The defence The Sentimental Softie
“Sincerity is not manipulation.”
The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.
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The Magician's Elephant
Animation · Adventure · Family · 2023
Peter is searching for his long-lost sister when he crosses paths with a fortune teller in the market square. His only question is: is his sister still alive? The answer, that he must find a mysterious elephant and the magician who will conjure it, sets Peter off on a journey to complete three seemingly impossible tasks that will change the face of his town forever.
Movie details
The Magician's Elephant
“Dare to believe”
2023 Animation · Adventure · Family 1h 39m
Critical arithmetic
The consensus, allegedly.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
IMDb
6.6 / 10
6.6K votes
Rotten Tomatoes
66 %
Tomatometer
Metacritic
53 / 100
Metascore
TMDB
6.8 / 10
Community rating
External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.
Peter is searching for his long-lost sister when he crosses paths with a fortune teller in the market square. His only question is: is his sister still alive? The answer, that he must find a mysterious elephant and the magician who will conjure it, sets Peter off on a journey to complete three seemingly impossible tasks that will change the face of his town forever.
CriticWise case file
What this film says about your taste.
Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.
The archetype split
Who fights over The Magician's Elephant?
For the defence
The Sentimental Softie
“You came to feel something, and you will.”
Read their case For the prosecution
The Cool Ironist
“Feeling things is a little embarrassing.”
Read their objectionThe split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.
Taste neighbourhood
Nearby on the taste map.
TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.
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Wonder Park
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A young girl named June with a big imagination makes an incredible discovery -- the amusement park of her dreams has come to life. Filled with the world's wildest rides operated by fun-loving animals, the excitement never ends. But when trouble hits, June and her misfit team of furry friends begin an unforgettable journey to save the park.
The Monkey King
Animation · 2023
A stick-wielding monkey teams with a young girl on an epic quest for immortality, battling demons, dragons, gods — and his own ego — along the way.
Plankton: The Movie
Family · 2025
Plankton's tangled love story with his sentient computer wife goes sideways when she takes a stand — and decides to destroy the world without him.
The Star
Animation · 2017
A small but brave donkey and his animal friends become the unsung heroes of the greatest story ever told: the first Christmas.
The House of Magic
Family · 2013
Thunder, an abandoned young cat seeking shelter from a storm, stumbles into the strangest house imaginable, owned by an old magician and inhabited by a dazzling array of automatons and gizmos. Not everyone welcomes the new addition to the troupe as Jack Rabbit and Maggie Mouse plot to evict Thunder. The situation gets worse when the magician lands in hospital and his scheming nephew sees his chance to cash in by selling the mansion. Our young hero is determined to earn his place and so he enlists the help of some wacky magician's assistants to protect his magical new home.
Animal Crackers
Comedy · 2018
A family must use a magical box of Animal Crackers to save a rundown circus from being taken over by their evil uncle Horatio P. Huntington.
Chickenhare and the Hamster of Darkness
Animation · 2022
A brave young animal explorer teams up with two trusty friends to find a powerful artifact before his greedy uncle can get his paws on it.
Horton Hears a Who!
Animation · 2008
An imaginative elephant named Horton hears a faint cry for help coming from a tiny speck of dust floating through the air. Horton suspects there may be life on that speck and despite a surrounding community, who thinks he has lost his mind, he is determined to save the tiny particle.
Where it lives
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Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
Wendy Rogers
Written by
Martin Hynes
Noah Jupe
Peter (voice)
Mandy Patinkin
Vilna Lutz (voice)
Brian Tyree Henry
Leo Matienne (voice)
Natasia Demetriou
Narrator / Fortune Teller (voice)
Sian Clifford
Gloria Matienne (voice)
Benedict Wong
Magician (voice)
Miranda Richardson
Madam LaVaughn (voice)
Court is in session
Put The Magician's Elephant on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
The prosecution The Cool Ironist
“The strings are showing.”
Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.