21
Metascore
21 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 67Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovAustin ChronicleMarc SavlovWhile much of the film is taken over by enormously entertaining dogfight sequences … much of it also rests on the narrative drive, which seems clipped part and parcel from one of those old “Why We Fight” documentaries that Frank Capra doled out to keep our G.I.s in fighting mode.
- 50TV Guide MagazineKen FoxTV Guide MagazineKen FoxThe script too often sounds like an encrypted communique itself, and it's tiring trying to keep all the nonsensical space-jargon straight. The effort is more demanding than hanging onto a joystick, and not entirely worth the effort.
- 30SalonAndrew O'HehirSalonAndrew O'HehirPretty much everything in this high-space war yarn has been swiped from other, better movies.
- 30VarietyVarietyFormulaic, humdrum and sometimes unintentionally laughable.
- 20L.A. WeeklyL.A. WeeklyAn excruciating no-brainer blend of “Starship Troopers” and “Top Gun,” without the former’s guilty-pleasure concoction of gory F/X and dark humor or Tom Cruise’s megawatt smile.
- 20Chicago ReaderLisa AlspectorChicago ReaderLisa AlspectorExcruciatingly earnest yet convictionless movie.
- 20Washington PostMichael O'SullivanWashington PostMichael O'SullivanCinematic sleeping pill.
- 10NewsweekTed GideonseNewsweekTed GideonseMatthew Lillard of "Scream," flies like his nickname and tries to bring the film some comic relief not already provided by the stultifying stupidity of the script.
- The film is painfully boring and funny in the wrong places.
- 0Entertainment WeeklyEntertainment WeeklyThe effects are laughably primitive, the dialogue hilariously atrocious -- and those are the good parts.