Deathtrap, like many intricate stage thrillers, reveals its artifice on the screen but remains crackling good fun.

Deathtrap seems an unusually skillful and satisfying example of devious entertainment. It offers as much double-crossing amusement as one can reasonably expect from a theatrical murder mystery.

The film is marvelous claptrap, a skillfully wrought -- indeed, over-wrought -- piece of preposterous escapist entertainment.

An entertaining, sharply directed, and vibrantly acted stage-to-screen adaptation, which both embraces the play’s origins yet also feels cinematic.