Name : Stephen Dalton / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
Serena only has one key flaw: it is difficult to believe a single word of it, still less to care about these relentlessly selfish and short-sighted characters.

Name : Rex Reed / Alias : New York Observer
Into each life some rain eventually falls, and in a bomb called Serena, golden couple Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, united for the third time onscreen, arrive soaking wet.

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
Beating a dead horse barely begins to describe the task of writing about "Serena"; it's more like playing coroner.

Name : Inkoo Kang / Alias : TheWrap
Densely packed and gorgeously expressionist, the old-fashioned tragedy is very nearly a satisfying experience despite its various shortcomings.

Name : Randy Myers / Alias : San Jose Mercury News
The film is haunted by a sense that something was overlooked in translation from the book.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
Left for dead since 2012, Serena would better serve its stars by burial, not resurrection.

Name : Richard Roeper / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
In other words, a lot of people realized they had an epic clunker on their hands.

Name : Steven Rea / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
What were Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence thinking? Seriously?

Name : Ty Burr / Alias : Boston Globe
It's reassuring, really, to be reminded that top-tier Hollywood stars can make lousy choices just like the rest of us.

Name : Serena Donadoni / Alias : Village Voice
By making Serena ornamental, Bier diminishes her power, and Lawrence plays her as a petulant Lady Macbeth wannabe. Worse is Bradley Cooper, whose Pemberton comes off like an entitled scion, not a clear-cut timber king.

Name : Joe Neumaier / Alias : New York Daily News
Lawrence is the hottest actress in Hollywood and she and Cooper share six Oscar nominations, and one win, between them. But "Serena" uses muscles the costars of "Silver Linings Playbook" and "American Hustle" stars don't often get to flex.

Name : Cath Clarke / Alias : Time Out
We don't invest anything in either character, and with barely any tension, 'Serena' grabs neither head nor heart.

Name : Guy Lodge / Alias : Variety
Bier's Danish-language work, usually structurally and emotionally cohesive to a fault, has rarely been this compellingly untidy.

Name : Geoff Pevere / Alias : Globe and Mail
One of those movies that proves that the mere presence of all the right ingredients does not a happy meal make. It's all in the mixing.

Name : Joe Williams / Alias : St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Although the film got stuck in editing limbo for two years, no amount of cutting could rid the project of a diseased premise. Nor is it erotic or violent enough to be an effective critique of human nature.

Name : Lou Lumenick / Alias : New York Post
The choppily edited and thoroughly wooden "Serena'' fails to catch fire, even when everything literally goes up in flames. Basically, it's "Cold Mountain" without Renee Zellweger.

Name : Vadim Rizov / Alias : AV Club
There's simply not that much to see in the performances.

Name : Mick LaSalle / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
Funny how there are fans of Jennifer Lawrence who will never see her in "Serena." It's not her best film, but it contains one of her best performances, in a role that challenges her more than any other.

Name : Anthony Lane / Alias : New Yorker
Both actors, gracefully dressed and lightly anguished, draw deep on their professional aplomb in a bid to keep a straight face; the credible, bulked-up pain that Cooper brought to "American Sniper" seems a world away.

Name : Charlie Lyne / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
This is a film full of unremarkable compromises - the kind that result in a bland film rather than a bad one.

Name : Richard Corliss / Alias : TIME Magazine
Filmed in 2012 and finally limping into theaters like a glamorous zombie, the movie has star wattage but zero emotional voltage.

Name : Leah Greenblatt / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
Ah, well. All the best actors eventually get their Ishtar, right?

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
A Depression-era potboiler starring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence that never manages to get past the feeling of a calculated Hollywood reunion.

Name : Gary Goldstein / Alias : Los Angeles Times
The performers are as beautiful to look at here as they are intriguing to watch.

Name : Wesley Morris / Alias : Grantland
Absolutely nothing works. No one seems to understand the place or the people. And the only thing gleaned from the lumber industry is that you can build an entire movie from performances made of wood.

Name : Manohla Dargis / Alias : New York Times
The actors don't just look uncomfortable in their period duds, they also look uneasy in their own skins, which is a feat for two such natural, physically confident screen performers.

Name : Stephanie Merry / Alias : Washington Post
It's painful to watch all that talent get wasted.

Name : Peter Rainer / Alias : Christian Science Monitor
Given these unpromising circumstances, I was expecting something truly awful, and perhaps that might have been more fun to watch than this lugubrious period piece. The production values and the costumes are the true stars.

