Wolf Totem
Columbia Pictures | Release Date: September 11, 2015 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
58
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 13 Critic Reviews
Positive:
6
Mixed:
7
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
Philadelphia InquirerTirdad DerakhshaniSep 10, 2015
Wolf Totem has some of the most exciting, mind-blowing scenes of nature I've ever seen. Read full review
75
New York PostLou LumenickSep 10, 2015
Be warned that Wolf Totem, featuring one of the final scores by the late great James Horner, is probably too brutal for younger children and more sensitive animal lovers. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesSheri LindenSep 10, 2015
There's no denying the beauty of the film's imagery, violent and tender, or the emotional power of the final moment in the boy-and-his-dog love story. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovSep 16, 2015
Cinematographer Jean-Marie Dreujou has shot the ridiculously photogenic grasslands in truly spectacular IMAX 3-D, and rarely have I seen it done better. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineOleg IvanovSep 10, 2015
It becomes difficult to separate the natives from their communist masters in terms of their treatment of their natural surroundings. Read full review
63
Washington PostMark JenkinsSep 10, 2015
Annaud and his crew, including wolf trainer Andrew Simpson, nicely illustrate the animals’ cunning and coordination.... The human drama is more perfunctory. Read full review
60
The New York TimesBen KenigsbergSep 10, 2015
The landscape and painstakingly trained wolves are the true stars. Read full review
60
Arizona RepublicBarbara VanDenburghSep 10, 2015
Wolf Totem doesn’t feel so much like fully formed narrative film as it does a trumped up National Geographic special on Inner Mongolia eager to make use of shiny new IMAX cameras. Read full review
60
The GuardianPhil HoadSep 5, 2015
Annaud’s film can’t help itself galloping off in allegorical bursts barely under his control, and intriguingly off-course from the kind of bold messages of national conciliation officially sanctioned Chinese films tend to convey. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskySep 10, 2015
It sets out to take the viewer on a journey, but ends up giving them little more than a pleasantly diverting sight-seeing tour. There are worse ways to spend two hours. Better ones, too. Read full review
50
Village VoiceScott TobiasSep 8, 2015
Wolf Totem itself becomes a pitched battle for supremacy between the breathtaking glories of nature and the grinding banality of man. Here, as ever, nature loses. Read full review
50
VarietyMaggie LeeSep 5, 2015
Despite its magnificent natural vistas and some pulse-pounding action in stunning 3D, Wolf Totem boils down to a familiar environmentalist allegory that doesn’t move or provoke too deeply. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterBoyd van HoeijSep 5, 2015
Tellingly, all of the film’s emotional highlights come from scenes involving the animal rather than the human protagonists and there are only very few scenes in which the two interact in a manner that feels entirely synergetic. Read full review
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