The Impossible
Summit Entertainment | Release Date: December 21, 2012 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
73
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 42 Critic Reviews
Positive:
33
Mixed:
7
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsJan 3, 2013
Perilous incidents have riveted audiences since Pauline was tied to the railroad tracks, but in the hundred-year history of cinema, few thrillers have been as emotionally compelling as The Impossible. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertDec 19, 2012
Here is a searing film of human tragedy. Read full review
100
ObserverRex ReedDec 12, 2012
Put a staggering accomplishment called The Impossible, from Spanish director J. A. Bayona, at the top of the season's must-see list. Read full review
100
The Hollywood ReporterDeborah YoungSep 12, 2012
The Impossible is one of the most emotionally realistic disaster movies in recent memory -- and certainly one of the most frightening in its epic re-creation of the catastrophic 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Read full review
100
VarietyJustin ChangSep 12, 2012
Wrenchingly acted, deftly manipulated and terrifyingly well made. Read full review
91
Portland OregonianMarc MohanJan 3, 2013
An extraordinarily gut-wrenching, intense story of survival against all odds. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternDec 20, 2012
Yet it's not just the visuals that make the movie what it is, a thrilling, if also punishing, tale of heroic endurance. The Impossible, based on a true story, derives most of its impressive power from two remarkable performances: Naomi Watts as Maria, and Tom Holland as Lucas. Read full review
90
TimeMary PolsDec 20, 2012
The Impossible is technologically a marvel - the tsunami experience is harrowingly believable - but also emotionally rich. I hesitate to use this term, since it is so often equated with hokey, but The Impossible is life-affirming. Read full review
88
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanJan 4, 2013
Yet as fine as she and Ewan McGregor are as the parents, Tom Holland stands out as eldest son Lucas, a slightly sullen teen who learns to put other people before himself. Read full review
88
USA TodayClaudia PuigJan 3, 2013
This is a tale not only of epic disaster but also of resilience. The Impossible is a nimbly acted drama that is at once a stellar visual achievement and a life-affirming story of familial love and courage. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaDec 20, 2012
Watts is extraordinary - she manages both the physical and emotional demands of the role, with soul-deep conviction. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter TraversDec 18, 2012
The go-for-broke intensity and emotional layering Watts brings to her role is an acting triumph. And McGregor matches her in a performance of ferocity and feeling. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubNoel MurrayDec 19, 2012
Like "The Orphanage," The Impossible confirms that Bayona is a major talent, with a skill for constructing sequences that build tension as masterfully as Steven Spielberg did in his '70s heyday. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumDec 12, 2012
It's agony, in a rewarding way, to squirm and cringe and groan through an ordeal so realistically re-created. Read full review
80
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottJan 4, 2013
This is an affecting and emotional drama about the strength of the human spirit. Read full review
80
SalonAndrew O'HehirJan 3, 2013
Both here and in "The Orphanage," Bayona reveals himself as a masterful genre stylist of almost unlimited talent and a storyteller addicted to sentimental happy endings that feel a bit sardonic. Like, it's all OK now – but just wait till next time! Read full review
80
EmpireGuy LodgeDec 31, 2012
You can take issue with its overly Anglicised approach to an international tragedy, but there's no denying that this rousing, superbly acted, no-holds-barred melodrama is a mighty feat of physical filmmaking. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyDec 21, 2012
Bayona achieves a rare sense of balance between the big and the powerful as well as the small and the intimate in the family's survival against impossible odds, no doubt the inspiration for the title. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanDec 20, 2012
The most memorable turn, however, comes from young Holland. There is not a moment in which Lucas' fear, or unexpected courage, feels less than real. Read full review
80
Total FilmKevin HarleyDec 11, 2012
Marshalling formidable technique and force of feeling, Bayona's tale of courage and empathy in the face of catastrophe fulfils his debut's promise, its harrowing conviction hammered home even harder by the spot-on casting. Read full review
80
The GuardianDamon WiseSep 12, 2012
Part of the appeal of this affecting and powerful drama is that it puts the viewer right in the moment at every stage, using authentic locations and tsunami survivors to hammer home the reality of this tragedy. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesJan 4, 2013
