hang-loose tone." Turan went on to praise the ensemble cast and director Robinson, who is "surprisingly adept at creating tension at appropriate moments" and "makes good use of the script's air of clever cheerfulness". Roger Ebert, writing for the Chicago Sun-Times, was less impressed, giving the film two-and-a-half stars out of four, calling it "a sometimes entertaining movie, but thin." He went on to point out numerous cliches and tired plot devices recycled in the film. Vincent Canby, in a negative review for The New York Times, said the film looked like it had "just surfaced after being buried alive for 20 years," calling it "an atrophied version of a kind of caper movie that was so beloved in the early 1970's". He singled out Redford and Poitier as looking and acting too old to be in this kind of film now. He calls the plot "feeble," resulting in a film that is "jokey without being funny, breathless without creating suspense". He calls the ensemble an "all-star gang," but says the "performances are generally quite bad." On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 80% based on reviews from 55 critics. The website's consensus states: "There isn't much to Sneakers plot and that's more than made up for with the film's breezy panache and hi-tech lingo." On Metacritic the film has a score of 65 out of 100 based on reviews from 20 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade A− on scale of A to F. The film was a box office success, grossing over $105.2 million worldwide. Novelization A novelization of the film written by Dewey Gram was published in English (Signet, 1992, ) and translated into German (Droemer Knaur, 1993, ). TV series In October 2016, NBC was developing a TV series based on the film. Writer Walter Parkes was brought on as an executive producer. See also List of films featuring surveillance References External links Leonard Adleman's recollections of Sneakers 1990s heist films 1990s crime comedy films 1992 comedy films 1992 films American comedy thriller films American crime comedy films American heist films Cryptography in fiction Films about computer hacking Films about computing Films about mathematics Films about security and surveillance Films about the National Security Agency Films directed by Phil Alden Robinson Films produced by Walter F. Parkes Films scored by James Horner Films set in