Margot Robbie had audiences cheering and dressing in pink a few years in the past in Barbie, and after a short hiatus — throughout which she had her first child — she is again and able to hit the 2025 film calendar with A Massive Daring Stunning Journey. Colin Farrell co-stars as David who comes along with Robbie’s Sarah for a … properly, the title says all of it. Forward of A Massive Daring Stunning Journey’s launch date, critics had been capable of display screen the romantic fantasy, and so they appear to agree that one thing is missing.
The movie, directed by Kogonada, is extremely anticipated as Margot Robbie’s first position post-Barbie, and she or he’s described it as “one of the vital magical experiences of my life.” Are critics feeling the magic? IndieWire’s Ryan Lattanzio is decidedly not, as he offers the film a D+, calling it “embarrassingly earnest and mawkish” and saying the leads have as a lot chemistry as two partitions that occur to be going through one another. Lattanzio continues:
There’s definitely nothing romantic a couple of film that options a number of moments of cringe-in-your-seat Burger King product placement. A Massive Daring Stunning Journey is miscalculated as a romance and a fantasy, and whereas I’m loath responsible a craftsman as clever as Kogonada completely for the end result, he did, in any case, comply with direct this awful script. A giant, daring, lovely bore certainly.
Brian Truitt of USA TODAY charges it 2 out of 4 stars, saying the premise appears good on paper, however the film loses its fascinating story materials when it goes all in on Sarah and David’s romance. Don’t really feel dangerous about skipping this one, Truitt says, writing:
It’s an intriguing premise with potential that craters in A Massive Daring Stunning Journey, a bland and predictable romantic fantasy with A-list stars Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie. Loads charming on their very own however missing that spark as a pair, they play strangers inexplicably introduced collectively in magical vogue to look at their previous lives collectively. It’s the sort of factor you’d wager could be emotionally manipulative – if solely, as a result of that’d be welcome in comparison with this emotionally disconnecting, sporadically nuanced narrative.
Witney Seibold of SlashFilm offers A Massive Daring Stunning Journey 4.5 stars out of 10, saying it is not a horrible movie, nevertheless it’s not mature sufficient to know the machinations of the human coronary heart. The critic says:
Robbie and Farrell are each wonderful actors, however they’re saddled with characters who can not really feel a lot as posit and question their very own emotional states like aliens with scalpels. The movie’s conversations about love really feel educational, theoretical, and inconclusive. There isn’t a hearth, no warmth, no ardour. It is a romance of the mind. Massive Daring is aware of the emotional vocabulary of a jilted teen, however not the fiery inside romantic furnace of a passionate, sexual grownup. To paraphrase Raquel S. Benedict, everyone seems to be huge daring and delightful, and nobody is sexy.
Pete Hammond of Deadline says the bones of a traditional love story are there, however the coronary heart simply isn’t beating sufficient. Hammond says he “actually wished to love this one much more than I did,” and continues:
Director Kogonada goes for alternate melancholy and whimsy, an uneven mix of introspective drama and excessive idea fantasy that feels a bit misplaced in translation and doesn’t fairly work the best way it was meant for some cause. One thing appears to be lacking on this very intentionally sluggish paced reflection on the pitfalls of the previous and the probabilities of the long run. It connects sometimes, particularly in the highschool sequence which livens issues up significantly, however too typically it fails to have interaction and is overly talky.
Mae Abdulbaki of ScreenRant charges it a 4 out of 10, calling it “a research in manufactured sentimentality.” The critic says A Massive Daring Stunning Journey is a “lengthy, arduous” movie that may go away audiences feeling hole. Abdulbaki continues:
Your complete movie is ready as much as evoke heartache, loneliness, and the worry of beginning a brand new relationship, nevertheless it dawdles when making an attempt to genuinely seize any of those emotions. It so typically feels as sterile because the hospital Sarah visits to see her mom (Lily Rabe). There’s an vacancy that permeates the movie; it’s meant to convey us into the fantasy of the romance it’s portraying, not go away us on the outskirts trying in. Even the payoff isn’t as deep because it goals to be.
These reactions are little doubt disappointing for individuals who had been excited to see Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie come collectively in her return to the massive display screen. Nonetheless, don’t let critics hold you from the theater if that is one you’re curious about. A Massive Daring Stunning Journey hits theaters on Friday, September 19.