83
Visually, it’s a total feast for the eyes, contrasting art-deco pinks and mint greens against sterile, symmetrically framed expanses of white, vaguely evoking the aesthetic of some lost sci-fi film of the ’70s.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
70
[A] sci-fi head trip ... If the film can be somewhat unsubtle in its thematic questions, it matches that with an equally loud color palette – and you know what, that’s perfectly fine.
67
With its capable cast and sterile aesthetic in tow, “Little Joe” commands the bleak futurism of a “Black Mirror” episode, yet with slightly more muted drama.
60
Compared to the sophisticated and nuanced horrors of Black Mirror, Little Joe feels like a fairly straightforward riff on a very familiar idea.
70
Los Angeles Times by Justin Chang
This is a quietly insinuating picture with, by my estimation, one good jump scare, a lot of queasy chuckles and an overall atmosphere of slow, creeping, heavily perfumed rot.
80
An artfully unnerving, austerely hypnotic horror movie about a very sinister plant.
40
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
None of this is represented in any compelling dramatic style, and the actors – all very talented and assured – have perhaps not had clear enough direction. It is a mood piece. Whose mood leads nowhere.
60
The film itself never exudes much heat: it’s a chilly, impeccable diagram.
20
The Hollywood Reporter by Todd McCarthy
A lifeless, tone-deaf variation on Invasion of the Body Snatchers. ... There’s just nothing going on here with which to engage your interest, nor is there a single moment to even slightly increase the viewer’s pulse rate.
70
Boldly synthetic in its approach, in everything from colour palette to performance style, this film won’t be for everyone. And the fact that it defies easy categorisation might present a marketing challenge. But for those who engage with it, this oddly off-kilter piece of storytelling should exert a pull every bit as mesmerising as any genetically modified mood-enhancing shrub.