Metacritic reviews

Neither innovative nor profound, but it is kinetic, visceral and sometimes moving.

The movie is a continuous barrage of explosions, sneak attacks, chases, life-and-death face-offs, and amazing rescues that are as far-fetched as they are exhilarating. The cheap thrills are compounded by Mikko Alanne and David Battle's screenplay, a wallow in old-time Hollywood boilerplate, some of which you can't believe is being recycled yet again.

Set during the brief, brutal 2008 flare-up between Russia and Georgia, the drama has some exhilarating moments, but they're dampened by concessions to conventionally bloviating music, overly theatrical dialogue and inadvertently comic slo-mo.

The hard fact, though, is that Harlin's instincts - always toward the massive and slo-mo - make him a fairly dunderheaded political analyst.

Taking the vantage point of civilians rather than combatants allows 5 Days of War to show the toll of the terror and of the relentless, exhausting pursuit of war with unexpected force. Had it rejected the genre's romantic trappings and false heroics more consistently, the movie might've been worth the ride.

Should appeal more to those who like to watch stuff blow up than understand exactly why the carnage is transpiring.

Fails both as historical re-enactment and as action-flick thrill ride.

A tired old quote about truth being the first casualty of war is a strange way to start 5 Days of War, an overwrought drama that, whatever its good intentions, could hardly be said to aim for objectivity in its account of the 2008 conflict between Russia and Georgia.

Renny Harlin seems now incapable of taking a movie even as far as a few frames.

Harlin even makes poor Kilmer go running about. Just like that image, "5 Days" is embarrassingly clumsy.