Panic Room 2002

Glenn Lovell, San Jose Mercury News: Fincher is a master of kinetic razzle-dazzle, goosing familiar or trite material to life with his high-tech bag of tricks. Read more

Jay Carr, Boston Globe: Foster usually makes intelligent choices, but, time and again, one wonders what she could have seen in David Koepp's script, which ranges from flimsy to nonexistent. Read more

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: There is no shortage of twists and turns, but nearly all are easily maneuvered, and those that aren't only tend to test the traditional suspense-movie suspension of disbelief. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: Tense, terrific, sweaty-palmed fun. Read more

Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: ... one of the most ingenious and entertaining thrillers I've seen in quite a long time. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: It's a triumph of technical filmmaking; as a story, it's got ice in its heart. Read more

Jane Sumner, Dallas Morning News: A solidly constructed, entertaining thriller that stops short of true inspiration. Read more

Mark Caro, Chicago Tribune: Fincher mounts some clever, tense sequences in which the trio devises increasingly threatening strategies to force Meg and Sarah out of the panic room, only to be matched with improvised ingenuity from behind the vault door. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: [Fincher's] camera sense and assured pacing make it an above-average thriller. Read more

John Anderson, Newsday: Taut and forbidding, enough so that you won't mind the implausibilities. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: Read more

Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Suffers from a bad case of TMS -- Too Much Stupidity. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: What's surprising about this traditional thriller, moderately successful but not completely satisfying, is exactly how genteel and unsurprising the execution turns out to be. Read more

Eric Harrison, Houston Chronicle: A better-than-adequate thriller that nevertheless is badly matched to director David Fincher's talents. Read more

Paul Clinton (CNN.com), CNN.com: A classy, intelligent thriller for grownups. Read more

Steven Rosen, Denver Post: Director David Fincher and writer David Koepp can't sustain it. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: The skirmishes for power waged among victims and predators settle into an undistinguished rhythm of artificial suspense. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: Yes, Fincher is stooping this time -- his posture may not be sublime, but he does manage to conquer most of our objections. Read more

Manohla Dargis, L.A. Weekly: There's just no denying Fincher's gifts. Give the guy a camera or two or three, millions upon millions of dollars and state-of-the-art technologies, and there's no stopping him. Read more

Peter Rainer, New York Magazine/Vulture: It's difficult to work up a strong case of the heebie-jeebies when you keep getting thrown out of the movie by all the atrocious acting. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: Flawed but riveting, it won't be everyone's cocktail of choice, but if you can suspend disbelief long enough, you'll get a whopping good wallop without the hangover. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: The suspense in Panic Room never ebbs, and that makes for a thoroughly entertaining -- if somewhat exhausting -- 108 minutes. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Once we sense Panic Room isn't going to cheat, it gathers in tension, because the characters are operating out of their own resources, and that makes them the players, not the pawns. Read more

Charles Taylor, Salon.com: Fincher takes no apparent joy in making movies, and he gives none to the audience. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: It might sometimes forget to make sense, but no matter, since it creates enough tension that the audience can hardly think anyway. Read more

Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star: It feels less like a suspense movie than a video-game spinoff of a suspense movie. Read more

Geoff Andrew, Time Out: Never averse to glistening darkness, meaty metaphor or grandiloquent technical display, Fincher is also surprisingly at home with hokum. Read more

Mike Clark, USA Today: Because Room's own time is limited to the 95-minute range, things move fast enough to make it a movie to enjoy and then forget. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Variety: A thinking-man's women-in-jeopardy picture, Panic Room does about as much as humanly possible with its deliberately restricted one-setting premise. Read more

J. Hoberman, Village Voice: As conventional as Fight Club was provocative. Read more