The Hitcher 2007

Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle: [Grace, played by Sophia Bush] can't go six blocks without having to pee, and we're supposed to believe she knows how to fire a Colt 45 and a shotgun? Read more

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: There are several good jumps and scares, and it's surprisingly tense the whole way through, not just gory and cheesy. Read more

Nathan Rabin, AV Club: [Director] Meyers delivers a steady stream of cheap jolts and something-popping-unexpectedly-into-frame scares, but little tension or atmosphere. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: No one's going to argue that the 1986 psycho-thriller The Hitcher was a pillar of world cinema, but it had a scuzzy originality. The remake, by default, lacks even that. I don't think I've seen a movie with less reason to exist. Read more

Mark Olsen, Los Angeles Times: That [original] film was intellectually engaging as well as tangibly creepy, while the new remake is just plain bad, and boring to boot. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: ... about all the movie is effective at is insulting the audience. Read more

John Monaghan, Detroit Free Press: Of the half dozen jump-out-of-your seat shocks, only one was truly gratuitous. Okay, maybe two. Read more

Matt Weitz, Dallas Morning News: Ultimately, this is a bit of trash that will most comfortably line the cages of those who have no memory or attachment to the original. This in itself is an idea more terrifying than anything portrayed in The Hitcher. Read more

Jim Ridley, L.A. Weekly: Switching the hero from a lone driver to a couple spoils the original's most intriguing idea: that the mass-murdering jackal may be the driver's own escaped id. That leaves little to fill 83 expendable minutes, which barely register as a movie. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: [It's] cheerfully in touch with its own brainlessness. Read more

Matt Zoller Seitz, New York Times: Like the same-titled 1986 cult favorite, this remake is a crash-and-burn action horror with intellectual pretensions. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: A stylish, jolting remake that has some of the virtues, but also the dramatically unsatisfying, amoral plot points as the original. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: There's no snowball effect and the characters are too weakly drawn and acted for there to be any psychological dimension to their interaction. The ending of the first movie was unsettling; the conclusion of this one is unsatisfying. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: The screenplay disastrously rewrites the original's climax, turning Bush's college waif into an indestructible female Terminator who can unerringly fire a police-issue riot gun and kick a steel paddy-wagon door off its hinges. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: The movie doesn't make a lick of sense, but then neither did the original. There are enough shocks to keep it going but all thoughts of originality also perish on the side of the road. Read more

Nigel Floyd, Time Out: Bloated, boring and over-explained. Read more

Stephen Garrett, Time Out: Eric Red's sturdy genre script from 1986 has been diluted in the worst way possible. Read more

Ronnie Scheib, Variety: Perhaps most unforgivably, pic lacks suspense. The action scenes are directed credibly enough, but the nail-biting buildups and awful aftermaths are laid out mechanically and drained of emotional effect. Read more

Desson Thomson, Washington Post: Don't even think of stopping. Read more