- , Empire Magazine, November 25, 2011
Gives us a vivid feel for the bedhopping, acid-dropping subculture, if a little less insight than you'd hope...
- Tim Robey, Daily Telegraph, November 19, 2011
The prehistory of psychedelia gets an interesting, if minor footnote with this documentary co-directed by Alex Gibney - who made Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room.
- Peter Bradshaw, Guardian [UK], November 17, 2011
Helps us to dive headfirst into both the journey and period and decide for ourselves whether to take it or leave it.
- Dave Calhoun, Time Out, November 15, 2011
Records a lot of silly misbehavior but only minor merriment.
- Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune, September 02, 2011
It's the movie "Yellow Submarine'' should have been but didn't know how to be.
- Mark Feeney, Boston Globe, September 01, 2011
It isn't exactly boring. But it's hard being the designated driver at someone else's bacchanal.
- Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post, August 19, 2011
To be sure, one gets a better sense of the personalities, and the passions stirring their souls, in Wolfe's book. But Magic Trip literally brings these characters to life.
- Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer, August 18, 2011
Fans of the subject matter, especially students of the Beat era, will find this revisionist reconstruction indispensible; others will share the same tedium claimed by some of the principals on the bus.
- John Anderson, Variety, August 18, 2011
It's a fun film but I wasn't as fully engaged with its meandering style and don't feel like I really gained any insight into Kesey and company.
- Thomas Caldwell, Cinema Autopsy, August 13, 2011
The result may have value to '60s sociologists, ethnologists, superannuated hippies, and Kesey fanatics, but for the most part what is on view is a jumble of scenes featuring pranksters getting high on grass and LSD.
- Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor, August 12, 2011
Gibney and Ellwood struggle to create context for or make much sense of the vibrant hodge-podge of material that they excavated from the archives of Kesey, who died in 2001.
- Mark Olsen, Los Angeles Times, August 11, 2011
The movie fails to make the cross-country jaunt function as a metaphor for the country's mid-century passage. Minus that, the Pranksters' everything-changing adventure looks a lot like just another road trip.
- Mark Jenkins, NPR, August 05, 2011
It's fascinating and sometimes surprising stuff.
- Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger, August 05, 2011
Ken Kesey decided the camera was mightier than the pen. This enjoyable but surprisingly unenlightening documentary suggests otherwise.
- Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News, August 05, 2011
I'm not sure I can adequately explain the '60s to someone who wasn't there. "Magic Trip" doesn't really even try.
- Lou Lumenick, New York Post, August 05, 2011
The backstory behind the film is as compelling as the events it depicts.
- Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter, August 04, 2011
The first striking thing about the documentary is that nothing about it reads 1964.
- Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle, August 04, 2011
"Magic Trip" is the cinematic equivalent of a yellowed scrapbook whose pictures are accompanied by sketchy captions created after the fact.
- Stephen Holden, New York Times, August 04, 2011
It's like seeing the birth of the '60s, with great moments (including Neal Cassady doing speed-freak monologues).
- Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly, August 03, 2011
