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Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: Buoyed by a superlative soundtrack, ATL plays a familiar song about growing up, but hits notes that sound brand new. Read more
Ted Fry, Seattle Times: For a run-of-the-mill hip-hop drama, ATL has some engaging hooks that set it apart from the predictable formula of urban youth struggling to steer clear of crime and pull themselves up to a better life. Read more
Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: Too predictable. Read more
Bob Longino, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: ATL is not interesting. Nor compelling. Nor lively. Nor always comprehensible. Read more
Scott Tobias, AV Club: Whenever anything happens to move the story along, it immediately loses its laid-back Southern charm. Read more
Kerry Lengel, Arizona Republic: Despite an occasional whiff of cheese, it's mostly a fresh, funny, coming-of-age story that feels authentic. Read more
James Parker, Boston Globe: ATL is one of those filmic byproducts (in this case, a promotional vehicle for the rapper Tip Harris, a.k.a. T.I.) that somehow manage to emerge from the mill of commerce with their modesty preserved. Read more
Allison Benedikt, Chicago Tribune: Like most media these days, ATL feels like the product of video-on-demand-era focus groups, which means that it's entertaining, but not smart. Read more
Amy Biancolli, Houston Chronicle: A mellow and engrossing coming-of-age film about a young crew on the south side of Atlanta. Read more
Tom Long, Detroit News: ATL starts out somewhat fresh, but then turns slowly stale as its story of African-American kids in Atlanta takes on more and more of the standard elements of growing up in the hood movies. Read more
Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: Really, all we wanna do is skate, skate, skate. Read more
John Monaghan, Detroit Free Press: ATL may fail to wow on the skate floor, but it still makes decent melodrama. Read more
Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: ATL has more room for nuance than most films unfairly lumped under the black-movie label. Read more
Tim Grierson, L.A. Weekly: Eventually, Hollywood plot machinations rear their ugly heads, dictating a generic Romeo-and-Juliet love story and an even staler cautionary tale about the evils of drugs that completely stifle the film's laid-back appeal. Read more
John Anderson, Newsday: There's a lot that's right about ATL, the debut directing effort of music-video maker Chris Robinson. But the things that are wrong are simply fatal. Read more
Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: A good message isn't enough to justify a $10 ticket. You also need a good movie. Read more
Jami Bernard, New York Daily News: It feels like a real window on the lives of disenfranchised youths -- these are in South Atlanta -- as they make their way in a society that doesn't cut them any breaks. Read more
Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: The second half is clumsier than the first, and you get the impression that the studio rushed to cut things that hadn't worked in last fall's kids-skating flop and play up the Boyz aspects of the routine moral-dilemma plot. Read more
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: No, ATL isn't a drug movie, and it doesn't send its characters on a harrowing journey into danger. It's a film about growing up and working, about falling in love, about planning for your future, and about the importance of friends. Read more
Ruthe Stein, San Francisco Chronicle: The film's special appeal is that while the boys are poor and black, their stories transcend race and socio-economic matters. Read more
Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: The movie is directed by a prominent video director, Chris Robinson (Jay-Z, Alicia Keys) and, no surprise, it feels less like a conventional movie than a video compilation of flashy scenes, montages and sound-track opportunities. Read more
Peter Howell, Toronto Star: It's something akin to the earlier films of Spike Lee -- She's Gotta Have It and Crooklyn come to mind -- in that the characters are cherished for their human qualities, not for how well they swagger onto the screen. Read more
Justin Chang, Variety: Warner Bros.' low-budget stab at capturing an urban niche audience is higher on stylistic dazzle than originality or coherence, making it an unlikely candidate to bust out of the box office ghetto. Read more
Peter L'Official, Village Voice: It unpretentiously serves class consciousness and conflict with its Cadillac music, attempting to capture -- not capitalize on -- the Atlanta scene that's spawned an aesthetic and a mythology all its own. Read more
Teresa Wiltz, Washington Post: Notwithstanding the melodrama and the often ham-handed directing, ATL somehow works. Read more