Name : Steven Rea / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
If there are moments that aspire to the smart satire of the Austin Powers franchise, they're fleeting.

Name : Michelle Orange / Alias : L.A. Weekly
About as unremarkable as a film about talking animals organized into competing intelligence agencies can be.

Name : Mike Hale / Alias : New York Times
Mostly, though, Kitty Galore is a grind, as well as proof that "What up, dog?" isn't any funnier when a pigeon says it to a dog.

Name : Jennie Punter / Alias : Globe and Mail
Dogs and cats are far funnier and more engaging when they behave like, well, dogs and cats.

Name : Moira MacDonald / Alias : Seattle Times
The only wit on display here is Roger Moore plummily intoning the phrase "butt-sniffing."

Name : Eric D. Snider / Alias : Film.com
It succeeds as a modestly funny midsummer diversion.

Name : Roger Moore / Alias : Orlando Sentinel
This chatty 3D spy spoof is as hard-pressed for laughs as Marmaduke, once you get past the novelty of "Hey, the dogs and cats are TALKING."

Name : Scott Tobias / Alias : AV Club
Having real animals speak through the hideous magic of CGI is inherently creepy, and it's depressing to hear kitty and doggy thoughts come out so banal and jokey.

Name : Kirk Honeycutt / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
Too many frantic CGI critters ruin this spy movie with pets.

Name : Ignatiy Vishnevetsky / Alias : AV Club
Like some toxic-sludge mutant grown in the racks of a mom-and-pop video store, Max crosses alarmist plotting with canine hijinks and hamfisted family drama that would feel at home in the era of the white clamshell VHS case.

Name : Glenn Kenny / Alias : MSN Movies
It's with the ostensibly adult humor that the picture gets into trouble. . This funny-animal man saw a lot of potential go to waste .

Name : Dan Kois / Alias : Washington Post
Cats and dogs working together for the greater good? Woof.

Name : Adam Graham / Alias : Detroit News
The kitties and puppies are cute to look at, no doubt, but your average cat on YouTube is far more charming than anything in this kitty litter.

Name : Billy Heller / Alias : New York Post
A harmless but fun hot-weather diversion for the family.

Name : Claudia Puig / Alias : USA Today
The notion of pets leading a double life has been much tapped for family movies, and the kid-friendly spy genre has been wrung dry.

Name : Christy Lemire / Alias : Associated Press
For grown-ups, kids, dogs, cats - whoever's watching, there's enough here to keep them entertained.

Name : Glenn Whipp / Alias : Los Angeles Times
Better than the original Cats & Dogs. But so is a rabies shot.

Name : Derek Adams / Alias : Time Out
The script suggests it was developed on the hoof; the CGI is low grade stuff; and the human performances are loathsome.

Name : Amy Biancolli / Alias : Houston Chronicle
Exploits every cliche with abundant good cheer and an admirable, unapologetic ridiculousness.

Name : Ty Burr / Alias : Boston Globe
Civilization as we know it has ceased to exist.

Name : Adam Markovitz / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
No movie - whether aimed at adults or kids or canines themselves - has the right to be as tiresome and unoriginal as this action-comedy mutt.

Name : Joe Leydon / Alias : Variety
None of the satirical touches are ever allowed to impede the pic's madcap pace from one raucous setpiece to the next.

Name : Lou Lumenick / Alias : New York Post
The Belgian malinoises who play Max way out-act the humans.

Name : Bill Goodykoontz / Alias : Arizona Republic
It's all rather silly and somewhat sweet.

Name : Bob Mondello / Alias : NPR
'Leviathan' is structured as an intimate suspense story, with a Job-like hero on whom all sorts of hell will be visited by an uncaring state.

Name : Peter Debruge / Alias : Variety
Nothing will surprise Zvyagintsev fans more than discovering how funny the film is, as the helmer and co-writer Oleg Negin extend the darkly satirical streak they began with Elena.

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
The movie expands, breathtakingly, into mordant humor, impenetrable mystery, ferocious satire and classic tragedy.

Name : Dave Calhoun / Alias : Time Out
This is a whale of a movie, grotesque and a little bloated but impossible to ignore.

Name : Joe McGovern / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
What emerges is a Putin-offending critique of how the power-abusing state and the power-worshipping church collude to create millions of Jobs.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
Director Andrey Zvyagintsev puts contemporary Russia, as up-to-the-minute as Putin and Pussy Riot, under the microscope. Leviathan is a stupendous piece of work that transcends language and borders.

Name : Bilge Ebiri / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
Filled with a desolate beauty.

Name : Anthony Lane / Alias : New Yorker
Many conversations start and end around a kitchen table. Why, then, should we be left with such an impression of grandeur, limitless suffering, and wrath?

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
This is really a movie about a feeling, or really, about a lack of feeling - about what happens to people in a dominant culture of bullying and abuse, when they have no escape except what's inside the next bottle, no options except not waking up.

Name : Graham Fuller / Alias : New York Daily News
A bleak, beautiful, and bitterly funny parable of post-Soviet Russia.

Name : Farran Smith Nehme / Alias : New York Post
Director Andrey Zvyagintsev's film combines allegory, brutal melodrama, black humor and strikingly beautiful compositions, each frame dense with meaning.

Name : Stephanie Zacharek / Alias : Village Voice
The heart and soul of Leviathan is Serebriakov's Kolia, who carries deep sorrow in his eyes and on his shoulders, even as he fends off defeat for longer than you'd imagine possible.

Name : Kenneth Turan / Alias : Los Angeles Times
Bleak and relentless as well as impeccably made, biblical in its name as well as its moral outrage at the powerlessness of the individual in the face of unchecked authority, "Leviathan" is dealing with nothing less than the current state of Russia's soul.

Name : Manohla Dargis / Alias : New York Times
Despite flashes of absurdist comedy from some secondary characters, the movie closes around you like the fist it protests and laments.

Name : Mike D'Angelo / Alias : AV Club
Leviathan is another downer, but it's considerably looser and livelier than its predecessors, verging at times on black comedy.

Name : Leslie Felperin / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
Andrei Zvyagintsev's fourth feature is a thriller, a black social comedy, and a thinly veiled swipe at Putin's regime in one tidy package.

Name : Peter Rainer / Alias : Christian Science Monitor
For all his failings, Kolya, in the movie's terms, is a natural man, and so his fate in fighting his implacable enemies in the state has a mythic resonance. The movie would not be as powerful as it is if he were haloed.