Magic Trip (2011)

72% of critics liked it
(57 reviews)
66% of users liked it
(2,440 ratings)

In 1964, Ken Kesey, the famed author of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," set off on a legendary, LSD-fuelled cross-country road trip to the New York World's Fair. He was joined by "The Merry Band of Pranksters," a renegade group of counterculture truth-seekers, including Neal Cassady, the American… More In 1964, Ken Kesey, the famed author of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," set off on a legendary, LSD-fuelled cross-country road trip to the New York World's Fair. He was joined by "The Merry Band of Pranksters," a renegade group of counterculture truth-seekers, including Neal Cassady, the American icon immortalized in Kerouac's "On the Road," and the driver and painter of the psychedelic Magic Bus. Kesey and the Pranksters intended to make a documentary about their trip, shooting footage on 16MM, but the film was never finished and the footage has remained virtually unseen. With Magic Trip, Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney and Alison Ellwood were given unprecedented access to this raw footage by the Kesey family. They worked with the Film Foundation, HISTORY and the UCLA Film Archives to restore over 100 hours of film and audiotape, and have shaped an invaluable document of this extraordinary piece of American history. --(C) Magnolia Pictures

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Rating, Runtime: R, 1 hr. 47 min.
Directed By: Alex Gibney, Alison Ellwood
Genres: Documentary, Special Interest

In Theaters: Aug 5, 2011 Limited
On DVD: Nov 1, 2011
Studio: Magnolia Pictures

Critic Reviews

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.
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.
John Anderson, Variety
Fans of the subject matter, especially students of the Beat era, will find this revisionist reconstruction indispensible; others will share the same tedium claimed by some of the principals on the bus.
Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor
The result may have value to '60s sociologists, ethnologists, superannuated hippies, and Kesey fanatics, but for the most part what is on view is a jumble of scenes featuring pranksters getting high on grass and LSD.
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.