| 100 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Two hours of nonstop, nail-biting tension and anxiety.
|
| 91 |
Entertainment Weekly
When the submarine has to dive 400 meters beneath the surface to avoid detection, you can practically feel the water pressure crushing in on the sailors.
|
| 88 |
New York Daily News
The action is tightly focused and well-paced.
|
| 80 |
Film.com
Highly enjoyable.
|
| 80 |
Rolling Stone
A rip-roaring action adventure.
|
| 80 |
Village Voice
It's a simple pleasure watching an American movie that respects genre, knows its limitations, and genuflects at the memory of Don Siegel in the age of Spielberg.
|
| 80 |
Film.com
Fast-moving, watertight and firing from all tubes.
|
| 75 |
Baltimore Sun
Sets up a mood of tensile suspense from the beginning and never lets it go.
|
| 75 |
Christian Science Monitor
Full of old tricks - cuts between worried faces and overheated gauges inching into the red zone - but director Mostow pulls most of them off with conviction and pizazz.
|
| 75 |
New York Post
A formulaic and predictable movie that combines minimal characterization with some irritating implausibility.
|
| 75 |
San Francisco Examiner
Certainly it isn't about to give "Das Boot" a run for its money - but nevertheless it is irresistible entertainment.
|
| 70 |
Dallas Observer
Not bad at all.
|
| 70 |
Newsweek
Jeff Giles
The script is lame...but U-571 works, thanks to the jittery handheld-camera work, the great, visceral sound editing and a few sneaky plot twists.
|
| 70 |
TNT RoughCut
Pauline Ademek
A thoroughly good war picture that is well worth seeing on the big screen in a cinema equipped with a first-rate sound system for the full sonic effect.
|
| 70 |
Los Angeles Times
Gets high marks for tension and excitement.
|
| 70 |
Film.com
Ted Fry
One sour note is Richard Marvin's derivative score. It's just awful and often pulls the movie down.
|
| 70 |
Washington Post
The real star of U-571 is its sheer visceral atmosphere.
|
| 70 |
Washington Post
It pulps you, but it doesn't enlighten you.
|
| 67 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Definitely works as an action piece, it's often surprising and never boring, and several sequences had me positioned well on the edge of my seat.
|
| 67 |
Portland Oregonian
Despite the whiplike pace of events and the compelling realism of the martial effects, the film is dead in the water whenever it pauses to make a human gesture or consider, heaven help us, an idea.
|
| 63 |
Chicago Tribune
As beautiful as all the film's technology is, it needs more real human beings around - to pull the switches, man the pumps and scuttle through those corridors.
|
| 63 |
Boston Globe
Never lets down, even if depth of character always takes second place to depth charges.
|
| 60 |
Time
Flouting all rules of the sea but honoring every war-epic cliche about guts under pressure.
|
| 60 |
The New York Times
Yet there is so little characterization that when the sub goes down, you may find yourself confused as to which of the supporting cast members lived through the torpedo blast.
|
| 60 |
TV Guide
It's straightforwardly entertaining and a genuine nail-biter.
|
| 50 |
Austin Chronicle
U-571's plot moves like a rocket, never pausing for breath, and this works to a point, but certain events ... are glossed over in favor of more (exceptionally well-done) shots of exploding depth charges and topside battles.
|
| 50 |
Miami Herald
It''s loud and flashy and fun to look at, but you''ll grow tired of it very quickly.
|
| 50 |
USA Today
One would be hard-pressed to name another submarine movie that lingers so little in the memory two days after seeing it.
|
| 50 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
It's still a submarine movie, confined by the ship, the sea, and a convention-laden script.
|
| 50 |
LA Weekly
A story as creaky as the sub that gives the film its name.
|
| 50 |
Chicago Sun-Times
You can enjoy U-571 as a big, dumb war movie without a brain in its head.
|
| 49 |
Mr. Showbiz
Richard T. Jameson
Just keeps grinding along, pushing its way through a barrage of boom-boom and a sea of tight-lipped clichés.
|
| 40 |
Chicago Reader
Yet another unironic war movie.
|
| 30 |
Salon.com
May be the shoddiest and most incoherent piece of big-budget action moviemaking since "Armageddon."
|
| 30 |
Variety
The submarine goes deep but the story never does in U-571, a good old-fashioned WWII picture that is exciting in only the most superficial way.
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