Name : David Lewis / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
It's not a groundbreaking thesis, but we still get a fascinating tour of a town that may never be the same again.

Name : A.O. Scott / Alias : New York Times
"Happy Valley," even as it revisits past events, has a chilling timeliness.

Name : Mike D'Angelo / Alias : AV Club
It has no new information to offer regarding the case, and doesn't even do a terribly coherent job of organizing the details for the benefit of some hypothetical ignorant viewer.

Name : Michael Phillips / Alias : Chicago Tribune
The film could've benefited from another 15 or 20 minutes of detail and nuance. What's there, though, is strong, thoughtful and disturbing.

Name : Justin Chang / Alias : Variety
Amir Bar-Lev offers a typically gripping and thoughtful take on the Penn State scandal.

Name : John DeFore / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
Less an investigation into or comprehensive summary of the Penn State sex-abuse scandal than a look at the feelings it elicited, Amir Bar-Lev's Happy Valley is more concerned with the phenomenon of team spirit than any single question of fact.

Name : David Edelstein / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
Here it is, folks, in your face. Will you look or return to your own private Happy Valley?

Name : Andrew O'Hehir / Alias : Salon.com
"Happy Valley" does not try to lead you to any firm conclusion about who or what is to blame for what went wrong in the football-crazed farmland of central Pennsylvania, and viewers with different perspectives will understand it in different ways.

Name : David Denby / Alias : New Yorker
"Happy Valley" is a devastating portrait of a community-and, by extension, a nation-put under a spell, even reduced to grateful infantilism, by the game of football.

Name : Chris Nashawaty / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
The documentary offers a compelling overview of the case, but Bar-Lev spends too much time painting Paterno as a victim and scapegoat. That advocacy doesn't sit well.

Name : Joshua Rothkopf / Alias : Time Out New York
The troubling tale is well told, unpacked with a clarity and a minimum of ominous mood music.

Name : Alan Scherstuhl / Alias : Village Voice
Happy Valley . [lays] bare the broken heart of a community that believed that everything was perfect in a world that never is.

Name : Kenneth Turan / Alias : Los Angeles Times
[A] thorough, thoughtful and disturbing documentary .

Name : Owen Gleiberman / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
It turns into a clangy medieval epic, full of random woodland monsters and battles, and it begins to lose the pulse of its fairy-tale mystique. It's like watching Clash of the Titans IV: Revenge of the Blood Apple.

Name : Rene Rodriguez / Alias : Miami Herald
When Snow rides into battle wielding a sword, you want to tell her to put that thing down before she pokes her eye out.

Name : Andrew Lapin / Alias : NPR
There would be use for a properly dark Frozen retelling, more in line with the original tale, where the afflicted actually uses her power for malfeasance. But Freya is a snow day late and a dollar short.

Name : Nick Pinkerton / Alias : Village Voice
A film that's considerably longer than it needs be, in which the evocative eloquence of storybook pictures is consistently garbled by the need to overexplain and psychoanalyze.

Name : Mary F. Pols / Alias : TIME Magazine
Rare among the recent fairy tale adaptions (from Mirror Mirror to the dreadful Red Riding Hood) the invigorating Snow White and the Huntsman actually breathes new life into an old story.

Name : Linda Barnard / Alias : Toronto Star
Sanders makes all the mistakes of a neophyte filmmaker, but doing it with such a massive budget leads to a cinematic hodgepodge of fractured fairy-tale imagery, computer-generated menacing forests and gamboling, turtle-riding fairies.

Name : Dana Stevens / Alias : Slate
This over-crammed, disjointed, and lugubrious film is misconceived from the ground up.

Name : Glenn Kenny / Alias : MSN Movies
This slightly overstuffed entertainment rises, in part thanks to [Hemsworth], to one of the most pleasant surprises of the summer movie season so far.

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
The director sets a heart-pounding pace, pausing only for such interludes as Snow White's encounter with seven dwarfs who could not be more distant from their Disney forebears.

