Name : Jordan Hoffman / Alias : New York Daily News
If this Semitic "Strictly Ballroom" and its campy, colorful characters (including a hummus baron!) don't win you over, you may want to check your pulse.

Name : Andy Webster / Alias : New York Times
This candy-coated confection is so irresistible that you're captivated by its sentiment even as you acknowledge its manipulations.

Name : Ronnie Scheib / Alias : Variety
Israeli helmer Eytan Fox's candy-colored musical is an endearingly goofy celebration of the right to be yourself.

Name : Sheri Linden / Alias : Los Angeles Times
Though the comic confection's clunky moments keep it from achieving souffle delicacy, its bright zingers and seamless fantasy sequences amp the playfulness, and the mostly unforced performances complement the production's cartoonish exuberance.

Name : Ben Sachs / Alias : Chicago Reader
The story soon gives way to characters kvetching about romance and the working world, their sentiments recycled from the director's other movies.

Name : Serena Donadoni / Alias : Village Voice
Fox infuses Cupcakes with Ofer's can-do optimism, where the power of song can overcome any personal or professional strife.

Name : Tom Huddleston / Alias : Time Out
The sort of movie that adjectives like 'frothy' and 'bubbly' were invented for.

Name : Laremy Legel / Alias : Film.com
Kudos to Ben Affleck, actor and director, for delivering a vital and thrilling political actioner.

Name : Rafer Guzman / Alias : Newsday
It's a well-told story that's timely, topical and thoroughly entertaining.

Name : Anthony Lane / Alias : New Yorker
Clever, taut, and restrained.

Name : Lisa Kennedy / Alias : Denver Post
Argo has that solid, kick-the-tires feel of those studio films from the 70s that were about something but also entertained. Only it's as laugh outright amusing as it is sobering.

Name : Colin Covert / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
An impressive mix of serious suspense filmmaking and ironic, mood-lightening humor. And it has the added distinction of being mostly true, based on a declassified CIA operation.

Name : Moira MacDonald / Alias : Seattle Times
"Argo" is both an inspiring tale of risk and heroism, and a crackling piece of entertainment.

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
"Argo" exults in what a movie can do when its story has a compelling core.

Name : Keith Phipps / Alias : AV Club
The film glides skillfully from the perilous front lines of international espionage to the lower reaches of show business and back again, quietly drawing parallels between worlds in which appearances are everything.

Name : Lou Lumenick / Alias : New York Post
If you didn't know otherwise, you'd swear this was the work of a veteran master like Steven Soderbergh.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
Ben Affleck doesn't merely direct Argo, he directs the hell out of it, nailing the quickening pace, the wayward humor, the nerve-frying suspense. There's no doubt he's crafted one of the best movies of the year.

Name : Andrew O'Hehir / Alias : Salon.com
With America's tormented relationship with Iran back on the global front burner, "Argo" is also a crafty, reflective mood piece that will leave you thinking about the resounding echoes of that tormented and not-so-distant era.

Name : Wesley Morris / Alias : Boston Globe
[Affleck's] ambition for the thriller has gone international, it's gone important, but, crucially, not self-important.

Name : Rex Reed / Alias : New York Observer
Argo is a triumph. It has tension, sincerity, mystery, artistic responsibility, entertainment value, technical expertise, a narrative arc and a thrilling respect for the tradition of how to tell a story with minimum frills and maximum impact.

Name : Christy Lemire / Alias : Associated Press
While steeped in the trends and filmmaking style of the decade, "Argo" still feels immediate and relevant. Affleck's best film yet is also one of the best films of the year.

Name : Bill Goodykoontz / Alias : Arizona Republic
It re-creates the mood of an era, a nation's frustration and anger, all while rollicking along with a crackling adventure.

Name : Glenn Kenny / Alias : MSN Movies
"'Argo' is quite a satisfactory impossible mission indeed."

Name : Roger Ebert / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
Both spellbinding and surprisingly funny.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
If nothing else, it proves that every so often, the CIA can pull something off - and that yes, Canadians are just about the nicest people on the planet.

Name : Leah Rozen / Alias : TheWrap
Let's just say that the movie's final section is so nail-bitingly tense, thanks to a skillful combination of acting, writing and crosscutting, that it puts Affleck in the big leagues as a director.

Name : David Thomson / Alias : The New Republic
Entertaining and suspenseful in old-fashioned ways.

Name : Joe Williams / Alias : St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Before he was a Middle Eastern studies major, Ben Affleck dreamed of directing a movie that mattered. "Argo" is his dream come true.

