The last thing Peppermint could afford to be was a mediocre action movie, and yet, here we are, and here it is.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
The A.V. Club by Allison Shoemaker
It’s a shame, because Garner’s herculean efforts throw the film’s sloppiness into even sharper relief. Like Keanu Reeves, Garner has a gift for making every kick, punch, bullet, and desk dropped on someone’s head feel like a spontaneous decision.
As a onetime Girl Scout den mother turned brass-knuckled avenging angel, Garner gives everything that is asked of her, from brute physicality to dewy-eyed tenderness, but this half-witted calamity botches just about everything else. Drably by-the-numbers except for the moments where it goes gobsmackingly off-the-rails, Peppermint misfires from start to finish.
The Hollywood Reporter by Frank Scheck
Peppermint lacks subtlety and anything even remotely resembling credibility, but like its heroine, it certainly gets the job done. It's the sort of picture that would have been boffo on a grindhouse double bill in the '70s.
The new action flick Peppermint is a rare return to form for Garner, who doles out her vigilante justice with effortless charm. Unfortunately, that’s about the only reason to see Peppermint.
Chicago Tribune by Katie Walsh
While it's fun to watch Garner return to her action roots, the brute force haymaker that is Peppermint is a far cry from the sophisticated thrills of "Alias."
The Associated Press by Lindsey Bahr
Peppermint is not some model of equality, it’s just violent escapism that happens to have a woman in the lead role. And, frankly, as long as this genre continues to entertain audiences, Garner is a compelling a lead as any, and more so than quite a few of the men who get so many parts like this. But maybe, just maybe, next time consider a woman or two behind the camera (and script) as well.
The only thing Peppermint does accomplish, after Proud Mary, Traffik and Breaking In, is to cement 2018 as the year Hollywood proved itself incapable of turning out a decent female-led action film.
Chicago Sun-Times by Richard Roeper
In the stylishly directed but gratuitously nasty and cliché-riddled Peppermint, Garner plays essentially two characters cut from the same person.
Peppermint ultimately possesses the stale predictability of an unwrapped candy discovered at the bottom of a purse.