Frequency: Critic Reviews

Why gripe about a few minor inconsistencies? Just relax and enjoy the show.

Quaid's buoyant earnestness complements the stunning, low-key performance by Caviezel, whose close-ups give new meaning to the idea that still waters run deep.

Movies sometimes end up looking like a head-on collision between opposing impulses. Frequency is that kind of movie.

The only way this Twilight Zone-wannabe movie works is that if, after buying into the premise, you turn off your mind, suspending all rational thought processes.

Scary, tense, grisly mystery-thriller.

Gregory Hoblit's best film generates Spielbergian fascination with temporal drama of twisting timelines, infused with personal conflict and situational tension. It blends "Back to the Future's" rush with "Backdraft's" firefighting and a dash of "Zodiac."

If you see the movie, ask yourself what would be the most upbeat ending possible; you'll see it all and more.

Like a kid who builds and details a lovely sand castle on the beach and then stomps all over it, the movie is completely destroyed in the last 15 minutes.

This ambitious but frustrating timeshift thriller never quite manages to jam together two distinct stories.

Good action, lots of suspense, Dennis Quaid, and an intriguing Time Travel concept. What more could you ask?

An intelligent science fiction thriller that also happens to be a solid father/son movie. It's entertainment aimed at the adult, not teen, audience and squarely hits the mark. Forgive the Hollywood ending.

Features plenty of soft-focus, picture-perfect, father-and-son baseball scenes, an enormous amount of plot, and not quite enough of anything else.

Creates an ingenious twist for the time travel story.

Director Gregory Hoblit has managed to bypass the bulk of the schmaltz and inject real tension.

It's amazing what kind of cool stuff you can come up with if you first throw logic and physics out the window.

It's difficult not to notice certain dramatic flaws in Frequency's speculative narrative logic.

There also are too many collage sequences indicating time shifts. The first two or three are interesting; after that they become dizzying, and finally downright annoying.

The plot may be out-and-out absurd. But the action-packed script, Mr. Hoblit's fast-paced direction and the array of engaging performances made Frequency easy to embrace.

...better executed than conceived

a combination fantasy/tearjerker/thriller with several dizzying twists. It's the first screenplay of former film industry executive Noah Emmerich, and it all but overflows with imagination, suspense and big ideas.

A fairly wonderful movie about fathers and sons and the mystery of time.

Touches upon the profound human longing to escape the constraints of time, to see the wrongs and mistakes of the past somehow set right, redeemed.

A psychological thriller about the deepening of a father-son relationship.

The film succeeds because it chooses to focus on the human side of the story.

Fascinating enough to hold our interest, even as it drifts away from its early promise and tries just a bit too hard to bring all of the plot threads to a happy, tidy conclusion. But then, believability isn't an issue here.