Name : Jette Kernion / Alias : indieWIRE
Only James McAvoy's multi-faceted performance saves the movie from complete mediocrity.

Name : John DeFore / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
The director ties themes together at the end with more finesse than usual, letting a couple of meaningful visuals speak for themselves where he might have thrown in a line or two of explanatory dialogue.

Name : Katie Rife / Alias : AV Club
Split is a solid example of the type of elevated B-movie potboiler at which Shyamalan excels, and to which he thankfully seems to be re-committing his energies.

Name : Richard Brody / Alias : New Yorker
It's all too sweet and easy, and the band's music-which is composed by John Carney, the movie's writer and director, and Gary Clark-is bland and overproduced.

Name : Nicolas Rapold / Alias : New York Times
Mr. Perry's latest film touches upon some recognizable and realistic challenges with efficient compassion, but there's probably more dramatic tension in a car pool than in this film's collection of predicaments.

Name : A.O. Scott / Alias : New York Times
The movie understands how enchantment and disappointment go together, like the A and B sides of a single that won't leave the turntable.

Name : Christopher Orr / Alias : The Atlantic
I could scarcely be more delighted to report that Carney has rediscovered the magic of Once with Sing Street, another tiny, winsome charmer set in Dublin.

Name : Bilge Ebiri / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
Though Sing Street is much more stylized and broad than Once, it remains true to Carney's fondness for grounded fantasy.

Name : A.A. Dowd / Alias : AV Club
The fun of Sing Street, set during a big boom period for U.K. rock, is that it allows Carney's fond, romanticized memories of his glory days to double as a musical history lesson .

Name : Gary Goldstein / Alias : Los Angeles Times
Tyler Perry's The Single Moms Club is a sitcom masquerading as a feature film. And given Perry's snowballing small-screen presence, an eventual TV show of it would be no surprise.

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
The whole film is unlikely, a joyous story of youth, innocence, sweet earnestness, charming ineptitude and a shaky but productive belief on the hero's part that he can do anything he pleases.

Name : Frank Scheck / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
This is a club that you don't want to join.

Name : Cary Darling / Alias : Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com
A good-natured, old-fashioned, crowd-pleasing Irish pop musical that doesn't go anywhere unexpected but has a great time getting there.

Name : Sheila O'Malley / Alias : RogerEbert.com
Carney has a humorous and loving eye for detail, an intuitive ear for dialogue, and the film is extremely personal in a way that is universal.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
Sing Street knows what it takes to form your own band, made by a guy who really loves music.

Name : Bill Goodykoontz / Alias : Arizona Republic
A delightful film that is almost impossible to watch without a smile on your face.

Name : Sheila O'Malley / Alias : RogerEbert.com
"The Single Moms Club" is almost good.

Name : Stephanie Zacharek / Alias : TIME Magazine
You've seen every element of Sing Street hundreds of times before-it's Carney's knack for assembling them that makes the difference.

Name : Katie Walsh / Alias : Los Angeles Times
A sweetly funny, charming and poignant depiction of this very specific time in life - at once universal and specific - when anything seems possible. And with killer pop tunes to boot.

Name : Peter Keough / Alias : Boston Globe
In Tyler Perry's latest opus, "The Single Moms Club," he demonstrates how disparate stereotypes can find common ground through the power of a single cliche.

Name : Calvin Wilson / Alias : St. Louis Post-Dispatch
With its intriguing characters and exhilarating music, "Sing Street" is the best film about being young, gifted and Irish since "The Commitments."

Name : Alonso Duralde / Alias : TheWrap
Fans of Carney's lush romanticism and hook-laden lyricism will be thrilled to add this one to their playlist.

Name : J. R. Jones / Alias : Chicago Reader
Here [Carney's] got the balance just right, delivering a funny and heartfelt tale about a Dublin teen in the mid-80s.

Name : Bill Zwecker / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
While the subject is very timely and worthy, this lame tale just falls completely flat.

Name : Colin Covert / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
In three features, Carney has made his personal greatest hits album.

Name : Steven Rea / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
Carney understands how music not only provides a soundtrack for a life, but can change a life, too.

Name : Alison Willmore / Alias : BuzzFeed News
The film captures the earnestness and the silliness of the boys' efforts, but also how little that matters when you're discovering what it feels like to create something.

Name : David Ehrlich / Alias : indieWIRE
Once with a bigger budget and smaller actors, this is a winsomely entertaining musical tribute to how passion can pave the way towards a better life.

Name : Kyle Smith / Alias : New York Post
If "Once" was a densely crafted album, "Sing Street" is more like a perfectly crafted single: "Crazy Little Thing Called Youth."

Name : Peter Debruge / Alias : Variety
For Illumination Entertainment, "Sing" is a game-changer, underscoring why company founder Chris Meledandri is the hottest name in animation today.

