The Aeronauts
Entertainment One | Release Date: December 6, 2019 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
60
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 37 Critic Reviews
Positive:
22
Mixed:
12
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
Rolling StonePeter TraversDec 3, 2019
The Aeronauts is hobbled time and again by the attempt to add the juice of fiction to a story that could and should have stood on its own. The truth, in Hollywood terms, is never enough. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawSep 10, 2019
It is a film with charm and the chemistry between Jones and Redmayne has something rather platonic and even sibling-like, but that isn’t to say there isn’t a spark of sorts. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubJesse HassengerNov 26, 2019
On the whole, The Aeronauts is a pretty good small-scale adventure movie. It’s also a pretty dull everything-else, the unceasing flashbacks providing multiple instances where telling might have been preferable to showing. Read full review
50
The AtlanticDavid SimsDec 10, 2019
The Aeronauts is as thin as the high-altitude air surrounding its heroes, a visually splendid thrill ride that somehow manages to feel entirely without dramatic stakes. But if it’s balloons you’re after, then this is the film to see. Read full review
50
TimeStephanie ZacharekDec 6, 2019
It’s all kind of fun. It’s also kind of dumb. Even though The Aeronauts is based on real people, none of this really happened, or at least not like this. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranDec 5, 2019
The virtues of The Aeronauts are real but they are almost exclusively visual. Despite the hard work of acclaimed actors in what sounds on paper like a strong story, the drama presented is determinedly earth-bound. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerDec 4, 2019
Unfortunately, almost none of that astonishing true story makes it into The Aeronauts, a mangled retelling that cuts out Coxwell and replaces him with Amelia Wren (Jones), a gestalt character based on several women aerial explorers of the time. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneTomris LaflyDec 3, 2019
Playing a pair of complementary trailblazers that start off on the wrong foot, the duo hand-in-hand elevates Harper’s 1862-set, based-on-a-true-story film, from a flimsy action-adventure to something worth watching on the biggest possible screen, even if it operates on a handful of clichés with little character-based substance to speak of. Read full review
48
IGNKristy PuchkoDec 5, 2019
The Aeronauts is a film flawed from its first concept. By blending fact and fiction so freely, Thorne and Harper turned a story of scientific discovery into a muddling romantic adventure that crashes and burns. Read full review
40
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottJan 16, 2020
Frustratingly, whenever it begins to get going and pulses begin pounding, Harper brings things to a screeching halt by introducing flashback sequences to tell us the backstory of Jones’ invented character. Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternDec 5, 2019
A heavier-than-air adventure, set in Victorian England, that seldom rises above the level of elegant hokum. Read full review
40
The TelegraphHelen O'HaraOct 8, 2019
We know that this cast can produce magic together, and that this director can inject pace into unlikely topics. It’s just this one that seems to have feet of clay. Read full review
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