Welcome To Marwen
Universal Pictures | Release Date: December 21, 2018 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
40
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 38 Critic Reviews
Positive:
8
Mixed:
17
Negative:
13
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
EmpireIan FreerJan 1, 2019
A genuine oddity, Welcome To Marwen may not hit the emotional highs but mixes high-concept fun with a sincere attempt to describe trauma in an original visceral way. And Zemeckis’ filmmaking remains exemplary. Read full review
60
The New York TimesA.O. ScottDec 20, 2018
What makes the movie interesting — and disturbing on a few different levels — is how its sentimental, inspirational elements do battle with darker impulses. Read full review
60
Arizona RepublicGarrett MitchellDec 19, 2018
Though lacking in subtlety, Robert Zemeckis' Welcome to Marwen delivers a sentimental fantasy world worth wading in. Read full review
50
ConsequenceBlake GobleDec 20, 2018
Marwen is too much, not enough, and yet still deeply watchable. It’s admirable for the wildly different approaches it takes. Only a stylist like Zemeckis could try something like this. Take a real man’s witty, real-life therapy-based photography and attempt to spin it into a mo-cap circus with every genre tool he can think of. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerDec 19, 2018
Ultimately, this is the best version of this story that the CG-obsessed Zemeckis could have possibly produced. But just because he could make it, that doesn't mean he should. Read full review
50
New York PostSara StewartDec 19, 2018
Despite a sympathetic lead performance from Steve Carell, the fictionalized version bogs down in extensive animated doll sequences, so similar they grow increasingly tiresome. Read full review
50
VarietyOwen GleibermanDec 19, 2018
The film is far from incompetent, and it brims with ambition, but too much of the time what’s happening just sits there. It’s a lavishly odd concoction, like a feel-good movie for OCD miniature-world Barbie-doll fetishists. Read full review
50
TheWrapCandice FrederickDec 19, 2018
Some parts of Marwen just seem empty, and while the filmmakers and Carell earn praise for tackling trauma through animation, the film ultimately has no real impact. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyDec 19, 2018
If Marwencol made your heart go out to Mark, Welcome to Marwen does something quite different. It makes you want to back away from him slowly. Read full review
50
IndieWireDavid EhrlichDec 19, 2018
“The most original movie of the year?” Not quite. But sometimes, if a film is this hard to sell, perhaps that’s a sign that it shouldn’t have been made in the first place. Read full review
48
The VergeJesse HassengerDec 20, 2018
It’s both a calculated attempt to recapture some of the emotional magic of his successes, and a clinical analysis of how exactly humanistic but effects-driven filmmaking is supposed to work. These qualities make it fascinating, but ineffectual as a narrative — or even as a demo reel. Zemeckis seems to think he’s showing heart. Instead, he’s messily dissecting it. Read full review
40
The Observer (UK)Simran HansJan 1, 2019
The film fetishises female strength, but only in its ability to prop up men; its women remain prettified empty shells. Read full review
40
Rolling StoneDavid FearDec 20, 2018
You never doubt the good intentions of Zemeckis and Steve Carell, who plays Hogancamp with genuine grace. Sadly, something essential went missing in the trip from Marwencol to Marwen. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)Emily YoshidaDec 19, 2018
Welcome to Marwen is a totally confounding movie. None of this is because of Hogancamp’s actual story, which remains rich and wild and full of pathos, nor Carell’s performance, which is subtle and wounded and resists all mawkish special-man tics it could have lapsed into. But the frame of a Robert Zemeckis–directed Inspirational True Story and the syrupy Alan Silvestri score that blankets it are just too many layers of abstraction over a story that already contains multitudes. Read full review
40
The TelegraphRobbie CollinDec 19, 2018
The film is such a crackpot tangle that it is even hard to fathom what a successful version might have looked like. Read full review
40
Screen DailyStephen Whitty Dec 19, 2018
For a movie that’s supposed to be about a modern-day Geppetto bringing his dolls to life, the wooden Welcome to Marwen never makes it out of the toy box. Read full review
40
The GuardianPeter BradshawDec 19, 2018
The remarkable career of artist and photographer Mark Hogancamp has been turned into an elaborate and misjudged movie of baffling pass-agg ickiness and pointlessness. Read full review
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