Name : Connie Ogle / Alias : Miami Herald
Sing Street feels personal, as well as universal, and it captures the warring factions of youthful euphoria and despair.

Name : Tim Grierson / Alias : The New Republic
The beguiling modesty of the film ends up being even more important than its music or incredibly likable characters. Like most of the bands it honors, "Sing Street" may be a bit disposable, but its electric emotions linger like a warm memory.

Name : Jordan Hoffman / Alias : New York Daily News
[T]his is a film about catharsis and camaraderie, not logic.

Name : David Rooney / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
A rite-of-passage romance wrapped in a let's-make-a-band scenario, the disarming film colors its social realism with the kind of wish-fulfillment fantasy often found in a four-minute music video.

Name : Scott Foundas / Alias : Variety
A surprisingly sharp and funny female-empowerment ensembler.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
Sing Street is the most romantic movie you'll find anywhere these days, brimming over with music, fun and the thrill of first love.

Name : Adam Graham / Alias : Detroit News
As a testament to the power of music, the bond of brotherhood and the boundless possibilities of youth, "Sing Street" just plain works.

Name : Rex Reed / Alias : New York Observer
Sing Street has the potential to achieve unmistakable popularity with not only teens but also audiences of all ages.

Name : Brad Wheeler / Alias : Globe and Mail
While this darling film is inspired by a year in the sentimental filmmaker's own early life, it is founded on the hope and charm of song.

Name : Ann Hornaday / Alias : Washington Post
Warm, ingratiating, with a beat you can dance to, "Sing Street" is a feel-good movie that never demands to be liked. Instead it asks, politely and irresistibly.

Name : Steve Pond / Alias : TheWrap
It starts out fun and then sneaks up on you for a final stretch that is both rousing and genuinely emotional.

Name : Amy Nicholson / Alias : L.A. Weekly
This is How Stella Got Her Groove Back for the Pop-Tart crowd, a wish-fulfillment weepie that narrowly clears Perry's low bar, thanks mostly to Wendi McLendon-Covey and Cocoa Brown

Name : Claudia Puig / Alias : USA Today
It quickly becomes a by-the-book, overly-simplified look at a quintet of single moms who find common ground coping with the challenges of raising middle-school age children and finding romance.

Name : David Hiltbrand / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
The moral here is that no challenge is insurmountable if you form a club. And keep a wine opener handy.

Name : Alonso Duralde / Alias : TheWrap
In any other movie, the filmmaker would rightly be accused of trafficking in lazy stereotypes, but lazy stereotypes are the beachhead into which Tyler Perry has firmly planted his flag.

Name : Scott Marks / Alias : San Diego Reader
John Carney (Begin Again) once again tries to reheat a Once souffle and instead serves up a flat, cheerily antiseptic period musical.

Name : Alan Scherstuhl / Alias : Village Voice
Singing, dreaming, making out: Despite some familiar formula, these characters make all three feel new again.

Name : Peter Keough / Alias : Boston Globe
Those put off by the prospect of a musical in the '80s pop style of Duran Duran or Pet Shop Boys should cast their prejudices aside when it comes to John Carney's "Sing Street." You might find yourself singing along.

Name : Moira MacDonald / Alias : Seattle Times
Carney has an uncanny way of telling a story through music. "Sing Street" reminds us of being young and lost in a song, realizing with a jolt that someone else had the same feelings we did.

Name : Chris Nashawaty / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
Just wondering, but if these sisters are indeed capable of doing it for themselves as the film insists, why can't at least one of them do it without a man?

Name : Walter V. Addiego / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
Don't be deterred by the timeworn material - as a romantic vision of youth and rock, "Sing Street" is number one with a bullet.

Name : Joshua Rothkopf / Alias : Time Out
Built out of crowd-pleasing elements as durable as a lacquered, sky-high '80s hairdo, writer-director John Carney's coming-of-age musical is a synth-drenched joy: a tuneful, deeply personal ode to the impulse that forges a high school rock band.

Name : Brian Truitt / Alias : USA Today
Carney digs deeper than the usual universal love story to comment on Irish life in 1985 and sets it to a soundtrack that hits all the right notes for those with fond memories of Swatch watches and Trapper Keepers.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : New York Daily News
"Sing Street" is just like the old singles it idolizes - sharp, slick, snappy. And it leaves you with nothing more than an urge to sit through it all again.

Name : Guy Lodge / Alias : Variety
Lightning strikes thrice as Irish writer-director John Carney's let's-make-a-band formula once more yields winning results.

Name : Leslie Felperin / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
A veritable farmyard of fun.

Name : Bilge Ebiri / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
These are some great actresses, and with writer-director-producer Perry displaying some rare focus, you're intrigued at first by the possibility of watching them interact for a couple of hours. It doesn't last.