Critic Reviews

• Mark Olsen, Los Angeles Times

  The film feels like an animated Wikipedia page, just sort of running through the greatest hits of Lincoln's life in office - the Emancipation Proclamation! Gettysburg! The Theater! - without any real insight.

• Neil Genzlinger, New York Times

  Note to filmmakers: Just because you can do something doesn't necessarily mean you should do it.

• Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News

  Comes off like a View-Master version of a tale already told.

• Lou Lumenick, New York Post

  Litvak's shoestring production sketches in episodes from Lincoln's entire administration, including a strange "Dixie'' singalong on the White House steps to mark the end of the war.

• Bill Edelstein, Variety

  The script, while largely historically accurate, is undermined by stilted dialogue, and the pic is laced with ill-fitting parts that wind up literally all over the matte.

• Alan Scherstuhl, Village Voice

  Imagine the stiffness of a Star Wars prequel but without the bravura technique.

• Brent Simon, Shockya.com

  An ancillary curio about the man and his struggles, at least for history buffs, and an unusual exception to an old screenwriting rule -- a movie whose framing device benefits it much more than its actual execution.

• Nora Lee Mandel, Film-Forward.com

  The innovative look. . .of thrusting actors directly into archival photographs, . .the primary reason to see the film, is particularly striking. . .as visual authenticity.

• Avi Offer, NYC Movie Guru

  A bold visual feat undermined by an overstuffed, cold and shallow screenplay and awkward theatrical performances.

• Kirk Honeycutt, honeycuttshollywood.com

  The film suggests a way modestly budgeted movies can approach historical epochs and figures in a provocative and arresting manner.

• Ed Gonzalez, Slant Magazine

  Under even the best of circumstances, Saving Lincoln would have to inevitably face the scrutiny of potential redundancy.

• Susan Granger, SSG Syndicate

  This simulated, caricatured curiosity is another Lincoln log that's recommended primarily for history-buffs.

• Shirley Sealy, Film Journal International

  Film about Abraham Lincoln and his "best friend" and bodyguard is weakened by a bare-bones script, but greatly strengthened by the director's invention of a visual technique that even Steven Spielberg might envy.

• Matt Pais, RedEye

  Like a movie-watching day in class that makes you miss the thrilling rhetoric of a lecture.

• Kam Williams, AALBC.com

  A fresh take on The Great Emancipator from the point-of-view of a trusted companion who had been at the President's side at Gettysburg and for many historical moments but not on the day he died.

Read all 15 critic reviews