Red Eye

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

Will keep you awake, jittery and perched on the edge of your seat for pretty much the entire flight.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

The gripping, seat- clutching suspense in this baby will pin you to your seat.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

With so much going for it, it's sad that Red Eye goes into such a third-act tailspin and cliched slasher-flick finale.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

A good measure of the movie's white-knuckle fun comes from Craven's old-hand familiarity with the way thrillers tick.

Dallas Observer Luke Y. Thompson

May not seem to be your typical Wes Craven movie. It's not really horror, there are no marketable monsters, and unlike "Cursed," "Scream 3" and other recent Craven offerings, it's actually an enjoyable time at the movies.

Slate David Edelstein

A minimalist exercise in maximalist suspense.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

The plot is not absolutely airtight, but Craven's filmmaking is too fast-moving and too involving for this to matter. As a movie, Red-Eye is in every way as well crafted and sharply designed as the Boeing 767 Lisa fatefully boards.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

The casting of the two leads is a nice surprise in Red Eye, as is its modest scale. One of the ironies about the film is that its relatively small-movie feel allows Mr. Craven to focus on the sorts of things - the performances and little bits of business from the extras - that a director like Michael Bay doesn't have time for, partly because he is so busy blowing stuff up.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

When Craven says "Jump!" we all do it at once, and giggle at how easily we've fallen under the spell. The key is that Craven is laughing with us, not at us.

The New Yorker David Denby

Red Eye, which is exactly eighty-five minutes long, has been made with classical technique and bravura skill, and it's leaving moviegoers in a rare state of satisfaction.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Helped enormously by Rachel McAdams, whose performance is convincing because she keeps it at ground level; thrillers are invitations to overact, but she remains plausible even when the action ratchets up around her.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Craven ("Scream," "Nightmare on Elm Street") is already a legend in horror film circles, but this is the first time he has tried his hand at a slick, relatively bloodless suspense-thriller, and the genre suits him.

San Francisco Chronicle Peter Hartlaub

Favoring precision filmmaking over cheap thrills, with a vibe more Alfred Hitchcock than Freddy Krueger, Red Eye establishes two intelligent characters and lets audiences sit back and enjoy an entertaining battle of brains and wills.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Sitting through Red Eye is like watching a master carpenter at work on a custom bookcase. No one would call the result art, but you're sure bound to admire the sheer craft of the thing, the clean lines and seamless joints and meticulous attention to detail.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

The movie is fun, fun, fun.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

In short, Red Eye hits the bull's-eye.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

Craven's films aren't showy, but that should never be held against them. In their streamlined construction and rock-solid simplicity lay their brilliance.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

A terrific thriller...until it turns into yet another Wes Craven movie.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Murphy, in the boogeyman role, toggles between seductive and sinister with enough conviction to make you forget that his character makes no sense at all.

Premiere Sara Brady

Red Eye packs only about 15 minutes of solid scary, but really, that’s about all the time a human heart can spend lodged in one’s throat.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

McAdams, who resembles a more compact and subtle Geena Davis, captures both the strength and the insecurity beneath her sharp-witted heroine's aim-to-please facade.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Red Eye has a devilish charm. It pulls just about every nail-biting, edge-of-your-seat trick imaginable, yet gets away with it through what is, admittedly, a clever and original gimmick.

Variety Robert Koehler

Departing less from his horror bailiwick than he did with "Music Of The Heart" in 1999, Wes Craven retains shocks but dispenses with scares in the negligible Red Eye.

Village Voice Dennis Lim

Craven's terror-alert white-knuckler is zippy, unpretentious.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

If constructing a thriller could be likened to building a house, then Wes Craven's Red Eye is a perfect piece of architecture: It's clean-lined and soundly structured, without a foot of wasted space or any materials left unused.

Chicago Reader Joshua Katzman

If you're willing to suspend disbelief, this is a pretty good ride.

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

Craven eschews horror trappings and gore for a well-paced and engaging thriller that keeps the audience involved despite the fact that most of what takes place onscreen is a conversation between two people.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

That's not to say it's great; it's not. Maybe it's not to say it's good, because it's only sort of good. It is to say, however, that it's nifty.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Red Eye's no classic, but with its smart, twisty little script and those two killer performances, it is a helluva lot of fun.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

A silly script and uneven pacing.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Unfortunately, Red Eye goes from being a powerful thriller to a far more predictable story of revenge.

Empire Liz Beardsworth

Not the most sophisticated psychological thriller, yet slick fun.

TV Guide Ken Fox

After nearly a decade of duds, Wes Craven reasserts his claim to being a master of suspense with this solid little airborne thriller.

Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell

Despite some fast-paced direction by Wes Craven, Red Eye finally gets so silly, it's practically popping its wing-rivets.

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

Between them, first-time screenwriter Carl Ellsworth and director Wes Craven don't come up with a single clever way to generate suspense, and the movie's onboard atmosphere is so phony.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

A one-trick action thriller that feels like a poor cousin of an episode of ''24." Call it ''12."