Name : Ann Hornaday / Alias : Washington Post
It's serious and substantive, an ingeniously written and executed drama fashioned from a fascinating, little-known chapter of recent history.

Name : Amy Biancolli / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
Even though most people know the outcome, this movie still will have you on the edge of your seat.

Name : Dana Stevens / Alias : Slate
Argo is a rollicking yarn, easily the most cohesive and technically accomplished of Affleck's three films so far, but a part of me wishes the director hadn't cast himself in the lead role.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
A lot of movies take us back to the late '70s/early '80s, but few have done it so forcefully and with so little application of kitsch.

Name : Bob Mondello / Alias : NPR
The script is snappy, but the real accomplishment here is how Affleck, who both stars in and directs Argo, manages to segue from Ocean's 11-style repartee to pulse-pounding tension and back again.

Name : Michael Phillips / Alias : Chicago Tribune
The propulsive hostage thriller "Argo," the third feature directed by Ben Affleck, just plain works.

Name : Joshua Rothkopf / Alias : Time Out New York
Out in the audience, you never shake the feeling-partly intentional-that Argo itself is swaddled in a kind of phony ersatzness.

Name : Randy Myers / Alias : San Jose Mercury News
Affleck captures not just the way we looked and acted during this era, but vividly brings history to life.

Name : J. R. Jones / Alias : Chicago Reader
Fact-based but politically cautious.

Name : Owen Gleiberman / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
Argo is never less than wildly entertaining, but a major part of its power is that it so ominously captures the kickoff to the world we're in now.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
The film is a whopper of a tale, one designed for Oscar nominations, Best Picture and Best Director among them.

Name : Joe Neumaier / Alias : New York Daily News
An entertaining, real-life, race-the-clock thriller that nabs you at the start and never makes a wrong move.

Name : Robert Philpot / Alias : Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com
With Affleck's continued growth as a director, it makes you want to see what he will deliver next.

Name : Karina Longworth / Alias : Village Voice
It's an embodiment of the kind of quality adult film that really shouldn't be an endangered species, and a love letter from Affleck to the industry that made him, shunned him, and loves nothing more than to be loved.

Name : Richard Corliss / Alias : TIME Magazine
Argo is just so-so.

Name : Kenneth Turan / Alias : Los Angeles Times
Affleck easily orchestrates this complex film with 120 speaking parts as it moves from inside-the-Beltway espionage thriller to inside Hollywood dark comedy to gripping international hostage drama, all without missing a step.

Name : Liam Lacey / Alias : Globe and Mail
Argo is a movie of many parts, the sum of which can probably be best described as enjoyable Hollywood hokum.

Name : Tom Charity / Alias : CNN.com
Affleck himself turns in a quietly impressive movie star performance. Tony Mendez is a kind of anti-Bourne, comfortable with his anonymity, living off his wits, not his fists.

Name : Richard Roeper / Alias : Richard Roeper.com
'Argo' is one of the best movies of the year.

Name : Rene Rodriguez / Alias : Miami Herald
The movie is accomplished enough to stand alongside the 1970s political thrillers that inspired it, right down to the vintage red-and-black Warner Bros. logo that opens the film.

Name : Manohla Dargis / Alias : New York Times
In the end, this is a story about outwitting rather than killing the enemy, making it a homage to actual intelligence and an example of the same.

Name : Steven Rea / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
It's high-class Hollywood, not the low-rent and exploitative route that the make-believe movie at the heart of this tale would have taken.

Name : Chris Vognar / Alias : Dallas Morning News
A tone-perfect hybrid of insider show-biz spoof and tense spy thriller.

Name : Tom Long / Alias : Detroit News
It may not have a lot beyond its outrageous story, but the story is undeniably a doozy, and the movie is a blast.

Name : Peter Rainer / Alias : Christian Science Monitor
The movieland satire is laid on thick, but it's also deadly accurate. Schlock has never seemed so patriotic, and Arkin and Goodman have rarely been so good.

Name : Peter Debruge / Alias : Variety
White-knuckle tense and less self-congratulatory than it sounds, Ben Affleck's unexpectedly comedic third feature has the vital elements to delight adult auds.

Name : Claudia Puig / Alias : USA Today
Fusing suspense and humor in a political thriller is a tricky prospect, but Argo is more than up to the task.

Name : Tom Huddleston / Alias : Time Out
For 100 minutes, 'Argo' is close to flawless.

Name : David Edelstein / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
A marvel of cunning, an irresistible blend of cool realism and Hollywood hokum.