Metacritic reviews

Missing succeeds at maintaining a propulsive, nail-biting atmosphere and overcoming the boredom of its conventional narrative beats by treating each tool — Gmail accounts, iPhone photos and company websites — as a deeply layered puzzle, one that gathers and offers more information than most people realize.

I was only able to figure out the answer to about a third of the mysteries. But the rest left a thrilling impression that made “Missing” a genuinely fun ride.

Structurally, Missing can often feel a bit too much like Searching at times, but by the end, it finds its own path in this intriguing way to tell a mystery.

It’s all great fun, even if there’s no central performance as riveting as Cho’s in “Searching.” Then again, acting in movies like this is an admittedly uphill battle, one that Reid is better at when not having to rely on the occasionally tinny dialogue. Long, Leung and de Almeida, meanwhile, fill the tapestry of intrigue efficiently and appealingly.

This isn’t a film that relies on gimmicks and shock value. Instead, first-time feature directors Johnson and Merrick masterfully craft a story that relies on social media and technology to the benefit of the script. And thanks to a well-framed story and clever structure, everything comes together by the film’s end, revealing the answers from clues that just may have been there the entire time.

What viewers are left with is a bold, twisting, and audacious thriller that will leave you breathless ... though maybe a bit underwhelmed by a nagging sense of déjà vu, too.

An improbable escalation of events and more than a few niggling questions about who’s doing what and how renders this screenlife thriller in dimensions that unfortunately resonate better on an intimate, handheld scale than the big screen.

Missing owes its best moments to learning from 2018’s Searching, but is a bit of a downgrade in terms of Screenlife usage.

The many logic-defying developments in “Missing” make it difficult to hold one’s attention, especially considering that the film gives viewers plenty of time to think about the countless ways it doesn’t make sense.

Humor for the sake of humor is a worthwhile pursuit, but Missing’s final act is more unintentionally funny than intentionally funny.