website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 48% approval rating, with an average rating of 5.2/10 based on 23 reviews. On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 based on reviews from critics, the film has a score of 48 based on 11 reviews, which is considered to be "mixed or average reviews". Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle gave the film a positive review, calling it "deadpan hilarious, a shameless satire of every teen gang, future-shock dystopian nightmare moviecombined with a brutal send-up of 8 Mile". Tom Keogh of The Seattle Times gave the film 2½ stars out of 4; he praised its novelty and criticized its lack of "outright laughs". Marc Savlov of The Austin Chronicle gave the film 3 stars out of 5, saying it was "awash in silliness" and calling it a "potential cult-movie masterpiece". Angela Watercutter of Wired called it an "instant cult classic" and also compared it to 8 Mile, Rocky and The Karate Kid. Shawn Anthony Levy, writing for The Oregonian, gave the film a B; he praised its eccentricity and said, "It's very hard not to admire its zealous commitment to its ethos". In a mixed review, Peter Debruge of Variety praised Brandon Trost's cinematography but said the film "plays its boilerplate premise with endearing earnestness, but runs thin in no time". Matt Hawkins of Kotaku called it a "legit goofball comedy" and said it "speaks to gamers without flat-out insulting them". Michael Phillips, writing for the Chicago Tribune, gave the film 2 stars out of 4, praising its premise and filming technique while criticizing its "sometimes funny execution". Conversely, Andy Webster of The New York Times said, "Its bargain-basement production values and lack of wit unexpectedly prove a greater liability than an asset". Robert Abele of the Los Angeles Times criticized its characters, costumes, and dialogue; he said it "so desperately wants to be cultishly admired ... that it forgets to be genuinely offbeat or funny". Scott Tobias of The A.V. Club gave the film a C+, mentioning the influences of John Carpenter, The Warriors, Mad Max 2, and A Clockwork Orange, and criticizing Jason Trost's performance. He said the film was "a junky, disposable lark, created for a midnight audience to swallow, belch, and forget about the next morning". Nick Schager of Slant Magazine gave it 1½ stars out of 4, and called it a "humorless void" and a