Metro

Murphy and the filmmakers clearly want to establish Murphy as an action hero in the mold of Stallone and Van Damme (Carter wrote the Stallone starrer “Tango & Cash” and co-scripted the Van Damme feature “Nowhere to Run”), but they lack the courage of their convictions. Pic is bracketed by scenes of Eddie the funny man, just in case anybody forgets the performer’s roots. Read full review

Murphy consolidates his comeback with an engaging performance in an often thrilling thriller. Metro mixes high-quality stunts and slick dialogue with enough menace to keep the audience nibbling its cuticles until the closing credits. Welcome back, Edward. Read full review

But long before the last car has been flipped, this flurry of flying metal has lost its edge. The vehicular pirouettes and ski jumps are so exaggerated that they correspond neither to the urban geography nor to the laws of physics. And the jiggling camera can't blur the careless mechanical stitching in a sequence that tries to make up for in length what it lacks in inventiveness. Read full review

"Metro" could easily have been subtitled "Beverly Hills Cop 4." Read full review

For all its propulsion (when it isn't slogging through would-be love scenes), Metro is unable to avoid seeming like yet another of the vanity movies that got Murphy into the career trouble from which he just extricated himself. Murphy vulnerable is more appealing than Murphy as supercop. [17 Jan 1997, p.D6]

This emoting doesn't mix well with the comedy and action, of course, and the best that can be said of the film is that it's marginally entertaining, and (for Murphy) reasonably inoffensive. But he's competent enough to make us suspect he might be surprisingly good if he ever did get a real Denzel Washington part. [17 Jan 1997]

The stiff banalities and trite dialogue of the genre hardly suit his flamboyant comic style. And whatever life Murphy manages to bring to the few moments between crashes and explosions are done in by the lifeless, if beautiful, presence of Ejogo and the completely wasted talent of Michael Rapaport as his partner. Ejogo's London accent is gratingly out of place on the streets of San Francisco. So, too, is Murphy. [17 Jan 1997, p.03]

It never aspires to be high art—even the title is meaningless—but Metro is too lazily assembled, and too stingy with the jokes, to even live up to its modest ambitions. Read full review

Well below anything else Eddie did before it. Needs a tighter script and a more confident performance. Read full review

It was hard to tell if the resulting groans from the audience were relief or derision. [13 Jan 1997]

So if a feeling of deja vu is what you most crave at the movies, go and see director Thomas Carter's "Metro." You'll pay six or seven bucks to feel as though you've seen it all before. And you have. Eddie, please, come back when you can find some decent material. [17 Jan 1997, p.L26]

But eventually, the soulless violence and shoddy plotting wear you out. By the end, you'll start to feel like one of the hostages. [17 Jan 1997, p.A2]

A formula movie that is way beneath Murphy's talents.[17 Jan 1997, p.45]