First, to dispel the two talking points attending The Impossible, Juan Antonio Bayona's dramatization of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami: No, it's not racist, and no, you don't have to be a parent to feel the film in your bones. Read full review
75
New York PostLou LumenickDec 20, 2012
Anything following that spectacular sequence is bound to be something of a letdown - especially when it ends up playing like standard-issue Hollywood melodrama. Read full review
75
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanDec 20, 2012
The film is studded with many tiny, lovely moments. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleDec 20, 2012
If one person survives and 6 million are killed, or one person gets out and 3,000 are crushed, it's not really a happy ending - or even an adequate representation of the larger event. This is precisely the challenge that The Impossible faces and never quite overcomes. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsDec 20, 2012
Everything that was false about the tsunami sequence in the recent Clint Eastwood film 'Hereafter' - the bland overview perspectives, the lack of human immediacy - is corrected, terrifyingly, by the first half-hour of director J.A. Bayona's nerve-shredding docudrama 'The Impossible.' Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliDec 12, 2012
The film's adult leads, Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor, give powerful, natural performances. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick GroenSep 12, 2012
The Impossible looks back at a natural calamity with unflinching honesty. It sees fear and pain, it sees fortitude and bravery, but mainly it sees this: In that raging instant when the sea becomes its own monster, there's precious little to separate the devoured from the spared – nothing but the thin wedge of luck. Read full review
70
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzDec 20, 2012
One of those movies that's good, but leaves you with the nagging feeling that it could have been better. Read full review
67
IndieWireEric KohnSep 12, 2012
It suffers from the greater problem of emphasizing a feel-good plot within the context of mass destruction. Read full review
65
NPRJeannette CatsoulisDec 20, 2012
Starring flying debris and surging walls of water, The Impossible takes the template of the old-timey disaster movie, strips it to the bone and pumps what's left up to 11. Read full review
65
MovielineAlison WillmoreDec 6, 2012
The latter half of The Impossible is so disappointingly movie-ish, tying a bow on the events after portraying them too vividly to allow them to be wrapped so neatly. It wrings out tears with an industrious efficiency that leaves you feeling manhandled after the exhilarating, terrifying footage that's unfolded before. Read full review
63
Miami HeraldConnie OgleJan 4, 2013
Bayona is restrained here in terms of gore, but his landscape is a realistic vision of a hell we never hope to visit. Read full review
60
Boxoffice MagazineMark KeizerDec 13, 2012
The key selling point is Bayona's ten-minute reenactment of the tidal wave and its carnage, which is brutal, visceral and without peer. His visual mastery is almost enough to make up for The Impossible's conventional final hour and the empty feeling of trying to find the point of this whole exercise. Read full review
50
The New YorkerDavid DenbyJan 24, 2013
Movies are good at this sort of brute physicality, but the trouble with The Impossible is that is also tells a rather banal story. [28 Jan. 2012, p.81]
50
Boston GlobeTy BurrJan 3, 2013
An earnest, extremely grueling, prodigiously crafted true-life drama that takes one of the worst natural disasters in recorded history and reduces it to a bad day at Club Med. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriDec 23, 2012
I'm not sure any other actress today could have pulled this off without seeming cheap or manipulative. The same, unfortunately, cannot be said for the movie itself, which often traffics in the manipulative. Read full review
50
The New York TimesA.O. ScottDec 20, 2012
There is a troubling complacency and a lack of compassion in The Impossible, which is less an examination of mass destruction than the tale of a spoiled holiday. Read full review
50
Village VoiceMelissa AndersonDec 18, 2012
These horrors, and the absorbing performances of Watts and McGregor, will soon be undermined by a surfeit of sentiment. Read full review
40
Time OutEric HynesDec 18, 2012
When it comes to human emotions, however, the filmmaker is all thumbs, crassly fumbling for audience response via clichéd uses of dropped-out sound and the occasional twinkling piano. Read full review
33
The PlaylistKevin JagernauthDec 23, 2012
The Impossible strikes an insincere tone, one that doesn't let the obviously powerful moments stand on their own, but instead follows the beautiful Hollywood stars to safety, while the real story is left on the ground. Read full review
12
Slant MagazineEd GonzalezNov 22, 2012
A sham realist's disaster movie, tackily insulting the deaths of 300,000 people by reducing the horrors of the Indian Ocean tsunami to a series of genre titillations. Read full review
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