Non-Stop
Universal Pictures | Release Date: February 28, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
56
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 41 Critic Reviews
Positive:
19
Mixed:
19
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
83
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanFeb 27, 2014
Once you accept that he (Neeson) has the badge and gun, you’re in for an exciting trip. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyFeb 26, 2014
Part locked-room mystery, part political allegory, Non-Stop is one of the most purely enjoyable entries in the ongoing cycle of Liam Neeson action-thrillers. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerFeb 28, 2014
It’s all fairly entertaining and eminently disposable. Read full review
75
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallFeb 27, 2014
Non-Stop mostly works by being aware of what other jet-in-jeopardy flicks have done before, adding a spin here and there. Nothing Hitchcockian but more ambitious than a Neeson action flick needs to be. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperFeb 27, 2014
There’s a good measure of comedic relief doled out between the action sequences, e.g., Neeson coming up with an ingenious plan to placate the passengers when they’re on the verge of a rebellion. This is a movie that knows it’s not to be taken too seriously. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsFeb 27, 2014
The movie's fun. And now, thanks to our annual Neeson thriller, spring can come soon. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyFeb 26, 2014
Once again Neeson is a straight-faced secret weapon. With his lion's roar and can-do fists, he grounds the film's more preposterous moments and makes them feel excitingly tense. At a certain point either you'll fasten your seat belt and go with Non-Stop's absurd, Looney Tunes logic or you won't. Read full review
75
The PlaylistDrew TaylorFeb 26, 2014
Non-Stop isn't exactly a smooth ride, but as far it being the big screen equivalent of an airplane novel, one that you read on the flight and throw away when you get to your destination, it is wildly successful. Just don't think too hard about it. Read full review
73
Film.comKate ErblandFeb 26, 2014
A relatively high-flying adventure, injecting the always-entertaining airplane-set thriller with some fresh thrills and a cadre of characters worth getting invested in. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranFeb 27, 2014
Non-Stop is a crisp, efficient thriller that benefits greatly from the intangibles Neeson can be counted on to supply. Read full review
70
The New York TimesManohla DargisFeb 27, 2014
Non-Stop doesn’t make any sense, but that’s expected, uninteresting and incidental to the pleasures of a slow-season Liam Neeson release as diverting as this one. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comSusan WloszczynaFeb 28, 2014
If I wanted to read my way through a film that features words dancing around the screen as if they were waltzing Post-Its, I would have sat through a foreign movie with subtitles instead. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliFeb 27, 2014
Non-Stop plays like what might happen if Michael Bay directed a screenplay developed for Alfred Hitchcock. Read full review
63
USA TodayClaudia PuigFeb 27, 2014
While it takes stabs at realism, mostly in its use of cellular and computer technology, disbelief must be suspended for full immersion in this twisty airborne thriller. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy BurrFeb 27, 2014
Writers John W. Richardson, Chris Roach, and Ryan Engle bet that the central hook — Who’s the bad guy? How’s he doing this? — will keep us paying attention. And they’re right. Read full review
63
Rolling StonePeter TraversFeb 27, 2014
Luckily, Non-Stop has a way-above-average cast for this kind of nonsense. Read full review
63
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsFeb 27, 2014
Non-Stop: It is what it is. Read full review
63
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanFeb 27, 2014
Collet-Serra, who directed Neeson in “Unknown,” has a knack for keeping things lively and moving forward. There are moments of humor, gripping action and real terror. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineR. Kurt OsenlundFeb 26, 2014
The latest collaboration between director Jaume Collet-Serra and star Liam Neeson is made with far more care and visual detail than you might expect. Read full review
60
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinMar 3, 2014
The key to a good B-mystery is that all the actors should be a little stilted. You should never know the difference between an actor acting badly and an actor doing a masterful acting job of someone acting badly. In Non-Stop, there is much excellent bad acting. Read full review
60
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottFeb 28, 2014
