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88An astonishing film.
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75Ballard connects you to the beauteous inner calm of the wild, even if audiences today are looking for a lot less calm.
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88An exquisitely filmed, emotionally transfixing epic about a white South African boy's journey to return his pet cheetah to the wild.
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90Enormously entertaining.
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80Duma is not a masterpiece, but its deficits recede into insignificance once you open yourself to the movie's mystery and visual splendor.
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88This is precisely the kind of film that parents clamor for and rarely get: a substantive, stirring, Huck Finn-style saga that doesn't insult anyone's intelligence or mindlessly entertain with crass humor.
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80This is superior family entertainment--warm, thoughtful, and connected to the landscape.
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91Ballard filmed across hundreds of miles of South African desert, and there are times when the whole throbbing universe seems to resound for him.
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70The cheetah is the star in Duma, and no one directs animals more convincingly than Ballard, who knows better than anyone how to integrate patchwork nature shots into narrative action. Too bad the two-legged talking animals aren't as compelling this time out.
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88Duma, at its best, reminded me exactly why we loved movies as children: because they told stories like this, with images just as rhapsodically colorful and exciting.
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88The same audience that loves "March of the Penguins" will eat up this beautifully told, gorgeously shot story of a grieving boy trying to return his pet cheetah to the wilds of South Africa.
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90Intelligent, visually rich filmmaking.
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80A newcomer to film, Michaletos grew up on a farm with cheetahs, so he can act natural around the animals while making this Huck Finn-like character more than credible.
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80A soulful, piercingly beautiful story.
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90A drama of uncommon beauty and emotional resonance.
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80It's rich, but slow, and children younger than eight (like mine) might get restless. But this big kid was lost in admiration.
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75A superior adventure film with a poetic heart.
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90A superior all-ages adventure pic made by a filmmaker who knows more than a thing or two about the genre.
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80Documentary makers struggle for this effect -- a feeling for the land that is both grand and unsentimental. The makers of Duma, a fable fit for children, have found it.
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A pleasing fable reminiscent of G-rated nature movies of the '60s and '70s, before kiddie cinema required CGI or hip cultural references.
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Duma turns out to be surprisingly flat, with little of the child's-eye imagery that gave "The Black Stallion" its poetic thrust and too much of the narrative gear-grinding that grounded stretches of "Fly Away Home."
User score distribution:
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Positive: 10 out of 11
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Mixed: 0 out of 11
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Negative: 1 out of 11
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This review contains spoilers, click full review link to view.
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[Anonymous]10Very gripping, great story about a movie about a cheetah about stuff.
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ScottP.10Incredible story and film. Best movie I've seen in years.