Wolf Totem(狼图腾)

Village Voice by

Wolf Totem itself becomes a pitched battle for supremacy between the breathtaking glories of nature and the grinding banality of man. Here, as ever, nature loses.

Arizona Republic by Barbara VanDenburgh

Wolf Totem doesn’t feel so much like fully formed narrative film as it does a trumped up National Geographic special on Inner Mongolia eager to make use of shiny new IMAX cameras.

The Hollywood Reporter by Boyd van Hoeij

Tellingly, all of the film’s emotional highlights come from scenes involving the animal rather than the human protagonists and there are only very few scenes in which the two interact in a manner that feels entirely synergetic.

The A.V. Club by Ignatiy Vishnevetsky

It sets out to take the viewer on a journey, but ends up giving them little more than a pleasantly diverting sight-seeing tour. There are worse ways to spend two hours. Better ones, too.

New York Post by Lou Lumenick

Be warned that Wolf Totem, featuring one of the final scores by the late great James Horner, is probably too brutal for younger children and more sensitive animal lovers.

Variety by Maggie Lee

Despite its magnificent natural vistas and some pulse-pounding action in stunning 3D, Wolf Totem boils down to a familiar environmentalist allegory that doesn’t move or provoke too deeply.

Washington Post by Mark Jenkins

Annaud and his crew, including wolf trainer Andrew Simpson, nicely illustrate the animals’ cunning and coordination.... The human drama is more perfunctory.

Slant Magazine by Oleg Ivanov

It becomes difficult to separate the natives from their communist masters in terms of their treatment of their natural surroundings.

Philadelphia Inquirer by Tirdad Derakhshani

Wolf Totem has some of the most exciting, mind-blowing scenes of nature I've ever seen.