Name : Tasha Robinson / Alias : AV Club
Huntsman feints at being the Snow White retelling no one has ever seen before, but ultimately becomes the "been there, done that" of fairy-tale filmmaking.

Name : Brian Lowry / Alias : Variety
Handsome but hollow.

Name : Kate Taylor / Alias : Globe and Mail
Freya is given the barest veil of a backstory while Ravenna just oozes ribbons of black bile (literally) for her own evil reasons. These women may be strong but they are never deep.

Name : Lindsey Bahr / Alias : Associated Press
There is a decent movie buried in here somewhere, but with such powerhouse actresses, it's dismaying that it feels so regressive from the first.

Name : Scott Bowles / Alias : USA Today
Stunningly shot and inconsistently acted and written, Snow White has enough visual fireworks to keep the film afloat, even if star Kristen Stewart can't get out of Twilight mode.

Name : Lou Lumenick / Alias : New York Post
Fails to realize the full potential of its ambitiously dark vision.

Name : David Sims / Alias : The Atlantic
When people gripe about Hollywood's reliance on sequels and cheap franchise cash-ins, this is the kind of movie they mean: no Grimm's Fairy Tale, but a grim tale nonetheless.

Name : Rebecca Keegan / Alias : Los Angeles Times
Nearly every major character dies and comes back to life at least once and a convoluted narrative yields not a single, palpable moment of drama.

Name : Rafer Guzman / Alias : Newsday
Overall, "The Huntsman: Winter's War" feels like a movie that didn't need making, but at least it justifies it existence.

Name : Matthew Lickona / Alias : San Diego Reader
Even the good bits lack zip and verve, and the bad bits leave you wondering why director Cedric Nicolas-Troyan (who did visual effects on the first entry) isn't doing more with the super-powered sibling rivalry that clearly sparks his interest.

Name : Michael O'Sullivan / Alias : Washington Post
A virtual orchard of toxic excess, starting with the unnecessarily sprawling cast of characters.

Name : A.O. Scott / Alias : New York Times
There is something exciting about how seriously "Snow White and the Huntsman" takes its themes.

Name : Bill Goodykoontz / Alias : Arizona Republic
As befits the modern fairy tale, there isn't so much a happily ever after as there is the promise of another sequel. Or prequel. Or whatever they come up with to take the Snow White concept to the bank one. more. time.

Name : Steven Rea / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
Sampling Tolkien, Disney, and Grimm, The Huntsman: Winter's War lays on the pastiche in slabs, but no one is slouching here.

Name : Richard Roeper / Alias : Richard Roeper.com
Vastly superior to Mirror, Mirror in every way. Great work from Charlize Theron.

Name : Bruce Kirkland / Alias : Toronto Sun
The Huntsman: Winter's War is as beautiful as its macho lead actor Chris Hemsworth is handsome. The movie is also as vacuous, silly and boring as Hemsworth is awkward and awful in the title role.

Name : Tom Charity / Alias : CNN.com
Theron gives the picture some spine. As Snow White, Kristen Stewart supplies the heart.

Name : Colin Covert / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
This is a film that doesn't even obtain mediocrity. This is the industrial-grade level of bad that only can be enjoyed by fans who watch films ironically for hipster laughs.

Name : Rick Groen / Alias : Globe and Mail
There are many splendid reasons to see Snow White and the Huntsman - enough, maybe, not to care that neither Snow White nor the Huntsman rank high among them.

Name : Linda Holmes / Alias : NPR
What dooms Snow White and the Huntsman is ultimately not how over the top it is, but how dull it is.

Name : Mick LaSalle / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
Everyone here is punching a clock, or punching a blue screen, and everyone's glad when it's over.

Name : Bill Goodykoontz / Alias : Arizona Republic
"Snow White and the Huntsman" never quite delivers on its promise - a dark retelling of the fairy tale in which women hold the true power, good and evil - but it certainly is an attractive misfire.

Name : Stephanie Zacharek / Alias : TIME Magazine
Gowns aside, this thing's a snooze: Events unfold tediously, and there are many scenes in which extras with dirty faces, playing demoralized townsfolk, mill about in a desultory fashion.

