Name : Walter V. Addiego / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
You . have to swallow a by-the-numbers plot buried under an avalanche of fast-and-furious but underwhelming CGI effects.

Name : Ben Sachs / Alias : Chicago Reader
The special effects are pretty neat, and the filmmakers utilize them smartly, delivering imaginative set pieces that are more visually compelling than the usual series of digital explosions.

Name : Bilge Ebiri / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
Watching The Last Witch Hunter is like sitting by while someone else plays a game whose coolness eludes us.

Name : Robert Abele / Alias : Los Angeles Times
One of those artlessly restless, exposition-dialogue fantasy-action slogs .

Name : Rafer Guzman / Alias : Newsday
The dependable Diesel and a fine cast keep this hokey action flick mostly entertaining.

Name : Tom Huddleston / Alias : Time Out
What an ugly, idiotic mess this is.

Name : Andy Webster / Alias : New York Times
A smorgasbord of empty calories, the Vin Diesel vehicle "The Last Witch Hunter," for all its overstuffed visuals, leaves you hungry. But not for more.

Name : Ignatiy Vishnevetsky / Alias : AV Club
The Last Witch Hunter ends up crumbling into another generic showdown of murky fantasy effects and snatched artifacts, with a final shot that is literally framed around a door to possible sequels.

Name : Guy Lodge / Alias : Variety
Too drab to succeed even as defiantly unvirtuous trash . stifles Diesel's rough-hewn charisma via a sludgy, impermeable oil spill of CGI effects - in the service of largely unspectacular hocus pocus.

Name : Manori Ravindran / Alias : Globe and Mail
Seemingly at every juncture, the finality so necessary to up the stakes of this story is quickly snatched away in order to tease a sequel or two, leaving you wondering what the point of this supernatural exercise was in the first place.

Name : Kyle Smith / Alias : New York Post
The movie left me amazed - amazed that Nicolas Cage wasn't in it.

Name : Inkoo Kang / Alias : TheWrap
"The Last Witch Hunter" aims for pulpy, comic-book fun, but it's never as fleet, funny, or detailed as it needs to be. If you're looking for something above middling in terms of plot, characters, [or] world-building, you'll need to seek it elsewhere.

Name : Bruce Kirkland / Alias : Toronto Sun
It is not even bad enough to be good camp comedy.

Name : Stephen Dalton / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
Fast and furious on the surface, shallow and conventional beneath, Diesel's bid to carve himself another billion-dollar franchise is off to a good start with this mainstream crowd-pleaser.

Name : Tom Russo / Alias : Boston Globe
Even with Diesel's oblivious self-miscasting - he's a producer on the film - "Witch Hunter" feels like genre material that might have found a way to work.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
Unfortunately, a film needs more than Diesel's Stallone-ish appeal to succeed and that's where The Last Witch Hunter is found lacking.

Name : Alan Scherstuhl / Alias : Village Voice
Vin Diesel may not run smoothly, but he runs with purpose and conviction, and any line of dialogue processed through him comes out sounding like he believes it, even the sentimental ones.

Name : Soren Anderson / Alias : Seattle Times
It's the kind of roller-coaster Hollywood churns out seemingly in its sleep, oversaturated with effects shots and plot implausibilities. Ten minutes after you've seen it, you'll have forgotten all about it.

Name : Andrew Lapin / Alias : NPR
Some action heroes take themselves too seriously, or think they're making popcorn fun when they're really filleting us with endless rounds of ammunition. Not Diesel .

Name : Kyle Anderson / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
The only thing The Last Witch Hunter will successfully eradicate is insomnia.

Name : Michael O'Sullivan / Alias : Washington Post
The special-effects-laden fight scenes are ho-hum, incoherent and badly lit. It's often hard to tell what some warlock or scorpion-like beast is doing and to whom.

Name : Richard Roeper / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
The screenplay by a trio of writers is muddled and goofy and riddled with cliches.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
The Last Witch Hunter is so drenched in CGI effects, it looks as if it's been dunked in a vat of lacquer.

Name : Alex Pappademas / Alias : Grantland
A feature film that feels like a longish TV pilot.

Name : Peter Rainer / Alias : Christian Science Monitor
The Stephen Sondheim-James Lapine 1987 musical Into the Woods has been transferred to the screen by director Rob Marshall with most of its complexities and light-dark tonalities intact.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
Rob Marshall - who previously shepherded a glossy if slightly diluted version of "Chicago" to the screen - does a decent job transferring the material.

Name : Claudia Puig / Alias : USA Today
With its ominous gnarled trees and enchanted look, Into the Woods is a place worth exploring.

Name : Lou Lumenick / Alias : New York Post
"Into the Woods'' thankfully retains most of its wit and bite, and showcases two of the year's very best female performances, from Streep and Blunt.

Name : David Edelstein / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
Corden is a wonderfully funny, self-effacing bloke - I'm thrilled at the prospect of seeing him nightly, hosting his own show after Colbert. Maybe he'll have Emily Blunt as a guest. It's her movie.

Name : Richard Roeper / Alias : Richard Roeper.com
Rumbles on for too long and has some dry patches here and there-but just when we're growing fidgety, we get another rousing musical number or another dark plot twist, and we're back in business.

Name : Michael Phillips / Alias : Chicago Tribune
For years, composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim's 1987 fairy tale mashup, written with librettist James Lapine, has hacked its way through the thicket of Hollywood development. And the movie now before us? Here's a relief: It's good.

