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
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
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