Strange Magic
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures | Release Date: January 23, 2015 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
25
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 20 Critic Reviews
Positive:
2
Mixed:
4
Negative:
14
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
67
The A.V. ClubJesse HassengerJan 21, 2015
Strange Magic, an animated film from Lucasfilm and Industrial Light & Magic, borrows its sensibility from another movie from the summer of 2001: "Moulin Rouge." The new film’s composer and music director, Marius De Vries, even arranged songs for Baz Luhrmann’s phantasmagorical musical. Read full review
67
The PlaylistDrew TaylorJan 21, 2015
Strange Magic is messy and uneven and occasionally annoying, but it also dares to be different. Read full review
50
USA TodayClaudia PuigJan 22, 2015
Strange Magic is strange all right, but hardly magical. Read full review
40
EmpireHelen O'HaraAug 24, 2015
While there are fun moments, the whole is an odd mix of grotesquerie and cutesiness. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriJan 23, 2015
The problem with Strange Magic isn’t so much its derivative story as it is the odd, half-complete way it unfolds. You can sense the weird mixture of tones, influences, ideas — as if the whole thing were still in its planning stages. Read full review
40
The New York TimesBen KenigsbergJan 22, 2015
At once disarming and calculated, Strange Magic is a film of commodified feelings, evoking memories of other experiences — whether of Shakespeare, the original songs or authentic enchantment. Read full review
38
Boston GlobePeter KeoughJan 29, 2015
If you close your eyes you’d think it was a commercial for a “Great Love Songs” DVD collection. Read full review
38
Movie NationRoger MooreJan 23, 2015
A cartoon fantasy cooked up from a half-baked idea from George Lucas. Read full review
38
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennyJan 23, 2015
Strange Magic is essentially a jukebox musical so song-laden as to practically be an operetta, and the songs are so eclectic that they never quite fit into the movie’s flying-insect world, which is divided into dark and light forests. Read full review
30
The DissolveKeith PhippsJan 23, 2015
Strange Magic certainly isn’t an ordinary sort of mess, and the personal nature of the project is still evident in the finished film. Read full review
30
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyJan 22, 2015
The look of the animation has limited charm. The story is primarily a string of life lessons for little ones, impossible to miss. And there is a great deal of singing. I don't think even fools will fall in love with Strange Magic. Read full review
25
HitfixDrew McWeenyJan 22, 2015
I don't think Strange Magic is terrible movie, but it is a very weird one in many ways, and perhaps the most bizarre thing about it is realizing that we finally have a fairy tale written expressly for the age of date rape drugs. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleMichael OrdonaJan 22, 2015
The plot movement feels very much like an unpleasant formality, shoved forward by tiresome devices. Read full review
25
New York PostLou LumenickJan 22, 2015
A jaw-droppingly terrible animated musical that mismatches George Lucas’ inane story about a pair of fairy princesses to an oddball selection of the “Star Wars’’ creator’s favorite pop tunes. Read full review
20
Austin ChronicleSteve DavisJan 28, 2015
It’s like watching a cartoon version of American Idol on an endless karaoke loop. Read full review
20
New York Daily NewsGraham Fuller Jan 21, 2015
The eerie wood was exquisitely designed. Disastrously, what goes on there suggests a Californian mall during spring break. Read full review
20
VarietyJustin ChangJan 21, 2015
A thoroughly derivative and unengaging fantasy. Read full review
12
Slant MagazineEd GonzalezJan 21, 2015
As juvenile and frivolous a wish-fulfillment fantasy as one might expect from the visionary behind the lightsaber and Princess Leia hogtied to Jabba the Hut, Strange Magic depicts war as a series of scarcely muddied binary oppositions: between good and evil, the beautiful and the ugly, and singing and death by karaoke. Read full review
10
The Hollywood ReporterMichael RechtshaffenJan 21, 2015
A shrill, garish hodgepodge of familiar elements from other animated vehicles (most evidently 2013’s Epic), there’s virtually nothing about this forced, fractured fairy tale that feels remotely fresh or involving. Read full review
5
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeJan 21, 2015
Terrible character design, combined with a painful lack of laughs and a crushing plethora of ghastly songs, makes Strange Magic perhaps the worst animated feature ever to come out of Disney (which might explain why the studio is releasing the film under its now-rarely-used Touchstone label). Compared to other Lucas missteps of recent years, it’ll make you nostalgic for Jar Jar Binks. Read full review
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