Into the Wild Reviews
Top Critic
JoBlo's Movie Emporium
Every once in awhile, a movie will come outta nowhere and blow your socks off.
Full Review
| Original Score: 9/10
ReelzChannel.com
It's a bit heavy-handed, but ultimately a rewarding watch.
Full Review
| Original Score: 8/10
Suite101.com
Even in its harrowing final moments, it reaches a spiritually transcendent pinnacle - the idea of ending one long, strange trip and plummeting into an even-greater unknown with both fear and elation. A stirring American drama of comfort and conflict.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/4
Matt's Movie Reviews
An uplifting and enriching cautionary tale about one man's spiritual adventure on the road and in the wilderness.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4.5/5
Sight and Sound
Even Penn's more indulgent flourishes seem to enhance the film's keen feeling.
DCist
Penn's film displays a deep and abiding love for America, set against a critique of the uglier aspects that exist alongside all that the beauty.
Full Review
| Original Score: 8/10
CNNRadio
A long trip, but worth the wait. Paul Chambers, CNN.
Full Review
| Original Score: B-
CHUD
I would never do what Christopher McCandless did, and yet I found Into the Wild to be incredibly inspiring.
Full Review
| Original Score: 9/10
Fayetteville Free Weekly
Into The Wild has been made into a prayer of a motion picture by Sean Penn. It may not touch everybody, but those whom it does touch, it will touch deeply. It is a haunting odyssey.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4.0/5
ON Magazine
Penn has managed an impressive achievement that qualifies as a great American film. [Blu-ray]
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/4
Movie Metropolis
...it's not the character of McCandless...but the supporting cast and characters who bring the story to life.
Full Review
| Original Score: 7/10
As [Hirsch] struggles with the elements, his increasing frailty and the cinematography's increasing grandeur mesh in a way that's at once iconic and wrenching.
Cinema Sight
Often too concerned with how smart he's being, Sean Penn gets the quiet moments right while some of the more dialogue-intensive come off poorly.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
Apollo Guide
an intensely intimate and personal experience
Full Review
| Original Score: 88/100
Watertown Daily Times
Hirsch may be the talk of Into the Wild, but Penn should be commended for putting together such a strong cast.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
Hollywood Report Card
Perhaps destined to follow the same emotional arc as the true story it portrays, the film starts with great promise, passion, and inspiration only to quietly wane.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
Apollo Guide
Sean Penn deserves huge credit for the gentle hand he has used in telling this incredible story.
Full Review
| Original Score: 85/100
Movie Views
Into the Wild is a film to meditate on. It's long, it's not particularly fast-moving but it struck me in a carnal fashion.
