Critic Reviews

• Dave Calhoun, Time Out

  Helps us to dive headfirst into both the journey and period and decide for ourselves whether to take it or leave it.

• Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune

  Records a lot of silly misbehavior but only minor merriment.

• Mark Feeney, Boston Globe

  It's the movie "Yellow Submarine'' should have been but didn't know how to be.

• Paul de Barros, Seattle Times

  This is the story of sunny, casual West Coast visionary utopians, told from the inside out.

• Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post

  It isn't exactly boring. But it's hard being the designated driver at someone else's bacchanal.

• Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer

  To be sure, one gets a better sense of the personalities, and the passions stirring their souls, in Wolfe's book. But Magic Trip literally brings these characters to life.

• Jay Antani, Cinema Writer

  a unique historical artifact, to be sure, but one which reveals nothing exceptional about the personalities, the times or the themes explored.

• Robert Roten, Laramie Movie Scope

  The film is at it's best as a time capsule of a particular time, a brief golden age in America, and a particular event, Kesey's cross-country voyage of discovery.

• Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews

  All the film can do is suggest to us what a "long, strange trip" it has been, thereby echoing the lyrics in the Grateful Dead song.

• Sam Bathe, Fan The Fire

  Not exploring the Merry Pranksters wider cultural influence and historical significance is a great misstep.

• Tony Peters, Radio Times

  This fascinating film pieces together randomly shot and previously unseen footage and recordings made by the Pranksters, and blends it seamlessly with new material to create a kaleidoscopic snapshot of those heady days.

• Philip French, Observer [UK]

  A hilarious, instructive and invaluable time capsule of that touching, idealistic and more than slightly ridiculous period.

• Tim Robey, Daily Telegraph

  Gives us a vivid feel for the bedhopping, acid-dropping subculture, if a little less insight than you'd hope...

• Derek Malcolm, This is London

  The trip is supposed to be the legendary precursor to the Swinging Sixties but ends up seeming merely fun for a group of people who have never quite grown up.

• Mark Stafford, Electric Sheep

  There is much here to amuse, bemuse and tantalise; we get to see the inside of a particular bubble, with Ginsberg and Kerouac and the Grateful Dead, a nascent scene before it went global.

• Allan Hunter, Daily Express

  It makes for a poignant if shallow remembrance.

• Peter Bradshaw, Guardian [UK]

  The prehistory of psychedelia gets an interesting, if minor footnote with this documentary co-directed by Alex Gibney - who made Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room.

• Nigel Andrews, Financial Times

  Touching, even minor-key-tragic.

• Paul Weedon, Little White Lies

  Regularly fascinating, but often somewhat inaccessible in its lack of historical context for the uninitiated.

• Matthew Turner, ViewLondon

  Impressively directed and expertly assembled, this is an engaging and frequently amusing snapshot of an iconic counter-cultural event that should appeal strongly to fans of the period.

Read all 22 critic reviews