Wendell & Wild
Netflix | Release Date: October 21, 2022 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
69
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 31 Critic Reviews
Positive:
22
Mixed:
9
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
Little White LiesSaffron MaeveNov 5, 2022
There’s clearly a lot at play: guilt, grief, purgation, conformity, electoral fraud, and the prison industrial complex to cap it all off. What may have been appropriately lolled out on paper feels distending within a 105-minute runtime, where big, salient ideas are brought only to a simmer. Read full review
60
Rolling StoneDavid FearOct 31, 2022
Co-written by Selick and Peele, Wendell & Wild has a nagging tendency to throw a lot at you and simply cross its slender, skeleton-ish fingers that even a little of it coheres and sticks. Read full review
60
Screen DailyTim GriersonSep 14, 2022
Although the film’s different realms are all imaginatively designed — as are the looks of the characters themselves — Wendell & Wild gets a little bogged down explaining the logistics of how these worlds work. Read full review
60
The GuardianRadheyan SimonpillaiSep 14, 2022
The more characters Selick has to work with, the more room there is for his deliciously strange and comic visual craft. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsNov 1, 2022
Wendell & Wild may not succeed, but I took heart from this: At least it doesn’t succeed in unconventional ways. That’s a sign of serious talents struggling with two of the most dreaded and unavoidable words in commercial cinema: “story problems.” Read full review
50
Original-CinJohn KirkOct 31, 2022
There’s a list of pros and cons for this stop-motion animation collaboration between Jordan Peele and Henry Selick that merit the attention it got at TIFF this past September. But sadly, Wendell & Wild is just not wild enough. Read full review
50
The New York TimesMaya PhillipsOct 27, 2022
The story lines feel far-flung and disconnected, and the limits and rules of this world’s magical logic are at turns underdeveloped and inconsistent. Though the movie has a delightfully raucous rock ’n’ roll sensibility, the dialogue lacks the wit and punch to match. Read full review
50
The Associated PressMark KennedyOct 25, 2022
Beneath it all is the story of a child’s love and guilt — and an education and judicial system letting her down — which propels her to bring her parents back from the dead, but that gets a little lost in the gross-out humor, Addams Family-level weirdness and shock-for-shock’s sake visual gags like a demonic teddy bear. For all the lovingly crafted spectacle, Selick’s agonizing, shot-by-shot film, is as overstuffed as that bear. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineMark HansonSep 15, 2022
Henry Selick’s flair for phantasmagorical sights is on full display, though Wendell & Wild’s excessively CGI-enhanced look is a far cry from the grounded tactility of much of his prior work. Read full review
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