Name : Alonso Duralde / Alias : TheWrap
The stage musical delightfully reminded audiences that while happy endings are possible, you should always be careful about what you've wished for. Now comes the movie version, and it's a singing and dancing manifestation of both of those ideas.

Name : Chris Nashawaty / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
The first two-thirds of the film, which are like the Brothers Grimm's Greatest Hits on laughing gas, have a fizzy, fairy-dust energy.

Name : David Rooney / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
This twisty fairy-tale mash-up shows an appreciation for the virtues of old-fashioned storytelling, along with a welcome dash of subversive wit.

Name : Wesley Morris / Alias : Grantland
The movie is a watchable, tuneful contraption.

Name : Alan Scherstuhl / Alias : Village Voice
Director Rob Marshall simply cuts from one tale to the next, isolating his actors. There's little sense that the fairytale space is a shared one - it's just a bunch of noisy incident transpiring in unrelated treestands.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
Into the Woods left me out in the cold.

Name : Brad Wheeler / Alias : Globe and Mail
What is celebrated is the art of storytelling and the bedazzling attraction of a killer cast, uninhibited acting, giddy escapism, attractive visuals and an extroverted score.

Name : Bill Goodykoontz / Alias : Arizona Republic
The cast is top-notch, the story is satisfyingly dark, the performances are fun and, of course, the songs are terrific.

Name : Ty Burr / Alias : Boston Globe
Marshall's film captures enough of the emotions that course through this sneaky fairy tale about childish things like love, sex, grief, insecurity, abandonment, and forbearance.

Name : Scott Foundas / Alias : Variety
If so much as one tween viewer adds Sondheim to his or her iPod playlist alongside the likes of "Let it Go," all will have been worthwhile.

Name : Rex Reed / Alias : New York Observer
I left disenchanted and irritated by so many missed opportunities.

Name : Joe Williams / Alias : St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"Into the Woods" could have taken a well-worn path toward stagey sentiments, but those who worried that Hollywood might drain the enchantment from the Enchanted Forest can live happily after.

Name : Preston Jones / Alias : Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com
The sly send-up of fantasy tropes and healthy doses of humor help Into the Woods feel very much like the books and films it gently satirizes, even as it stands on its own as a solid entry into the musical-fantasy genre.

Name : Mick LaSalle / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
With archness and irony, "Into the Woods" goes deeper into the fairy stories, allowing us to see familiar archetypes in new and not so flattering ways.

Name : Nancy Churnin / Alias : Dallas Morning News
As with Chicago, Marshall makes bold choices, but they pay off. His cast may glitter with film stars, but they work as an ensemble and keep their stories emotionally true against a terrifically rich orchestral accompaniment.

Name : Karen D'Souza / Alias : San Jose Mercury News
This movie always seems to distance itself from that existential truth that was at the core of Sondheim's original.

Name : Stephanie Merry / Alias : Washington Post
Some of the musical's superfans will feel shortchanged by the movie no matter what, but you have to give credit where it's due. The adaptation is pretty faithful to the original - for better and worse.

Name : Stephen Holden / Alias : New York Times
"Into the Woods," the splendid Disney screen adaptation of the Stephen Sondheim-James Lapine musical, infuses new vitality into the tired marketing concept of entertainment for "children of all ages."

Name : Dana Stevens / Alias : Slate
Instead of being a rueful meditation on the inevitable disappointments of adulthood, the last act plays out as a generic dystopian bummer.

Name : Christine Dolen / Alias : Miami Herald
For anyone who can appreciate the darker side of fairy-tales told in a musical with depth and nuance, Into the Woods is a journey worth taking.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
Yes, the sets and costumes elicit swoons, but it's the peerless Sondheim score, however truncated, that makes this Woods a prime destination.

Name : Linda Barnard / Alias : Toronto Star
A mixed bag of clever twists on familiar storybook myths, engaging performances and forgettable songs.

Name : Ben Sachs / Alias : Chicago Reader
With the exception of Meryl Streep (as the Witch) and James Corden (as the Baker), the cast is bland, and the bombastic orchestrations tend to steamroll the nuances of Sondheim's score.

Name : Colin Covert / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
"Into the Woods" is a paean to the primal magic of storytelling.

Name : Jesse Hassenger / Alias : AV Club
Even if this Into The Woods lacks the exhilaration of the best movie musicals, it does capture the show's emotional intimacy - no small task in a field that favors razzle dazzle.

Name : Betsy Sharkey / Alias : Los Angeles Times
What makes "Into the Woods" so entertaining is the cleverness of the tale itself and the way specific characters match the talents of its storytellers.

Name : Rafer Guzman / Alias : Newsday
A capable cast and some very fine songs, but parents should take note of the dark themes. This Disney movie ain't kid stuff.

Name : Steven Rea / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
A jolly mash-up of symbol-laden, signature once-upon-a-time tales about lust, envy, greed, and misguided pursuits of happiness.

Name : Elizabeth Weitzman / Alias : New York Daily News
The life lessons are delivered with insight and heart, the rightfully beloved music is well handled and the cast is so enthusiastic that we can excuse some rough patches.

Name : Lindsey Bahr / Alias : Associated Press
It's hard not to get swept up in the grand production of it all.

Name : Cath Clarke / Alias : Time Out
If you go down to the woods today. you'll find A-listers dressed like 'Game of Thrones' extras belting out showtunes.

Name : Moira MacDonald / Alias : Seattle Times
Does it work as a movie? Thanks to a few cast members, the answer is - yes, and for the most part quite nicely.