Name : J. R. Jones a.k.a Chicago Reader I guess I'll have to read the Dave Eggers novel to figure out what this thing is about.

Name : Stephen Whitty a.k.a Newark Star-Ledger This film is surprisingly sweet.

Name : Ethan Sacks a.k.a New York Daily News After a first act that seems to promise a biting comedy, the film gets lost in the desert - literally and figuratively.

Name : Moira MacDonald a.k.a Seattle Times This stranger-in-a-strange-land mood piece has an appealingly serene pace.

Name : Richard Roeper a.k.a Chicago Sun-Times Writer-director Tykwer skillfully presents a series of fantastical scenes in a way that has us thinking: Sure, that could happen. This is quite simply a beautiful film to behold.

Name : Colin Covert a.k.a Minneapolis Star Tribune It's not entirely free of stereotypes or sentimental moments. What it is, though, is amazingly likable.

Name : Tony Hicks a.k.a San Jose Mercury News "A Hologram for the King" is disappointing mostly in that it could have been been better. But that doesn't make it bad.

Name : Michael Phillips a.k.a Chicago Tribune The tone and rhythms are pushy, forced, strained, like the expression on Hanks' face. What should be casual punctuation, filmed in medium shot, ends up in bam-pow close-ups.

Name : Cary Darling a.k.a Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com Starring Tom Hanks and directed and written by Tom Tykwer ( Cloud Atlas, Run Lola Run), it veers from dark comedy to drama to buddy movie to romance without being particularly successful at any of them.

Name : Keith Uhlich a.k.a AV Club A Hologram For The King is a 97-minute movie that feels like it was cut down from two-hours-plus, with whole subplots reduced or jettisoned in what was likely an arduous post-production period.

Name : Ann Hornaday a.k.a Washington Post It's that rare fish-out-of-water story in which the fish miraculously manages to stop needing water, and learns to crave air instead.

Name : Tom Russo a.k.a Boston Globe It's like an international-relations microcosm imagined by the Coen brothers, down to an occasional sense that the absurdity isn't taking us anywhere.

Name : Peter Howell a.k.a Toronto Star Tom Hanks exerts such a gravitational force in his movies, sometimes to his detriment, it's fascinating to watch him struggle for equilibrium in Tom Tykwer's A Hologram for the King.

Name : Mick LaSalle a.k.a San Francisco Chronicle It's a strange thing: A Hologram for the King is mostly about a series of nuisances, annoyances and stresses, and yet it's a pleasure from beginning to end.

Name : Matthew Lickona a.k.a San Diego Reader Director Tom Tykwer (Cloud Atlas), who also adapted the screenplay from Dave Eggers novel, displays a fine eye and a light touch with cultural detail, and isn't nearly as harsh on his hero as he might have (ought to have?) been.

Name : Justin Chang a.k.a Variety The movie conjures no shortage of potent images, but push a bit deeper and your fist closes on empty air.

Name : Sheri Linden a.k.a Hollywood Reporter The focus on the way individuals adapt to and defy custom is one of the smartest aspects of the film.

Name : Bilge Ebiri a.k.a Village Voice It may start with a big burst of energy, but this is a sad, somber film about a world that's slowly, knowingly losing touch with the real.

Name : Rafer Guzman a.k.a Newsday An earnest but aimless-feeling adaptation of Dave Eggers' novel.

Name : Jim Slotek a.k.a Toronto Sun A "Death of a Salesman" for the out-sourcing era, A Hologram for the King makes full use of Tom Hanks' default note, an everyman struggling painfully against the tide.

Name : Joe Morgenstern a.k.a Wall Street Journal Here's a case of consistently miscalibrated tone, from the first clumsy stabs at humor to the hero's default expression, which is painfully pained.

Name : Calvin Wilson a.k.a St. Louis Post-Dispatch It's true that not much happens - except cinema at its finest.

Name : Randy Cordova a.k.a Arizona Republic Is it predictable? Oh, sure. But it's also fun, for the most part.