Entertainment Weekly by Leah Greenblatt

Mackenzie falls a little too in love with his battle scenes; by the fourth clash of blood and swords it all starts to feel like déjà vu, with different horses. At nearly two and a half hours, there’s clearly room to trim.... But he also films it beautifully in the natural light of candles, torches, and overcast skies, and there’s a solidness to the old-fashioned conventions of his storytelling.

Screen Daily by Wendy Ide

A fair bit of historical scene-setting at the beginning means that the picture takes a while to hit its stride. But once it does, there is much to enjoy in this big, brawling ruck of an action movie.

Screen International by Wendy Ide

A fair bit of historical scene-setting at the beginning means that the picture takes a while to hit its stride. But once it does, there is much to enjoy in this big, brawling ruck of an action movie.

New York Magazine (Vulture) by David Edelstein

Outlaw King has a wild card — a really wild card — in Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Lord of Douglas, whose family the English humiliated. He’s so wild that as soon as he reconquers his castle, he burns it to the ground for spite. In battle, he screams in exaltation, and just when you wonder how he’ll top that, he screams again, even louder, now drenched — sopped — in gore. That you won’t get to see that in IMAX is a war crime.

CineVue by Christopher Machell

Outlaw King is proof positive that Pine is one of the most underestimated actors in modern cinema.

Los Angeles Times by Kenneth Turan

Inevitably violent (though a disemboweling still seems excessive), as edited by Jake Roberts Outlaw King now moves along at a satisfyingly brisk pace. While we likely have not seen the end of Robert the Bruce on film, this for sure is a worthy addition to the canon.

The Telegraph by Robbie Collin

This is an exultantly old-school blood-and-thunder retelling of the rise of Robert the Bruce.

Empire by Helen O'Hara

Pine supplies gravitas in the lead, but he’s almost a lone voice of moderation. Bloody and brash and as subtle as a trebuchet, this is gleefully entertaining — unless you’re English, anyway.

Austin Chronicle by Richard Whittaker

Outlaw King gets far more right than it ever gets wrong. Fourteenth century Scotland wasn't kilts and Pictish face-paint: It was a Late Middle Ages nation, with elaborate regal clothing at court, elaborate cravings and furniture, a distinct culture – and mud and blood and violence.

The Verge by Tasha Robinson

Outlaw King has plenty of the right pieces in play to make this kind of personally enriched story possible, but compared to Mackenzie’s best work, it’s plodding and artless.

The Playlist by Oliver Lyttelton

Those looking for a substantial meal or an Oscar contender are probably going to be left lacking. But so long as you’re prepared for some rousing medieval action and not all that much more, Mackenzie proves here he can work on a significant canvas with a film that must rank as one of Netflix’s more satisfying bigger-budget ventures to date.

IGN by Jim Vejvoda

When the film works, it can be very engaging but it is simply too inconsistent.

The A.V. Club by A.A. Dowd

Pine neither convinces as a conflicted peacekeeper nor a resolute resistance fighter.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Barry Hertz

Director David Mackenzie (Pine's collaborator on Hell or High Water) dabbles in some interesting aesthetic experiments – including a doozy of a single-take scene in the film's opening minutes – but the narrative is cut, dried and left to rot under the soggy Scottish skies.

Variety by Peter Debruge

Whatever its value as rabble-rousing historical reenactment, Outlaw King never quite compares to the many films it’s so keen to imitate, and in some cases outright quote.

The Hollywood Reporter by John DeFore

Pine is fully committed to Robert's mission, but the film has a hard time making him a compelling character, even with a wife and daughter on hand to make him relatable. And it takes forever for his military campaign to get rolling.

The Playlist

Outlaw King plays like the kind of passion project that a filmmaker just gets lost in; its bloated running time and narrative tedium bespeak a director watching a movie in his head for so long, he can no longer see its flaws.

IndieWire by David Ehrlich

The craft on display is often as undeniable as the cast that Mackenzie has assembled to bring it all to life, but “Outlaw King” is a moribund piece of storytelling. It’s too big to be an intimate portrait of a reluctant leader, and not big enough to effectively contextualize that leader’s role in the war he was born to fight.

The Guardian by Charles Bramesco

If the historical epic exists as a delivery system for swords-and-shields clashes, panoramas of rolling natural vistas and gruff inspirational speeches to those about to die, then Mackenzie has done his job and then some. But his prior films have set the bar a bit higher than that, and this straightforward, unchallenged take on macho valour doesn’t quite reach it.