The Playlist by Oliver Lyttelton

The film's not merely content with being a twisty psycho-thriller. Boyle and Hodge expertly tweak and tinker with your sympathies, and the characters you initially peg as heroes and villains may not be in the same place by the time things wrap up.

Time by Richard Corliss

A devious mind game, Trance is also the most entertaining smart movie so far this year.

New York Post by Kyle Smith

This exhilarating brain-twister is a nonstop visual, aural and intellectual delight, steeped in movie conventions and yet fizzing with freshness. It’s what happens when film noir goes out to a rave.

IndieWire by Eric Kohn

Boyle's filmmaking style has a marvelous rhythm that weaves pop sensibilities into fluid and persistently exciting narrative experiences; he shakes these ingredients like colored sand in a jar, leading a fascinating degree of discombobulation.

Total Film

Sprinting to the edge of preposterousness and back, this deliriously entertaining day-glo noir of fried brains and blown fuses denotes a director at the top of his game.

Empire by Kim Newman

Though it rings ever so slightly hollow as cool shades into callousness, this exercise in sexy suspense and brain-scrambling mystery is a dazzling, absorbing entertainment which shows off Danny Boyle’s mastery of complex storytelling and black, black humour.

Total Film by Matt Glasby

Sprinting to the edge of preposterousness and back, this deliriously entertaining day-glo noir of fried brains and blown fuses denotes a director at the top of his game.

New York Daily News by Joe Neumaier

A frisky, feisty heist flick with brains and charisma, the movie may make a few errors, but they’re forgotten in the blink of an eye thanks to all the twists, turns and close shaves.

Slant Magazine

The film draws out Danny Boyle's less dazzling commercial side, not to mention his penchant for whirling excess.

McClatchy-Tribune News Service by Roger Moore

For all its plot trickery, mind science and relationship square dancing, Trance doesn’t have the emotional tug or technical pizzaz of Boyle’s best films – “Slumdog Millionaire,” “Trainspotting” or “127 Hours.”

Slant Magazine

The film draws out Danny Boyle's less dazzling commercial side, not to mention his penchant for whirling excess.

The A.V. Club by Tasha Robinson

Narratively, Trance is questionable, but Boyle and Hodges whisk past all the unlikely developments with enough verve and style to keep audiences from thinking too hard until after they’ve left the theater.

Slant Magazine

The film draws out Danny Boyle's less dazzling commercial side, not to mention his penchant for whirling excess.

Variety by Peter Debruge

A trippy variation on the dream-within-a-dream movie, Boyle’s return-to-form crimer constantly challenges what audiences think they know, but neglects to establish why they should care.

The Hollywood Reporter by Todd McCarthy

Danny Boyle has great and plainly evident fun adding twists and curves and tunnels and endless style to his modern London noir Trance, but he makes so many left turns that the film turns in on itself rather than going anywhere.

The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw

Trance is a disappointment: a strident, chaotic, frantically overcooked film with an almost deafeningly intrusive ambient soundtrack. There is some embarrassing, eyeball-swivelling acting from the male leads, and the elegance of the film's premise is quite obliterated by its crude and misjudged violence.

Film.com

A shapelessly propulsive mess of pop psychology and poor drama.