Queen and Country
BBC Worldwide Americas | Release Date: February 18, 2015 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
68
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 28 Critic Reviews
Positive:
20
Mixed:
7
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleFeb 26, 2015
The story is minimal, just a series of events in the life of a young man and his circle, but every scene is rendered with such authenticity that it’s riveting, almost like it’s a privilege to be stepping back in time. Read full review
91
Portland OregonianJeff BakerMar 20, 2015
The 82-year-old director has a light, assured touch and wrote a script that gives his actors space to shine. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaMar 27, 2015
Like "Hope and Glory," Boorman's Queen and Country finds exhilarating comedy in places usually reserved for drama, violence, loss. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comGodfrey CheshireFeb 18, 2015
Given its loose-knit narrative, the film doesn’t have anything like a conventional structure. Yet it’s steadily engrossing due to Boorman’s surpassing skills as both a storyteller and a director. Read full review
80
EmpireIan NathanJun 2, 2015
Less vibrant than the original, but equally thoughtful and funny. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzMar 5, 2015
Boorman retains the sense of melancholy and, ultimately, optimism from the first film. That, coupled with excellent portrayals of what could have been stock war-movie characters, makes Queen and Country a worthy follow-up to a classic. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternFeb 26, 2015
In an industry afflicted by sequelitis, it has taken John Boorman almost three decades to make the sequel to his much-cherished “Hope and Glory,” but Queen and Country turns out to be well worth the wait. Read full review
80
Time OutDavid EhrlichFeb 23, 2015
The stakes may seem low, but these high jinks resound with abstract generational import, the various episodes cohering into a moving portrait of a nation that couldn’t account for all it had lost in a war that it won. Read full review
80
The New York TimesA.O. ScottFeb 17, 2015
Queen and Country doesn’t quite have the bittersweet intensity of its precursor. The terrible magic of the war is missing, and so is the heightened, wide-eyed perceptiveness of the child protagonist. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerFeb 20, 2015
The saving grace of Queen and Country is that its nostalgia is not laced with sentimentality. Even working in this conventional mode, Boorman doesn’t try to strong-arm us into blubberiness. Read full review
75
New York PostLou LumenickFeb 18, 2015
Mostly, the gorgeously shot Queen and Country depicts Bill and his more rebellious mate Percy pursuing beautiful women with varying degrees of success — and pulling pranks on their exasperated superiors, hilariously portrayed by David Thewlis and Richard E. Grant. Read full review
75
ObserverRex ReedFeb 18, 2015
It might prove to be too insular to appeal to a wider movie audience, but to a passionate Anglophile like me, Queen and Country is a funny and nostalgic portrait of a bleak, rationed postwar England still digging its way out of the rubble. Read full review
75
The PlaylistOliver LytteltonJan 25, 2015
Queen & Country is hardly reinventing the wheel, but it's charming, evocative and (mostly) well-performed, and were Boorman to continue with his autobiographical cycle, we'd certainly welcome further installments. Read full review
71
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeFeb 26, 2015
Breeziness is a quality Queen and Country has plenty of, making for a lovely journey that never ends up anywhere particularly groundbreaking. Read full review
70
The DissolveNoel MurrayFeb 17, 2015
What Queen And Country has going for it that admirers of the original will appreciate—and that total novices can enjoy just as much—is how skillfully Boorman takes major historical events and filters them through small, personal moments. Read full review
70
VarietyScott FoundasJan 25, 2015
Queen and Country lacks the immediacy of “Hope and Glory,” in part because there’s no single animating event here to rival the Blitz... But it remains a pleasure to spend time in the presence of these characters, and a third volume — perhaps focused on Bill’s entrance into the British film industry — would hardly be unwelcome. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyFeb 25, 2015
Tonally, the movie can’t decide whether it’s a comedy, a romance, or a wistful wartime madeleine. What it’s missing is the sense of joy and wonder of its predecessor. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloFeb 18, 2015
As a sequel, Queen & Country doesn’t work at all, primarily because Boorman waited far too long. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy BurrMar 5, 2015
Queen and Country shows a modern sensibility in its young hero’s all-encompassing disgust with the military mind-set, but it has one foot in Britain’s old “Carry On” comedies, and a subplot in which Percy and Redmond steal the RSM’s beloved regimental clock could come straight out of the old Henry Fonda classic “Mr. Roberts.” Read full review
63
Movie NationRoger MooreMar 3, 2015
The scenery is still stunning, but there’s little of the brio of a filmmaker who went on to make “Deliverance,” “Excalibur” and the glorious “Hope and Glory” in it. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleFeb 26, 2015
Queen & Country — though often charming — has a tendency to wander and strain. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanFeb 18, 2015
Queen and Country features characters from the earlier movie. And it’s good. But “Hope and Glory” it is not. Read full review
60
Village VoiceMichael AtkinsonFeb 17, 2015
A pleasant old man's movie, in the end, but not one for which Boorman will be remembered. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawJan 25, 2015
Queen and Country is an entertaining and sympathetic guide to a lost world: a rite of passage that Britain was to find it could do without. Read full review
60
The TelegraphTim RobeyJan 25, 2015
Admittedly modest, but the epitome of jolly, this is like the companionable second volume of an autobiography in film form – you'll whip through it in no time, and come out wanting more. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesApr 1, 2015
When the action shifts to Bill’s childhood home – an islet along the Thames, downriver from the legendary Shepperton Studios – some of the magic of that place rubs off on Boorman’s picture: It becomes lighter on its feet, moves with the breath of life and not just the strength of memory. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterLeslie FelperinJan 25, 2015
Rambling and unfocused but not without its moments. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineClayton DillardFeb 15, 2015
The film lacks an ability to construct significant instances of character drama as symbolic of larger concerns pertaining to nationalist dilemmas. Read full review
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