Metacritic reviews

21 drags itself to a climax that puts credulity in splints. So what? In a multiplex of dumb-luck hits, it's a kick to watch Spacey and a gifted young cast use smarts to deal audiences a winning hand.

The fun of 21 is the way that this sharp, hyperaware star in the making, his face as readable as a mood ring, pours us into an adrenalized cocktail of fear, desire, and mental buzz.

Escapist moviegoers happy to live out a flashy fantasy get a brief comeuppance and still walk away from the table with a little something in their pockets.

Picture shrewdly shuffles together attractive young leads, cagey screen vets and a fantasy-fulfillment scenario in a slickly polished package that should appeal to anyone who's ever dreamed of beating the odds.

Spacey's engaging for a while in one of his patented double-edged, sharky roles.

21 doesn't spin a good enough yarn.

21 isn’t pretentious, exactly, but it’s damn close, and in trying to whip up a melodramatic morality tale the film becomes an increasingly flabby slog.

Spacey, whose Trigger Street Productions is one of the film's producers, digs into his role as the story's snarky mastermind and lure, yet it's all the kind of stuff we've seen him deliver in so many movies before.

The story may be based on real events, but most of it feels patently false.

A movie that wastes a lot of time and money and really, REALLY shoulda stayed in Vegas.