Read more
Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star: If you ever wanted a reason to root for a righteous invasion, this sequence -- like My Lai but improved because it's perpetrated by the bad guys -- provides it. Read more
Claudia Puig, USA Today: The movie might have gotten a dramatic boost from its topical theme, indirect as it is. Unfortunately, it's not one-tenth as interesting as what you can see at home during a nightly cable surf as U.S. war policy is debated. Read more
Todd McCarthy, Variety: Uninvolving due to stick-figure characters and off-putting in its images of technology-enhanced Yanks striding like benevolent giants among helpless Third World victims. Read more
Michael Atkinson, Village Voice: This Black Hawk Down theft is a trial by cliche. Read more