Name : Brian Truitt / Alias : USA Today
It's a dunderheaded follow-up, for sure, but it's at least buoyed by Chris Hemsworth's charisma and the few times where Winter's War embraces complete camp.

Name : Christy Lemire / Alias : Associated Press
Astonishingly beautiful and breathtaking in its brutal imagery, Snow White & the Huntsman is thrilling and frightening in equal measure, yet as bereft of satisfying substance as a poisoned apple.

Name : Tom Russo / Alias : Boston Globe
The story loses direction like forest wanderers relying on a bread-crumb trail.

Name : Alonso Duralde / Alias : TheWrap
There will be lots of versions of Theron's evil queen running around West Hollywood this Halloween; it's a performance that's one part Tilda Swinton to 30 parts Faye Dunaway, the sort of over-the-top craziness that spawns midnight screenings.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
By cramming far too much material into 114 minutes, The Huntsman: Winter's War feels rushed and incomplete.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : New York Daily News
The film borrows plenty, but it brings nothing new.

Name : Leslie Felperin / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
Great costumes can't quite compensate for a lackluster concept.

Name : Christopher Orr / Alias : The Atlantic
Sanders does not (yet) share Guillermo del Toro's gifts, but he, too, has an eye for the beautiful and the grotesque, and for that entrancing borderline where the two meet.

Name : Tom Huddleston / Alias : Time Out
Witless, heartless and dull. Even the Twi-hards are going to want their money back.

Name : Jesse Hassenger / Alias : AV Club
Really, Winter's War is superior to its predecessor in almost every way, with better pacing, funnier dwarves, a less overcast tone, and vastly more goblins.

Name : Tom Long / Alias : Detroit News
Perhaps the best thing about "Snow White and the Huntsman" is it doesn't smirk at itself. It plays out as a story about mortality and greed and oppression in a fantastical world, but it doesn't act as if anything is silly.

Name : A.O. Scott / Alias : New York Times
Every resonant theme or intriguing story possibility is stripped away and replaced with a ready-made franchise-movie conceit.

Name : Colin Covert / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
The film has the DNA of a blockbuster and the soul of a haunting folk tale. It is as dangerous, dark, intelligent and beautiful as its wraithlike villainess.

Name : Cath Clarke / Alias : Time Out
Feels like a Russian oligarch has thrown a 'Game of Thrones' party and hired his favourite Hollywood actors to come in fancy dress.

Name : Elizabeth Weitzman / Alias : New York Daily News
"Snow White and the Huntsman," a solemn but mostly savvy rewrite, is a welcome upgrade.

Name : Michael Phillips / Alias : Chicago Tribune
At its best, "Snow White and the Huntsman" feels less like a desperate blockbuster and more like a handmade object.

Name : Peter Rainer / Alias : Christian Science Monitor
Some of the fairy tale effects are marvelous; but the odyssey from darkness to light is unduly long and sloggy, and Stewart, with her contemporary edge, seems to be acting in the wrong era.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
As far as live-action reimaginings of fairy tales are concerned, this is one of the more inventive ones and is unquestionably better than 2011's Red Riding Hood misfire.

Name : Christy Lemire / Alias : RogerEbert.com
If you liked "Frozen" but wish it had been angrier, "The Huntsman: Winter's War" is for you.

Name : Moira MacDonald / Alias : Seattle Times
This "Snow White" is one of those revisionist fairy tales in which the princess takes control of her own destiny. A different actress might have been able to sell that, but Stewart can't.

Name : Roger Ebert / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
"Snow White and the Huntsman" reinvents the legendary story in a film of astonishing beauty and imagination.

Name : Caitlin Moore / Alias : Washington Post
While the funny, action-packed sequences are the best parts, they are indicative of the film's main problems: an inability to focus and an overly complicated plot.

Name : Chris Vognar / Alias : Dallas Morning News
The only one who comes out of this odd pairing unscathed is Walt Disney, looking smarter than ever for boiling the tale down to its mythical essence way back in 1937.

