Ardor
Participant Media | Release Date: July 17, 2015 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
48
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 13 Critic Reviews
Positive:
4
Mixed:
7
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperJul 16, 2015
Highly entertaining high camp. Read full review
80
CineVueBen NicholsonJun 18, 2015
Clearly modelled on a familiar western narrative, Pablo Fendrik's The Burning (2014) both embraces and playfully inverts the tropes that define its genre classification. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesMichael RechtshaffenJul 16, 2015
Pablo Fendrik's Ardor is a densely atmospheric, Sergio Leone-steeped western that ultimately proves too reverential for its own good. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezJul 16, 2015
Ardor is never boring, but it’s never all that engaging, either. Here is a movie that ends with a can’t-miss scenario — a siege on a farmhouse in which the heroes are vastly outnumbered and outgunned — yet still fails to ever quicken your pulse. Read full review
38
Movie NationRoger MooreJul 14, 2015
Ardor, in the end, has little ardor, or originality or magic about it. It’s just a mundane C-movie action picture that tries to pass itself off as something deeper. Read full review
63
New York PostSara StewartJul 15, 2015
By the last battle, you may find yourself hoping that at least one person escapes without being macheted to death. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennyJul 17, 2015
The film itself falls short on two crucial levels: it’s neither sufficiently profound nor intoxicating enough to justify or transcend its self-seriousness. As good-looking as the movie and its stars are, Ardor, whose title refers to a literal state of burning, never manages to catch fire. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineCarson LundJul 13, 2015
It broods along as if it's expressing something monumentally important with each slow-as-molasses camera move. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyJun 18, 2015
While there's some novelty in using genre conventions to contemplate the sin of taming a wild frontier, the reverential film takes itself far too seriously; it ends up being neither sufficiently inventive nor revisionist to surmount its archetypal cliches. Read full review
50
The New York TimesDaniel M. GoldJul 16, 2015
This slow-paced, cut-to-the-bone drama ought to be gripping, especially as the jungle and its beasts make their presence felt. But curiously, Ardor lacks tension, maybe because the actors are playing archetypes: Little is said, and there are few surprises. Read full review
40
Time Out LondonTom HuddlestonJun 18, 2015
Writer-director Pablo Fendrik takes the whole thing terribly seriously, punctuating the action with ponderous slo-mo and laughably pompous discussions about Bernal’s spirit jaguar. Read full review
50
VarietyPeter DebrugeJun 18, 2015
Fendrik seems more interested in the rich jungle surroundings than in the generic human struggle in the foreground, alternating between clunky setpieces (such as the sitting-duck rowboat shootout) and long stretches where the characters say nothing. Read full review
40
Village VoiceSimon AbramsJul 14, 2015
Too bad that Ardor's arrhythmic editing and glacial pacing make it impossible to get lost in its jungles — or to invest in its pseudo-mystical ambiance. Read full review
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