Ross McIndoe

The film struggles to bring its non-zombie characters to life.

The film’s writing is the sort that begs you to find it cute and quirky, which makes it quite grating if you don’t.

This is an overtly political film that’s hesitant to express its own political views.

This is a historical drama with a handsome enough period setting and a couple of pleasant musical moments but whose roteness keeps it from resonating.

Swiped’s story sits right at the center of so many vital issues, and a smarter, braver rendition of it—that is, one interested in actually probing beneath the surface of things—might have yielded a film truly worthy of comparison to The Social Network. Instead, we get a piece of corporate hagiography that sweeps all those issues aside to celebrate another tech billionaire.

It seems unsure whether it wants to be a campy slice of macabre in the vein of Dexter and American Horror Story, where the religious imagery and bloodletting are played for both chills and thrills, or a genuine rumination on death, faith, and the morality of doing bad things to bad people.

Rather than grappling with the mind and soul of the man who birthed bizarre, fatalistically funny and existentially unsettling works like Waiting for Godot, James Marsh’s film seems content to merely adapt the “Personal Life” section of Samuel Beckett’s Wikipedia page.

The film presents Amy Winehouse’s demise with a sad shrug, as one of those tragic things that just sort of happens.

As a WWE superstar, Cena is a perfect casting choice for a larger-than-life character like the formerly imaginary Ricky. He rattles off jokes with the boundless energy of a man used to spending three nights a week catapulting himself across a ring, and he’s completely at ease as the absolute center of attention.

John Travolta’s scenes are islands of tranquility in a jittery sea of rote crime-movie pyrotechnics.

Aside from the red stuff, the film is scarcely interested in what’s inside its characters.

The film stumbles sluggishly from one chapter in Foreman’s life to the next.