Name : A.A. Dowd / Alias : AV Club
Green demonstrates no control over his star, who dodders through the movie in a sleepy daze.

Name : Alonso Duralde / Alias : TheWrap
The low-key, dialed-down acting that Green has elicited from the frequently hammy Pacino - on the heels of Nicolas Cage's sensitive turn in Green's Joe - establishes the filmmaker as the go-to sponsor for members of Overactors Anonymous.

Name : Noel Murray / Alias : Los Angeles Times
At times, this movie feels too much like the Christian version of "The Phantom Menace," offering unnecessary explanations for well-known stories.

Name : Christy Lemire / Alias : RogerEbert.com
We know how the story ends, so there's little in the way of tension.

Name : Christian Holub / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
The Young Messiah struggles to hold its audience's attention.

Name : Andy Webster / Alias : New York Times
"The Young Messiah" performs no miracles.

Name : Keith Uhlich / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
This uninspiring, borderline inept spiritual drama about the Son of God's formative years preaches to the choir.

Name : Dave White / Alias : TheWrap
Perhaps realizing that enticing nonbelievers into another movie about the life of Christ may necessitate the wild-style of a director like Darren Aronofsky, the filmmakers decided to play it safe rather than risk conservative Evangelical rejection.

Name : Nick Schager / Alias : Variety
This pious drama is a work of minimal imagination and even less subtlety.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
The Lazarus Effect begins with an intriguing premise then proceeds to squander all the early goodwill through a slow, inexorable descent into cheap horror gimmicks.

Name : Ben Sachs / Alias : Chicago Reader
It's thematically thin but competently made and good for a few scares.

Name : James Rocchi / Alias : TheWrap
The Lazarus Effect doesn't exactly break new ground, but it nonetheless finds plenty to relish in the mouldering bits it stitches together as it gives classic themes about death, life and the soul a literal and figurative shot in the arm.

Name : Colin Covert / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
The film intends to explore the nature and mystery of death, but devolves into a combination of trivial science fiction and banal "Pet Sematary" havoc.

Name : Joe Neumaier / Alias : New York Daily News
Doesn't go far enough, isn't scary enough and has mad scientists who just aren't mad enough.

Name : Mick LaSalle / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
This is an 83-minute movie that feels a half hour longer and, if it weren't for the loud crescendos, it would put people to sleep.

Name : A.A. Dowd / Alias : AV Club
Like too many horror films, this one seems targeted at a hypothetical audience using only 10 percent of its brainpower.

Name : Richard Roeper / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
"The Lazarus Effect" is nothing but a cheap horror film cloaked in scientific mumbo-jumbo.

Name : Frank Scheck / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
The film squanders whatever potential it had, not to mention the talents of such performers as Duplass and Wilde who clearly deserve better.

Name : Gary Goldstein / Alias : Los Angeles Times
A tense, efficient medical thriller best enjoyed sans microscope.

Name : Kevin C. Johnson / Alias : St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"The Lazarus Effect" boasts nothing special. It's not going to provide much relief for horror-starved audiences.

Name : Brad Wheeler / Alias : Globe and Mail
No resurrection for this dog please.

Name : Rafer Guzman / Alias : Newsday
Another cheapie from the producers of "Paranormal Activity." Aims low, but hits its target.

Name : Geoff Berkshire / Alias : Variety
Mark Duplass and Olivia Wilde struggle to breathe life into a recycled thriller about the horrors of reanimation.

Name : Lou Lumenick / Alias : New York Post
Looks like it was directed by a blind and deaf person over a weekend on a leftover laboratory set from a TV show and edited with a roulette wheel.

Name : Soren Anderson / Alias : Seattle Times
You've seen it all before. The only question is: Why haven't they?

Name : Peter Keough / Alias : Boston Globe
There are lessons to be learned from this minimalist thriller. The first is that scaring people requires more than just tossing furniture around, turning the lights off and on, and basically sneaking up from behind and shouting "Boo!"

Name : Bruce Demara / Alias : Toronto Star
While The Lazarus Effect isn't the worst scary movie film you'll see this year, it is probably one of the most predictable and lazily plotted.

Name : Claudia Puig / Alias : USA Today
Absorbing, well-crafted and appropriately tense, with a smart cast that raises it a notch above average.

Name : Simon Abrams / Alias : Village Voice
Death may not be the end in The Lazarus Effect, but it should be.

Name : Michael O'Sullivan / Alias : Washington Post
It staggers, zombielike, from one jump-scare to another before petering out, a scant 83 minutes after rising from the slab.

Name : Tirdad Derakhshani / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
Mildly enjoyable despite its basic mediocrity .

Name : Ben Kenigsberg / Alias : New York Times
[A] risible mix of pseudoscientific hokum and supernatural freakouts.

Name : Bilge Ebiri / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
A grimy, dopey, confused thriller that wastes a very likable cast.

Name : Keith Staskiewicz / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
I would have loved to see more from the filmmakers, daring to fail while staking out some new terror incognita instead of just going through the motions of an experiment for which we already have the results.