Papillon's reviews
Media reviews
Chicago Sun-Times
It is an impressively staged and appropriately rain-soaked, mud-splattered, bone-crunching tale, more violent and filled with rougher language than its predecessor, if not quite as powerful or moving.
Variety
"On its own terms, Noer?s adventure is ultimately a dramatic and dynamic-enough telling of an indelible fact-based story to connect with viewers".
The Guardian
"Hunnam and Malek both hold up their end of the deal. Noer, for his part, meets them halfway by conjuring golden-hued beauty for the jungle surroundings and a due griminess for the danker chambers of their holding compound. He doesn?t overcomplicate things for himself, keeping the clunky dialogue to a minimum and focusing on the guiding light of Papi?s indomitable willpower".
Time Out
Amazingly, the remake?by Danish director Michael Noer?is nearly as long and equally as depressing. But he?s made a slightly more exciting movie.
Rolling Stone
Papillon pushes too hard with diminishing returns. Though Hunnam and Malek give it everything they?ve got, they?re denied the chance to make their characters as indelible as McQueen and Hoffman did.
Los Angeles Times
What?s missing is a more personal directorial imprint.
Roger Ebert
For despite how much I liked about Hunnam?s work here, I could never completely engage with Papillon given how little it adds to the story that?s already been told and the overdone genre of humans surviving outright torture.
The Hollywood Reporter
"There?s no real voice in the storytelling, nothing distinctive about the imagery, if it?s not a doubling up on the violence and gore, and the result doesn?t remotely resonate in the same way".
The Playlist
"With no unique viewpoint on the story of its own, it?s perplexing why Papillon went in front of cameras at all".