Unbroken
Universal Pictures | Release Date: December 25, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
59
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 48 Critic Reviews
Positive:
25
Mixed:
22
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierDec 22, 2014
When you get through it, though, you can’t help but feel uplifted by this tough-skinned movie that can stand with the best muscular wartime dramas in the American movie canon. Read full review
100
ObserverRex ReedDec 17, 2014
Put this one at the top of your must-see list. Angelina Jolie might not, in my opinion, have yet reached the heights of the acting profession, but with this passionate, inspired, technically awesome and profoundly exciting chronicle of the life of Louie Zamperini, she rises to the top rank of first-class film directors in a male-dominated field overcrowded with hacks. Read full review
88
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsDec 27, 2014
If you can take it, Unbroken will lift you like the classics of adventure cinema. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter TraversDec 24, 2014
Jolie has an army of craftsmen in her corner, notably camera poet Roger Deakins (No Country for Old Men). But it's her vision that gives Unbroken a spirit that soars. In honoring Louis' endurance, she does herself proud. Read full review
83
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallDec 23, 2014
There is a genuinely epic quality to Unbroken, cribbed from masters and capably traced. That's really all this inspiring story needs. Read full review
80
TimeRichard CorlissDec 30, 2014
If the Unbroken needle stops at Impressive and doesn’t quite rise to Enthralling, it’s because Jolie stints on exploring the doubts that tortured Louis nearly as much as Watanabe’s punishments did, and whose details so enriched Hillenbrand’s biography. Read full review
80
Total FilmKate StablesDec 1, 2014
Jack O’Connell’s, wiry, indefatigable Zamperini holds your attention without effort. Read full review
77
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeDec 1, 2014
Ultimately, the strengths of Unbroken far outweigh its flaws. Read full review
75
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanDec 23, 2014
Unbroken may not exactly be mired in sanctimony, but it’s standing, almost up to its ankles, in an unhealthy sense that its subject — about whose simple humanity the film otherwise goes to great lengths to illuminate — is a candidate for sainthood. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliDec 23, 2014
Jolie's account is mostly accurate but coldly clinical. The story is effective in relaying Zamperini's narrative but lacks both the gut punch one often gets from prisoner-of-war narratives and the full catharsis one expects at the end. Read full review
75
IndieWireEric KohnDec 1, 2014
Jolie keeps the narrative afloat thanks to first-rate craftsmanship, a few well-honed moments of bonafide suspense, and a terrifically restrained Jack O'Connell in the lead role. While it only hints at the sweeping epic that never fully materializes, Unbroken offers further proof that Jolie's directorial instincts pass muster alongside her other talents. Read full review
70
SalonAndrew O'HehirDec 27, 2014
A rousing old-fashioned yarn with numerous exciting set-pieces and an uncomplicated hero you root for all the way through. It’s entertaining throughout and made with a high level of technical skill. If made 40 years ago, it would have been a leading Oscar contender and a huge hit, whereas today it’s a bit “meh” in both categories Read full review
70
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzDec 23, 2014
It is a harrowing journey, and an inspirational one. But, as director, Jolie takes far too long to tell it, particularly in such a conventional manner. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyDec 1, 2014
A great true story is telescoped down to a merely good one in Unbroken. After a dynamite first half-hour, Angelina Jolie's accomplished second outing as a director slowly looses steam. Read full review
67
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerDec 24, 2014
Zamperini’s life story is genuinely inspirational, but the movie seems fashioned as a standard-issue profile in courage, with Zamperini, after a troubled youth, transformed into an almost saintlike figure. He would have been every bit as inspirational, even more so, without the halo. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyDec 17, 2014
It's moving, admirable, and occasionally exhilarating. What it's missing is the one thing that could always be counted on with Jolie as a star: the spark of danger. Read full review
67
HitfixDrew McWeenyDec 2, 2014
When it comes to this particular story, I find myself unconvinced in the end. Unbroken looks like the real thing, but evaporates upon closer scrutiny. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoDec 24, 2014
It’s one of those inspirational Hollywood dramas about which there isn’t anything "overtly wrong" with it. It’s well-cast, it looks great, it has that intense centerpiece in the raft, and it certainly conveys a true story worth telling. And yet I keep coming back to that beautiful sunrise that opens the film. It’s just too damn pretty. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy BurrDec 24, 2014
Unbroken stirs a moviegoer by default; it’s an astounding story of human endurance that has been brought a little too safely to the screen. Read full review
63
USA TodayClaudia PuigDec 23, 2014
As directed by Angelina Jolie, it is occasionally powerful, with soaring visuals. It also is, however, stately and slow to the point of tedium. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyDec 23, 2014
A beautifully shot, well-acted, and worthy-to-a-fault Second World War survivor story that only intermittently achieves the kind of emotional impact for which it aims. Read full review
63
Miami HeraldConnie OgleDec 23, 2014
The bigger problem is that neither Jolie nor the script bothers to flesh Louis out as a fully formed person with faults and fears and regrets, which keeps the film from ever capturing you emotionally. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperDec 22, 2014
Unbroken is an ambitious, sometimes moving film that suffers from a little too much self-conscious nobility, and far too many scenes of sadistic brutality. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsDec 22, 2014
Rightly, Jolie didn't want to tell the man's entire life story. But as is, at too-convenient dramatic junctures, the screenplay darts back into flashbacks of Zamperini's childhood or young adulthood, when we should really be sticking with the crisis at hand. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineR. Kurt OsenlundDec 16, 2014
The film's chief misstep is taking its title too literally, and ultimately depicting Louie as an indestructible, and thus largely inhuman, superhero. Read full review
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