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.
Back to trending 
The Monkey King
Animation · Fantasy · Adventure · 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.
Movie details
The Monkey King
“The legend has arrived”
2023 Animation · Fantasy · Adventure 1h 32m
Critical arithmetic
The consensus, allegedly.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
IMDb
5.8 / 10
7.6K votes
Rotten Tomatoes
56 %
Tomatometer
Metacritic
59 / 100
Metascore
TMDB
6.5 / 10
Community rating
External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.
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.
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 Monkey King?
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.
Wonder Park
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Spellbound
Animation · 2024
When a powerful spell turns her parents into giant monsters, a teenage princess must journey into the wild to reverse the curse before it's too late.
Animal Crackers
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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.
Rugrats Go Wild
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When the Rugrats find themselves stranded on a deserted island, they meet the Thornberrys, a family who agrees to help them escape.
The Magician's Elephant
Animation · 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.
Welcome to Smelliville
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The Oggly family arrive at the municipal rubbish dump of Smelliville and must look for a new home, but they never feel really welcome anywhere. They stink and are for most humans just a tad too oggly. When Firebottom, the family dragon, crash-lands on the run-down rubbish tip of the small town of Smelliville, the Ogglies at once feel at home. And it's here they want to stay.
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 Willoughbys
Adventure · 2020
When the four Willoughby children are abandoned by their selfish parents, they must learn how to adapt their Old-Fashioned values to the contemporary world in order to create something new: The Modern Family.
Smurfs: The Lost Village
Family · 2017
In this fully animated, all-new take on the Smurfs, a mysterious map sets Smurfette and her friends Brainy, Clumsy and Hefty on an exciting race through the Forbidden Forest leading to the discovery of the biggest secret in Smurf history.
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.
Where it lives
Watch in your region.
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Streaming availability data supplied by JustWatch.
Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
Anthony Stacchi
Written by
Rita Hsiao · Steve Bencich · Ron J. Friedman
Jimmy O. Yang
Monkey King (voice)
Bowen Yang
Dragon King (voice)
Jolie Hoang-Rappaport
Lin (voice)
Jo Koy
Benbo (voice)
Ron Yuan
Babbo (voice)
N
Nan Li
Stick (voice)
Andrew Pang
The Mayor (voice)
Court is in session
Put The Monkey King 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.