When it comes to action movies, absurd, suspend-your-disbelief twists can be forgiven if the movie was exciting and propulsive. But what can't be forgiven is dullness.

| Original Score: 1.5/5 | May 18, 2020

This movie is just inane.

| Original Score: 3.5/10 | Feb 7, 2020

This film is a mess. It's so grim and inept.

| Original Score: 0.5/5 | Feb 5, 2020

The plot is risible. The action worse. The wait for lady Bond continues.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 3, 2020

To describe The Rhythm Section in the musical parlance it employs: The action movie has no sense of tempo, and no melody.

| Feb 3, 2020

This movie (The Rhythm Section) is devoid of thrills and personality and short on incident and local color.

| Original Score: 2/10 | Feb 3, 2020

This witless and soulless thriller squanders a formidable cast, including Blake Lively and Jude Law, who endure arduous fight scenes in a doomed effort to lend the flimsy plot some plausibility.

| Feb 3, 2020

[This] revenge-fueled espionage tale of assassination, paranoia and terrorism never finds its footing.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Feb 3, 2020

Lively makes off with one of her best performances ever, and one that makes an unexpected case for giving the actress a real action franchise next time around.

| Original Score: B | Feb 1, 2020

Director Reed Morano's atmospheric, globe-hopping revenge thriller is a decent film - nothing more, nothing less.

| Feb 1, 2020

Launches Morano into a new world of action/thriller filmmaking, and her unique style is a welcome refresh for the genre. But while it certainly has a spirit, it often loses the beat.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Feb 1, 2020

Blake Lively is a compelling central force that grounds the film's tornado of contrivances.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jan 31, 2020

The Rhythm Section lacks any rhythm of its own.

| Jan 31, 2020

The film is woefully one-note, and that note is a half-hearted grunt.

| Jan 31, 2020

Morano's camera embraces gorgeous decay, whether in dusty North Africa or the squalor of London. She has a quirk of capturing animals - bugs, sheep, birds and even a lizard - as well as bleak, beautiful loneliness of remote parts of Britain.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 31, 2020

Cinematographer turned director Reed Morano stages some hard-hitting action sequences, including the aforementioned kitchen fight, but they're lost in a plot that is as unconvincing as Lively's British accent.

| Original Score: D | Jan 31, 2020

Blake Lively tries hard as a woman hellbent on vengeance, but grinding monotony is the real killer in this formulaic action thriller that leaps off the cliff of cliche into the valley of banality.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 31, 2020

Somewhere along the line, a potentially promising idea has curdled into off-key pandemonium.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 31, 2020

Blake Lively gives it her all in The Rhythm Section, but the movie only meets her halfway.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jan 31, 2020

Played by a series of bad wigs with Blake Lively in a supporting role.

| Original Score: C- | Jan 31, 2020