Saint, The

LA Weekly Manohla Dargis

The Saint works. The reason why it occasionally soars is Kilmer, an actor who’s happiest when burying himself in eccentric characterizations, a trick he performs repeatedly here even as he fills the screen with pure movie-star dazzle.

Dallas Observer Peter Rainer

The Saint exists almost entirely as a vehicle for Kilmer's quick-change smarty-pants swagger, and it's inconceivable without him. He's great fun to watch--a squirish master thief with a wide streak of lewdness.

San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann

Kilmer dons 12 disguises in all, polishes them with impeccable accents and pliable postures and gives a performance that's far and away the best aspect of the diverting The Saint.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

More entertaining than Mission: Impossible or the last Bond film, Goldeneye, it brings back the humour and sang-froid that makes the genre work.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Director Phillip Noyce, who made "Dead Calm," "Patriot Games" and "Clear and Present Danger," keeps things moving at a kinetic, involving pace. And writers Jonathan Hensleigh (who wrote "Die Hard With a Vengeance") and Wesley Strick create a diverting human steeplechase.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

The Saint is more of a character-based thriller than a strict stunts-and-explosions film, which is a good thing because the action sequences are mostly flat and obligatory. Even when he generates a degree of tension, director Phillip Noyce (Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger) is unable to sustain it, and the disappointing ending is not only long and drawn out, but lacks a sense of closure.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

The Saint leaves star Val Kilmer and director Phillip Noyce (Patriot Games) fighting to enliven an exhausted character.

Empire Darren Bignell

There's no lack of style or pace from Noyce, just the sense that it isn't quite gelling together.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

For the future, the Saint is such an unpleasant and predatory manipulator, it's difficult to root for romance. And when Kilmer's mightily convincing Ice King begins to melt, it's so out of character with what's gone before that its believability is touch and go.

Variety Todd McCarthy

A generic suspenser that doesn't taste bad at first bite but becomes increasingly hard to swallow, The Saint comes off more as a pallid imitation of Paramount's Eurothriller "Mission: Impossible" than as anything resembling the further adventures of Leslie Charteris' charming rogue.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Director Noyce has a sure hand with the action sequences and keeps The Saint from bogging down too often in the mires of action film exposition (once again, think Mission: Impossible).

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Kilmer slips in and out of a series of ludicrously elaborate disguises, some more convincing than others, while poor Shue shuffles through the role of a sexy, book-reading babe pretending to be a dowdy lady scientist in kneesocks.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Val Kilmer is fun as the mercurial hero, and Elisabeth Shue would be great as the physicist if she didn't waste so much time making googoo-eyes at her handsome new boyfriend.

Washington Post Rita Kempley

Though he is a master thief with a heart of gold, the new Templar has all the charm of one of those ladies behind the counter at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Compared with the sensational stunts and special effects in the Bond series, The Saint seems positively leisurely. The fight scenes go on too long and are not interesting, the villains aren't single-minded enough, and the Saint seems more like a disguise fetishist than a formidable international operative.

Slate David Edelstein

The film is too metronomically paced for Kilmer's routines to develop any rhythm. The direction by Phillip Noyce is fluid but impersonal. Endless studio tinkering seems to have dissolved its spine.

Salon.com Charles Taylor

This Saint is a glum piece of post-Cold War paranoia, and director Phillip Noyce approaches it with the same plodding earnestness he brought to his Tom Clancy adaptations ("Patriot Games," "A Clear and Present Danger").

The New York Times Elvis Mitchell

Loud, frantic, ridiculously overproduced and featuring a preening performance by Val Kilmer as a supposedly brilliant master of disguise, The Saint is sheer overkill.

San Francisco Examiner Barbara Shulgasser

While the original conception of The Saint gave us a debonair, sophisticated and roguish detective, the new movie, directed stiffly by Phillip Noyce ( "Clear and Present Danger" ), gives us Val Kilmer as a greedy high-tech daredevil thief with the moves of Batman, the clunky disguises of Tom Cruise in "Mission: Impossible" and the morals of an alley cat.

Film Threat Brad Laidman

What could have been a cool concept movie buckles under an uninspired script and some treacherous miscasting.

Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector

This insufferable romance-adventure includes vague comedy as well as unintentional humor, and its target audience seems to be preadolescents who won't notice the calculated enthusiasm with which it sidesteps sexuality.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Top-heavy with whimsy, so muddled it makes Mission: Impossible look like a model of narrative cohesion, The Saint is the apo-theosis of the new incoherence, with the cliches of espionage and action thrillers jammed together like bumper cars.