TV Guide Magazine by Staff (Not Credited)

Ocelot forgoes the razzle-dazzle of 3D, computer-generated animation and turns instead to West African painting, sculpture and fabric for layout, character design and the film's gorgeous color palette.

Orlando Sentinel by Roger Moore

It's a delightful cartoon that truly feels African in the way it carries the wisdom of the ages. It feels like a great fable, preserved for generations because of the wise lessons it imparts. [04 Aug 2000, p.19]

Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt

Many times more African than "Tarzan" and "The Lion King" combined, Kirikou and the Sorceress is one of the best movies so far in this very young year.

The A.V. Club by Charles Bramesco

Ocelot’s joyous mashup is a work of uncommonly vivid imagination, sharing space with Yellow Submarine, Fantastic Planet, and The Triplets Of Belleville in the omnivorous grade-schooler’s alt-canon.

BBC

Taking its artistic inspiration from African sculpture and Egyptian art, the distinctive pictorial style of Ocelet's award-winning feature is bolstered by an authentic soundtrack from Senegalese musician Youssou N'dour. Couple this with the film's pint-sized but big-mouthed hero, and you've got one of the most enchanting animated features in quite some time.

Empire by Patrick Peters

A welcome antidote to anodyne Hollywood cartooning.

The Dissolve by Tasha Robinson

Kirikou is a wonder because it’s such a familiar kind of story, told in such an unusual way.

The Observer (UK)

The sweet-natured Kirikou and the Sorceress, is a French animated movie drawing on a West African tale that has an authenticity The Lion King lacks.

BBC by Jamie Russell

Taking its artistic inspiration from African sculpture and Egyptian art, the distinctive pictorial style of Ocelet's award-winning feature is bolstered by an authentic soundtrack from Senegalese musician Youssou N'dour. Couple this with the film's pint-sized but big-mouthed hero, and you've got one of the most enchanting animated features in quite some time.

The Observer (UK) by Philip French

The sweet-natured Kirikou and the Sorceress, is a French animated movie drawing on a West African tale that has an authenticity The Lion King lacks.

Time Out

It's a great package: salutary, short (74 minutes) and sweet.

Total Film by Staff (Not Credited)

Utterly enthralling, Kirikou And The Sorceress may be modest by Hollywood standards, but it has an enormous heart. Disney, please take note.

Washington Post by Michael O'Sullivan

Coupled with the fact that the plant and animal life (hoopoes, zorilles and ground squirrels, among other beasties) really look African, and that the film's original score is by the great contemporary Senegalese musician Youssou N'Dour, Kirikou and the Sorceress's surprising honesty about the banality of evil makes the movie -- even with all its magic -- feel truly authentic.

San Francisco Chronicle by Peter Stack

Kirikou and the Sorceress is definitely a sunny spot in the mire of frenetic, violent and often dopey cartoon films produced by Hollywood. It's also far more imaginative that most.

Chicago Reader by Lisa Alspector

The plots of animated features are often excuses for visual showboating, but here the lilting story line, based on west African folktales, complements the alternately sumptuous and austere images.

San Francisco Examiner by Wesley Morris

Set in a vivid two-dimensional African village, the animated fable is jerky, odd but redolent somehow of Saturday morning and the night's sleep before.

The New York Times by Elvis Mitchell

It's more a piece to admire than to be involved by, yet it's easy to imagine children hypnotized by a hero tinier than they are when "Kirikou" is continually loaded into the VCR.