Water for Elephants
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation | Release Date: April 22, 2011 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
52
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 35 Critic Reviews
Positive:
16
Mixed:
14
Negative:
5
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
VarietyPeter DebrugeApr 21, 2011
The filmmakers clearly value their public, crafting a splendid period swooner that delivers classic romance and an indelible insider's view of 1930s circus life. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsApr 21, 2011
Like "The Notebook," but with an elephant, the unexpectedly good film version of Water for Elephants elevates pure corn to a completely satisfying realm of romantic melodrama. Read full review
85
MovielineStephanie ZacharekApr 21, 2011
One of those big, extravagant-looking romances that you might automatically deem "conventional" - except for the fact that almost nobody makes big, extravagant-looking romances anymore. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerApr 22, 2011
The film has a pleasing retro-ness that often mitigates the dullness. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleApr 21, 2011
In Water for Elephants, Waltz plays a circus owner and ringleader during the Great Depression, and when he's onscreen, every eye is on him, no matter who is talking. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertApr 21, 2011
In an age of prefabricated special effects and obviously phony spectacle, it's sort of old-fashioned (and a pleasure) to see a movie made of real people and plausible sets. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie RickeyApr 21, 2011
Steamy and sexy with a smack of sadism, the movie is a throwback to old-school Hollywood action/romance. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldConnie OgleApr 21, 2011
"Twilight's" Robert Pattinson gets a chance to shed his sparkly vampire persona and play a romantic lead with a pulse. The change suits him. Read full review
75
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallApr 21, 2011
Reese Witherspoon can do a lot of things as an actor but playing a damaged-goods Depression era dame isn't one of them. Read full review
70
SlateDana StevensApr 23, 2011
Yes, this is the kind of movie you could imagine seeing with your grandmother at a suburban mall, but does everything have to be edgy and dark and genre-reinventing? Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranApr 21, 2011
If the circus is a hierarchical pyramid, August is at the very top. It's a part tailor-made for the accomplished Waltz, an Oscar winner for "Inglourious Basterds," and he eats it alive. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliApr 25, 2011
Sadly, passion and romance are two ingredients missing from this melodrama, which does an excellent job of re-creating the Depression-era circus business. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick GroenApr 22, 2011
When the tent folds and the dust settles, the question is not whether the movie is good – sorry, not a chance – but whether it's garish enough, sappy enough, Hollywood enough to rise to the level of being likeably bad. Is it, in short, a guilty pleasure? Read full review
63
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanApr 21, 2011
Big, slick and showy. It is also undeniably effective entertainment. Read full review
63
USA TodayClaudia PuigApr 21, 2011
Mildly entertaining, though the best performances come not from the stars, but the supporting players. Read full review
63
Rolling StonePeter TraversApr 21, 2011
It's all in the telling. Gruen provided grit and pungent detail. The movie settles for gloss. Read full review
60
EmpireAngie ErrigoMay 2, 2011
Familiar but enjoyable. Not being funny, the elephant (Rosie, played by nine-foot enchantress Tai) is the real star as the most moving and only joyful presence in sight. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanApr 22, 2011
The primary drawback is the lack of chemistry between the leads, Reese Witherspoon and "Twilight's" Robert Pattinson. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumApr 22, 2011
Something is wrong under this big tent. Actually made to resemble a good old-fashioned, crowd-pleasing movie, this cinematic Water for Elephants droops and lumbers like Rosie the elephant herself. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderAndrea GronvallApr 28, 2011
Features a credible and sympathetic performance from Robert Pattinson as an orphaned veterinary student who joins a traveling circus. Yet the film otherwise suffers from a lack of showmanship. Read full review
50
L.A. WeeklyKarina LongworthApr 25, 2011
Beautifully designed, sufficiently choreographed, insipid but watchable, Elephants stresses that showbiz is about the maintenance of an illusion by any means necessary. Read full review
50
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsApr 22, 2011
The most rewarding way to watch Water for Elephants is to focus on the sideshow of costumes and craftsmanship, because the romance in the center ring smells like trained animals going through the motions. Read full review
50
SalonMary Elizabeth WilliamsApr 21, 2011
You know how they say to find one thing and do one thing well? Well, Pattinson's thing is glowering. It doesn't help matters that the movie itself is so painfully mediocre. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeWesley MorrisApr 21, 2011
The camera, costumes, and art direction do everything right. Too much so. The movie strips away both the grand weirdness of the circus and the dire desolation of the Depression. Diane Arbus and Dorothea Lange are exchanged for Vanity Fair. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubTasha RobinsonApr 21, 2011
It's a tastefully managed, passionless melodrama, full of brooding looks and reasonably sweet moments, but typified by a scantly characterized central couple who bring no sense of engagement to their relationship. Read full review
50
Boxoffice MagazinePam GradyApr 21, 2011
Waltz is the highlight of this glossy but plodding drama, a live wire in a movie that sorely needs a jolt. Read full review
50
Orlando SentinelRoger MooreApr 21, 2011
Whatever romance and charm Gruen summoned forth from these rough and tumble show people living by their own laws in a traveling, self-contained world of poverty and cruelty, director Francis Lawrence has hacked and ground them off. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyApr 21, 2011
Will please fans of Sara Gruen's best seller, but it lacks the vital spark that would have made the drama truly compelling on the screen. Read full review
40
Time OutBen KenigsbergApr 26, 2011
Without larger-than-life drama or a steady stream of historical detail, it's merely a gargantuan production that's been lavished on a story hardly worth trumpeting. Read full review
40
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzApr 21, 2011
Add romantic chemistry to the list of things that fall flat in the film, alongside dialogue and acting. Read full review
38
New York PostLou LumenickApr 22, 2011
Less fun than any circus movie I've ever seen - and I've seen lots. Maybe they should send in the clowns. Read full review
30
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesApr 27, 2011
No one would mistake the Benzini Bros. Circus for the greatest show on earth – the Depression-era traveling troupe is a junker compared to the gold-standard Ringling Bros. – but still, a film has to try pretty hard to render lions and tigers and trapeze artists so uniformly underwhelming. Read full review
20
The New York TimesStephen HoldenApr 21, 2011
Short-circuits the novel's quirky charms and period atmosphere by its squeamish attitude toward gritty circus life and smothers the drama under James Newton Howard's insufferable wall-to-wall musical soup. Read full review
20
TimeRichard CorlissApr 21, 2011
The proceedings get so slow and saccharine that viewers will relishes the film's moments of redeeming idiocy. In one of them, Marlena whispers to Jacob, "Bring Rosie to my tent and don't tell anyone" - as if the roustabouts wouldn't notice a 12-ft.-tall, 10,000-lb. creature striding down the midway. Read full review
20
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternApr 21, 2011
How do I count the ways this movie goes wrong? Read full review
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