50
The movie achieves the kind of rhythm of an opera, alternating between arias of animated poetry and the recitative of normal speech.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
63
A consummate sampler platter of the bounty of state-of-the-art animation currently available as alternatives established major-studio house styles.
50
Los Angeles Times by Charles Solomon
The audience's response to The Prophet is likely to be determined by their feelings for the original book rather than the eclectic, imaginative visuals.
75
New York Post by Farran Smith Nehme
Gibran’s book was huge in the 1960s, and it feels fresher here than it has in ages, although the visuals are stronger than the music.
40
The New York Times by Jeannette Catsoulis
This collection of eight mini-sermons falls flat.
75
Entertainment Weekly by Joe McGovern
Gibran’s little life lessons have been turned into three-minute haiku by different animators and spread across the film. Each one soars (especially clay painter Joan Gratz’s color-bursting snippet, “On Work”), even if the plot holding them together is frustratingly Disneyish.
40
New York Daily News by Joe Neumaier
A work of words as lovely as “The Prophet” deserves a better artistic interpretation than this animated venture, which consists mostly of pedestrian, ’70s-quality visuals.
80
Think of Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet as a gift: a work of essential spiritual enlightenment, elegantly interpreted by nine of the world’s leading independent animators, all tied up and wrapped in a family-friendly bow by “The Lion King” director Roger Allers.
75
It’s a lovely work, imbued with all the sweetness a Who’s Who of great animators can give it.
50
Paley's segment proves that The Prophet is more of a missed opportunity than an ambitious folly.