It keeps you guessing, it keeps the tension ratcheted up, and it offers a dose of breathless -- if sometimes brainless -- suspense. Read full review
60
NPRIan BuckwalterFeb 28, 2014
It's Liam Neeson at his Neesoniest, and yet another entry in his expanding late-career bloom into gruff and commanding action hero. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierFeb 27, 2014
The best twist is how Neeson’s growly presence makes a bumpy ride enjoyable. Read full review
60
The GuardianTom ShoneFeb 26, 2014
Non-stop is the flimsiest of black box recorders, by contrast, that never threatens to make even intermittent sense, but it hangs together on the bulky shoulders of its star. Read full review
60
Time OutKeith UhlichFeb 26, 2014
Would that the climax lived up to the tension-filled first two thirds. Let’s just say that Non-Stop reaches for some pointed post-9/11 political commentary that almost entirely exceeds its grasp. Total brainlessness, in this case, would have been a virtue. Read full review
60
VarietyScott FoundasFeb 26, 2014
Even in the movie’s most ridiculous moments, Collet-Serra keeps the pacing brisk and knows how to divert our attention with a well-timed bit of comic relief. Read full review
50
HitfixDrew McWeenyApr 18, 2014
It's a completely average film that makes a few terrible choices. Read full review
50
TimeRichard CorlissFeb 28, 2014
Shot in grainy, unflattering closeups occasionally alleviated by flashily edited fight scenes, Non-Stop is no more or less than what it intends to be: the kind of midlevel brainless entertainment you might watch, between meals and naps, on an international flight. Try to enjoy the ride — and no texting, please. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaFeb 28, 2014
Non-Stop gets increasingly far-fetched as the jet makes its way across the Atlantic. Certainly, there are more red herrings on the plane than there are in the sea below. And Neeson has to stare down every last one of them. Read full review
50
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternFeb 27, 2014
Much of the fun is awfully silly. The story strains logic, as well as credulity. It's been cobbled together, often crudely, from pieces of classic predecessors. (Here snippets of Hitchcock, there stretches of "Speed," with wings on the bus.) Yet the silliness parades itself in a spirit of cheerful self-awareness, while Liam Neeson fills the thrill quotient impressively as an air marshal. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleFeb 27, 2014
Thanks to him (Neeson), I not only enjoyed Non-Stop, but I'd watch it again. Particularly on a plane. Read full review
50
The DissolveScott TobiasFeb 26, 2014
Neeson’s innate dignity can often serve as a gravitational force for movies this ludicrous, but in a cabin filled with so much flying debris, he is but an ineffectual paperweight. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyFeb 26, 2014
A constant low-boil of ridiculousness both mocks and sustains Non-Stop, a jerry-rigged terror-on-a-plane thriller with a premise so far-fetched as to create a degree of suspense over how the writers will wriggle out of the knot of their own making. Read full review
50
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreFeb 26, 2014
Non-Stop is a solid, workmanlike action picture that builds slowly, bends over backwards to over-explain itself and its villain, and delivers a lulu of an ending. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenFeb 26, 2014
As suspicion shifts from passenger to passenger, the film starts to resemble a parlor-room whodunit, while logic becomes its first fatality. Fasten your seat belts before takeoff, because Non-Stop is a bumpy ride. Read full review
40
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzFeb 26, 2014
There’s no rescuing Non-Stop from its own worse impulses. The likable Neeson’s implausible second act as an action star continues, but not in a believable direction. Read full review
40
Total FilmJames MottramFeb 26, 2014
A nifty lift-off and a tense first hour lead us, disappointingly, to a very bumpy landing. While Neeson and co. do their best, the script just doesn’t deliver where it really matters. Read full review
40
Village VoiceStephanie ZacharekFeb 25, 2014
In the end, Non-Stop is a waste of a perfectly good Neeson, and of our time and goodwill. Please make it stop. Read full review
25
Portland OregonianMarc MohanFeb 27, 2014
From the evidence presented here, this film's three screenwriters have not only never taken a commercial flight, they've never met any actual human beings. The details of air travel and human behavior are equally foreign to the film. Read full review
25
New York PostLou LumenickFeb 27, 2014
All the tedium of an endless trans-Atlantic flight gets packed into the 105 minutes of Non-Stop. Read full review
20
EmpireNick de SemlyenFeb 24, 2014
Non-Stop is weak sauce, a cheapie snoozer that not even heavyweights like Neeson and Moore can save. Read full review
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