Phantom features some wonky visual effects, but one either buys into a film of this kind or not.

| Mar 4, 2013

Ed Harris and company can't lift this one off the seafloor, and "Phantom" fades away into the murky mist.

| Original Score: C- | Mar 3, 2013

A game effort by a decent cast highlights the old-fashioned submarine thriller "Phantom," but heavy-handed dialogue, flurries of melodrama and a silly ending make the whole enterprise sink like a stone.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Mar 1, 2013

It's not something you want to plunk down $12 for, but just diverting enough to check out when it arrives on Netflix Instant.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Mar 1, 2013

[Its] admirable air of realism dissipates once Robinson takes viewers outside the sub, where torpedo skirmishes are staged with too-perfect CGI bombast.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Mar 1, 2013

Writer/director Todd Robinson clearly cares passionately about the material but he loses track of the narrative.

| Original Score: C | Feb 28, 2013

"Phantom" has a pulpy B-movie intensity and economy to match its cast of quality character actors.

| Feb 28, 2013

The basis for the film's confusing, clich-stuffed plot is the mysterious sinking of a Soviet submarine in 1968 - an event around which Mr. Robinson spins a yarn of unpardonable monotony.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 28, 2013

A modest thriller propelled by a strong cast and straightforward storytelling.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 28, 2013

As one might expect from a submarine drama, Phantom is claustrophobic and confining. If only it were compelling.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Feb 28, 2013

A challenge that offers zero rewards.

| Original Score: 0.5/4 | Feb 28, 2013

Phantom offers no more plausible a vision of the doomed K-129 than A Good Day to Die Hard does of post-meltdown Chernobyl.

| Feb 28, 2013

Ed Harris in "Phantom" is like Steve Carlton with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1972 - delivering a wall-to-wall, amazing performance that's lost in a sea of dreadfulness.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Feb 28, 2013

The plot is dragged down by a script filled with awkward exposition and blunt audience cues.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Feb 28, 2013

A film that promises the threat of World War III sinks limply into the murky depths.

| Original Score: C | Feb 28, 2013

How did this submarine movie turn out so unseaworthy?

| Original Score: 2/4 | Feb 28, 2013

There's a lot to like about Phantom, but the movie, like the rust-bucket old submarine in which most of it takes place, would be better off dry-docked.

| Feb 27, 2013

To sustain tension, you need the kind of claustrophobic camera movement, high-strung talk and gritty character development that are badly needed in any submarine movie and are sadly missing in Phantom.

| Feb 27, 2013

What is up with combinations of Ed Harris, water, and unbelievably hokey endings?

| Feb 26, 2013

As far as such potboilers go, Phantom is literate, tense and, thankfully, modest.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 26, 2013