Name : Randy Myers / Alias : San Jose Mercury News
Snow does earn top billing, but don't be fooled: This film belongs to the Oscar-winning Theron, who sinks her talons into the killer part, making every snarl and outburst such wicked, cruel fun to behold.

Name : Moira MacDonald / Alias : Seattle Times
"The Huntsman" is a flabby mess - yet another sequel with no reason to exist.

Name : Betsy Sharkey / Alias : Los Angeles Times
It is an absolute wonder to watch and creates a warrior princess for the ages. But what this revisionist fairy tale does not give us is a passionate love - its kisses are as chaste as the snow is white.

Name : Mick LaSalle / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
A slow, boring film that has no charm and is highlighted only by a handful of special effects and Charlize Theron's truly evil queen.

Name : Todd McCarthy / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
A bold rethinking of a familiar old story and striking design elements are undercut by a draggy mid-section and undeveloped characters in Snow White and the Huntsman.

Name : Sara Stewart / Alias : New York Post
This incoherent screenplay seems to have been written by a roomful of the gorilla-like trolls who show up in the movie at one point.

Name : Steven Rea / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
A surprisingly fine, fantastic movie it is.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
[It] all feels like serious, pay-attention-now, schoolroom stuff - Shakespeare without the poetry, "Braveheart" without the performances.

Name : Chris Nashawaty / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
There needs to be urgency, shape, and emotional investment. In a word, a script. Otherwise, it's just a two-hour Vogue fashion shoot highlighted by Emily Blunt riding bareback on a polar bear.

Name : Bilge Ebiri / Alias : Village Voice
There's nothing in Huntsman to hold its pieces together. Everybody's acting up a storm, but nobody expresses any urgency or aspiration or desire - and, what's worse, none of those great actors have been given any memorable lines.

Name : Guy Lodge / Alias : Variety
Doubled-up diva-tude, however, can't ignite a rhythmically flat, seemingly committee-helmed franchise outing that never decides on its dramatic center.

Name : Mara Reinstein / Alias : Us Weekly
Charlize Theron is offscreen for a full hour, presumably reading better scripts.

Name : Rafer Guzman / Alias : Newsday
Is this movie trying to be "Excalibur" or "My Little Pony"?

Name : Lisa Kennedy / Alias : Denver Post
Only Bob Hoskins as the blind seer Muir comes close to making us care. We can almost glean Snow White's heroic possibilities through his clouded eyes. As much as we'd like to, we certainly can't from Stewart's efforts.

Name : Jason Solomons / Alias : TheWrap
All fairly silly, but unfortunately the filmmakers don't quite realize it - along with banning love, decent gags seem to have been outlawed, too.

Name : Ty Burr / Alias : Boston Globe
After a while, you just sit back and let the thing wash over you, marveling and giggling as necessary.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
It serves as both a talent-squandering prequel and sequel to Snow White and the Huntsman, while doing nothing more than name-check Snow White.

Name : David Edelstein / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
The movie's revisionist tone is startlingly enough to carry you along.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
Snow White and the Huntsman has a darkness that seeps into the soul - but it's also definitely a missed opportunity. Director Rupert Sanders loses his nerve just when the story starts cooking.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
The script lifts so much plot from Disney's animated Frozen that it could qualify as a remake. No one sings "Let It Go," but my advice to audiences is to do just that.

Name : Adam Graham / Alias : Detroit News
At least now we have an answer to the question, "Who's the dullest franchise of them all?"

Name : Keith Uhlich / Alias : Time Out
The film . proceeds with a deliberateness rare in a big-budget franchise starter; you can sense the hand of coscreenwriter Hossein Amini (Drive) in the story's always involving, slow-build structure.

Name : Andrew O'Hehir / Alias : Salon.com
I resisted this derivative mishmash of classic fairytale and modern epic fantasy for as long as I could, but ultimately it swept me up into its geeky but manly embrace and carried me away on a white charger.

Name : Bill Zwecker / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
[A] less-than-satisfying if occasionally entertaining fantasy romp that does feature some of the more talented actors on the planet.