Unicorn Wars | Telescope Film
Unicorn Wars

Unicorn Wars

Critic Rating

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User Rating

All is not right in the animal kingdom. Unicorns and teddy bears are at war, and a compelling new religion is sweeping the teddy bears into a fanatical fervor, Private Bullet desires to drink unicorn blood, said to confer eternal life. The cute and cuddly get bloody in this animated film definitely not for kids.

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What are critics saying?

90

Los Angeles Times by Carlos Aguilar

An inspired antiwar epic that recently won the Goya Award (Spain’s equivalent to an Oscar) for animated film, Vazquez’s sophomore nightmarish fairy tale culminates with frighteningly revelatory imagery signaling the pattern of destruction that has characterized human history.

86

Paste Magazine by Andrew Crump

A story about drug addiction, corrupt authorities, and environmental collapse sounds grim on paper and plays grim on screen, but Unicorn Wars is more than “grim.” It’s deranged.

75

RogerEbert.com by Katie Rife

As Vázquez keeps adding elements in its last half hour, Unicorn Wars starts to feel like the beginning of a trilogy, or maybe a TV series that got canceled unexpectedly and had to wrap up its storyline in a handful of episodes.

75

Collider by Marco Vito Oddo

While Unicorn Wars' rhythm can be uneven, the movie is still a brilliant anti-war story elevated by Vazquez’s mesmerizing art direction.

75

Polygon by Tasha Robinson

The latest from Spanish writer-director Alberto Vázquez is transgressive and aggressive to a degree that’s hard to fathom: It weaponizes cute cartoon creatures against its audience, and introduces innocence and beauty in order to tear it apart on screen in the most horrific ways possible. The film isn’t an easy watch, but it is a bold and memorable one.

60

The New York Times by Beatrice Loayza

Unicorn Wars is forcefully provocative, trying too hard to push buttons at the cost of more nuanced explorations of masculinity and power. For Vázquez, a pile of cartoon corpses makes enough of a point.

60

Variety by Peter Debruge

The visually striking, not-at-all-kid-friendly result is all kinds of wrong: Picture pastel-colored anime bears impaled on the horns of sleek black horses, backlit by raging hot-pink infernos. “The Care Bears” this ain’t, though the comparison can hardly be accidental with this ultra-graphic, Saturday morning cartoon-subverting satire for which irreverent Bronies may well be the ideal audience.