Name : Sheila O'Malley / Alias : RogerEbert.com
"The Single Moms Club" is almost good.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
Sing Street is the most romantic movie you'll find anywhere these days, brimming over with music, fun and the thrill of first love.

Name : Kyle Smith / Alias : New York Post
If "Once" was a densely crafted album, "Sing Street" is more like a perfectly crafted single: "Crazy Little Thing Called Youth."

Name : Steve Pond / Alias : TheWrap
It starts out fun and then sneaks up on you for a final stretch that is both rousing and genuinely emotional.

Name : Gary Goldstein / Alias : Los Angeles Times
Tyler Perry's The Single Moms Club is a sitcom masquerading as a feature film. And given Perry's snowballing small-screen presence, an eventual TV show of it would be no surprise.

Name : Ann Hornaday / Alias : Washington Post
Warm, ingratiating, with a beat you can dance to, "Sing Street" is a feel-good movie that never demands to be liked. Instead it asks, politely and irresistibly.

Name : Sheila O'Malley / Alias : RogerEbert.com
Carney has a humorous and loving eye for detail, an intuitive ear for dialogue, and the film is extremely personal in a way that is universal.

Name : Connie Ogle / Alias : Miami Herald
Sing Street feels personal, as well as universal, and it captures the warring factions of youthful euphoria and despair.

Name : Katie Walsh / Alias : Los Angeles Times
A sweetly funny, charming and poignant depiction of this very specific time in life - at once universal and specific - when anything seems possible. And with killer pop tunes to boot.

Name : Alonso Duralde / Alias : TheWrap
Fans of Carney's lush romanticism and hook-laden lyricism will be thrilled to add this one to their playlist.

Name : A.O. Scott / Alias : New York Times
The movie understands how enchantment and disappointment go together, like the A and B sides of a single that won't leave the turntable.

Name : Chris Nashawaty / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
Just wondering, but if these sisters are indeed capable of doing it for themselves as the film insists, why can't at least one of them do it without a man?

Name : Alan Scherstuhl / Alias : Village Voice
Singing, dreaming, making out: Despite some familiar formula, these characters make all three feel new again.

Name : Rex Reed / Alias : New York Observer
Sing Street has the potential to achieve unmistakable popularity with not only teens but also audiences of all ages.

Name : Alonso Duralde / Alias : TheWrap
In any other movie, the filmmaker would rightly be accused of trafficking in lazy stereotypes, but lazy stereotypes are the beachhead into which Tyler Perry has firmly planted his flag.

Name : Nicolas Rapold / Alias : New York Times
Mr. Perry's latest film touches upon some recognizable and realistic challenges with efficient compassion, but there's probably more dramatic tension in a car pool than in this film's collection of predicaments.

Name : Guy Lodge / Alias : Variety
Lightning strikes thrice as Irish writer-director John Carney's let's-make-a-band formula once more yields winning results.

Name : Christopher Orr / Alias : The Atlantic
I could scarcely be more delighted to report that Carney has rediscovered the magic of Once with Sing Street, another tiny, winsome charmer set in Dublin.

Name : Bilge Ebiri / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
Though Sing Street is much more stylized and broad than Once, it remains true to Carney's fondness for grounded fantasy.

Name : Leslie Felperin / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
A veritable farmyard of fun.

Name : Moira MacDonald / Alias : Seattle Times
Carney has an uncanny way of telling a story through music. "Sing Street" reminds us of being young and lost in a song, realizing with a jolt that someone else had the same feelings we did.

Name : A.A. Dowd / Alias : AV Club
The fun of Sing Street, set during a big boom period for U.K. rock, is that it allows Carney's fond, romanticized memories of his glory days to double as a musical history lesson .

Name : Brian Truitt / Alias : USA Today
Carney digs deeper than the usual universal love story to comment on Irish life in 1985 and sets it to a soundtrack that hits all the right notes for those with fond memories of Swatch watches and Trapper Keepers.

Name : Amy Nicholson / Alias : L.A. Weekly
This is How Stella Got Her Groove Back for the Pop-Tart crowd, a wish-fulfillment weepie that narrowly clears Perry's low bar, thanks mostly to Wendi McLendon-Covey and Cocoa Brown

Name : Frank Scheck / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
This is a club that you don't want to join.

Name : Calvin Wilson / Alias : St. Louis Post-Dispatch
With its intriguing characters and exhilarating music, "Sing Street" is the best film about being young, gifted and Irish since "The Commitments."

Name : Steven Rea / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
Carney understands how music not only provides a soundtrack for a life, but can change a life, too.

