Vantage Point
Columbia Pictures | Release Date: February 22, 2008 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
40
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 32 Critic Reviews
Positive:
9
Mixed:
11
Negative:
12
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
83
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
Flat-out one of the more exciting and original gut-busters that Hollywood has produced in many a month. It's virtually all action, but the action is never mindless and it is full of marvelous surprises every step of the way. Read full review
75
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
Three-fourths of a terrific thriller, which in this dreary run of winter movies seemed like clear spring water to this parched traveler. The setup is so riveting, the suspense so carefully prolonged, that I didn't mind when it unraveled into lunacy near the end. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
Because Vantage Point is really a concept movie, the actors are not much more than pawns on the chessboard: They move one square at a time. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
If you're up for good nihilist entertainment, look no further. Read full review
70
The New YorkerDavid Denby
Is it art? Not remotely. But, up to the final scenes, it’s a tremendous piece of engineering. After all, the narratives have to synch up visually, which can’t be easy to manage. And the hurtling force of Vantage Point is fun to watch. Read full review
70
TimeRichard Corliss
The movie is best seen as straightforward, sometimes harrowing melodrama, packed with mistaken identities, beautiful villains, a kindly tourist who can outrace the bad guys, and a lost little girl whom the film brazenly sends onto a highway full of speeding cars. It's as if Dakota Fanning had wandered onto the streets of Ronin. Read full review
67
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
A slick and exciting film Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
It's a fast-paced motion picture that fails the "reality test" but maintains a certain intensity for its entire running length. It's entertaining in the same way that an episode of "24" is entertaining. Read full review
63
PremiereRyan Stewart
When Vantage Point is staying with Quaid and Fox as they hunt the suspected assassins (including the arrestingly beautiful Israeli actress Ayelet Zurer) it's a perfectly serviceable thriller with high production values and some better-than-average car chases. Read full review
60
EmpireKim Newman
Some okay thrills with good performances and some smarts. But the last reel plunge spoils things. Myth for the new millennium: any average, out-of-shape middle-aged Yank, including the President, can get in a punch-up with a few well-armed, super-trained terrorists, and win. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
Vantage Point starts to slide off the rails when it tracks a tourist (Forest Whitaker) and his trusty camcorder; instead of Zapruder-like intrigue, the episode has him running around like an agent in a rote thriller. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
With a less pedigreed international cast the whole thing would be a disaster, as opposed to a chilly new kind of disaster film. Read full review
50
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
At a certain point, its sheer can you top this excess, and credibility files out the window three's no reason to continue paying attention. Read full review
50
USA TodayClaudia Puig
Turns out to be a tepid thriller that promises more than it delivers. Read full review
50
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
This is competent if completely impersonal filmmaking of a familiar type that finds the usual allotment of famous, or at least famous enough, actors. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
Quaid and Whitaker, who serve more or less as the designated humans in this clockwork contraption of a film, are capable in corny roles, but otherwise Vantage Point is as stuffed with cardboard performances and expositional speeches as any seventies disaster flick. Read full review
42
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
The loaded cast does what it can with the paper-thin characterizations, but Vantage Point gets hijacked early by its high-concept premise, and it quickly devolves into a by-the-numbers thriller with the numbers out of order. Read full review
42
Baltimore SunChris Kaltenbach
An overly gimmicky and fatally repetitive terrorist thriller that quickly wears out its welcome. Read full review
42
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
How can we take this doomsday scenario seriously when we keep waiting for Bruce Willis to rise from the ashes? Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
The truth is that two other films with Greengrass' name on them, "The Bourne Supremacy" and "The Bourne Ultimatum," have spoiled us for this kind of thriller filmmaking, and stacked against that, Vantage Point doesn't have a chance. Read full review
38
Rolling StonePeter Travers
By the end, Vantage Point is such a unholy mess of drooling sentiment and sloppy loose ends that you’ll hate yourself for being suckered in. Read full review
38
New York PostKyle Smith
Throws in enough hurtling bodies, screaming bullets and totaled cars that it at least holds your interest, so it passes the worth-watching-if-you're-stuck-on-an-airplane test. Read full review
38
Boston GlobeTy Burr
The result is a movie that's both clever and stupid - an interesting feat. Read full review
30
Village VoiceScott Foundas
Produced by Paul Greengrass, and conceived as something of a companion film to his own "Bloody Sunday," there wasn't a moment in "Omagh" that rang false. There's not a single one in Vantage Point that rings true. Read full review
30
Washington PostJohn Anderson
Although it was held back by the studio for about a year, someone apparently came to the inevitable conclusion that no amount of ripening time was going to help this gimmicky and ultimately harebrained movie. Read full review
30
Film ThreatPete Vonder Haar
What you won’t be able to ignore is the ridiculous way Vantage Point’s brings everything to an end. Read full review
30
The Hollywood ReporterSheri Linden
Straight out of the slice-and-dice school of filmmaking, Vantage Point fractures chronology and perspective in a vain attempt to disguise its flimsiness. Read full review
30
SalonStephanie Zacharek
Wears off in about 10.8 minutes. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
Vantage Point has nothing going on. There's no artistic, philosophical or even jolly entertainment reason for adopting this strategy. It's just arbitrary, a gimmick. Read full review
20
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
If you can work your way past Vantage Point's goofy casting that places a bland, blank-eyed Hurt in the White House, then I suppose you can manage to forgive this "Rashomon" rip-off's other glaring idiosyncrasies, of which there are many. Read full review
10
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Why, beating the audience about the ears, eyes and brain with essentially the same sequence of events from eight characters' points of view, none of which adds much more than deafening hysteria and identically dreadful music. The filmmakers seem to have missed the point that each re-enactment in "Rashomon" provides new and conflicting information. It makes you wonder if they studied the wrong movie. Maybe they rented "Rush Hour," or a video on Rosh Hashanah. Read full review
10
VarietyJustin Chang
A 23-minute movie dragged out, via some narrative gimmickry, to a punishing hour and a half. Read full review
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