Name : Richard Brody / Alias : New Yorker
It's all too sweet and easy, and the band's music-which is composed by John Carney, the movie's writer and director, and Gary Clark-is bland and overproduced.

Name : Colin Covert / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
In three features, Carney has made his personal greatest hits album.

Name : Bill Zwecker / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
While the subject is very timely and worthy, this lame tale just falls completely flat.

Name : David Rooney / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
A rite-of-passage romance wrapped in a let's-make-a-band scenario, the disarming film colors its social realism with the kind of wish-fulfillment fantasy often found in a four-minute music video.

Name : Joshua Rothkopf / Alias : Time Out
Built out of crowd-pleasing elements as durable as a lacquered, sky-high '80s hairdo, writer-director John Carney's coming-of-age musical is a synth-drenched joy: a tuneful, deeply personal ode to the impulse that forges a high school rock band.

Name : Brad Wheeler / Alias : Globe and Mail
While this darling film is inspired by a year in the sentimental filmmaker's own early life, it is founded on the hope and charm of song.

Name : J. R. Jones / Alias : Chicago Reader
Here [Carney's] got the balance just right, delivering a funny and heartfelt tale about a Dublin teen in the mid-80s.

Name : David Ehrlich / Alias : indieWIRE
Once with a bigger budget and smaller actors, this is a winsomely entertaining musical tribute to how passion can pave the way towards a better life.

Name : Cary Darling / Alias : Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com
A good-natured, old-fashioned, crowd-pleasing Irish pop musical that doesn't go anywhere unexpected but has a great time getting there.

Name : Walter V. Addiego / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
Don't be deterred by the timeworn material - as a romantic vision of youth and rock, "Sing Street" is number one with a bullet.

Name : David Hiltbrand / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
The moral here is that no challenge is insurmountable if you form a club. And keep a wine opener handy.

Name : Claudia Puig / Alias : USA Today
It quickly becomes a by-the-book, overly-simplified look at a quintet of single moms who find common ground coping with the challenges of raising middle-school age children and finding romance.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
Sing Street knows what it takes to form your own band, made by a guy who really loves music.

Name : Bilge Ebiri / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
These are some great actresses, and with writer-director-producer Perry displaying some rare focus, you're intrigued at first by the possibility of watching them interact for a couple of hours. It doesn't last.

Name : Adam Graham / Alias : Detroit News
As a testament to the power of music, the bond of brotherhood and the boundless possibilities of youth, "Sing Street" just plain works.

Name : Stephanie Zacharek / Alias : TIME Magazine
You've seen every element of Sing Street hundreds of times before-it's Carney's knack for assembling them that makes the difference.

Name : Peter Keough / Alias : Boston Globe
In Tyler Perry's latest opus, "The Single Moms Club," he demonstrates how disparate stereotypes can find common ground through the power of a single cliche.

Name : Peter Debruge / Alias : Variety
For Illumination Entertainment, "Sing" is a game-changer, underscoring why company founder Chris Meledandri is the hottest name in animation today.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : New York Daily News
"Sing Street" is just like the old singles it idolizes - sharp, slick, snappy. And it leaves you with nothing more than an urge to sit through it all again.

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
The whole film is unlikely, a joyous story of youth, innocence, sweet earnestness, charming ineptitude and a shaky but productive belief on the hero's part that he can do anything he pleases.

Name : Peter Keough / Alias : Boston Globe
Those put off by the prospect of a musical in the '80s pop style of Duran Duran or Pet Shop Boys should cast their prejudices aside when it comes to John Carney's "Sing Street." You might find yourself singing along.

Name : Alison Willmore / Alias : BuzzFeed News
The film captures the earnestness and the silliness of the boys' efforts, but also how little that matters when you're discovering what it feels like to create something.

Name : Scott Foundas / Alias : Variety
A surprisingly sharp and funny female-empowerment ensembler.

Name : Scott Marks / Alias : San Diego Reader
John Carney (Begin Again) once again tries to reheat a Once souffle and instead serves up a flat, cheerily antiseptic period musical.

Name : Tim Grierson / Alias : The New Republic
The beguiling modesty of the film ends up being even more important than its music or incredibly likable characters. Like most of the bands it honors, "Sing Street" may be a bit disposable, but its electric emotions linger like a warm memory.

Name : Jordan Hoffman / Alias : New York Daily News
[T]his is a film about catharsis and camaraderie, not logic.

Name : Bill Goodykoontz / Alias : Arizona Republic
A delightful film that is almost impossible to watch without a smile on your face.