34
Metascore
12 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 60Orlando SentinelJay BoyarOrlando SentinelJay BoyarDirector Michael Chapman, an experienced cinematographer, is skilled in conveying ideas through pictures -- quite an advantage in a movie about people who aren't especially verbal. And Chapman's cinematographer, Jan De Bont, has a varied palette that responds to the visual demands of a world in transition.
- 50The New York TimesJanet MaslinThe New York TimesJanet Maslin[It] has a gentle approach to its characters and an occasionally striking visual style. What it doesn't have is much momentum or originality.
- 40Los Angeles TimesSheila BensonLos Angeles TimesSheila BensonAfter much time with this soggy, quarrelsome clan, your sympathies may lie entirely with the bear.
- 40EmpireEmpireGreater drama and prehistorical weight are to found in the earlier Quest For Fire or the BBC's Walking With Cavemen, and without so much as a trailer for extras, this feels like a relic.
- Mostly, though, the problem with the movie lies in the story, which is slow and episodic. Ayla learns how to use a sling (even though women aren't supposed to hunt). Ayla learns the tricks of the medicine woman. Ayla goes to a Neanderthal convention.
- 40Time OutTime OutDevotees of John Sayles' witty, literate screenplays will be disappointed by the repartee of subtitled grunts, while beneath the film's apparent plea for tolerance lies the offensive (if quite possibly true) assumption that tall, tanned Californian blondes represent the highest form of human life.
- 38Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertThe filmmakers made no effort to empathize with their prehistoric characters, to imagine what it might have really been like back then.
- 30NewsweekJack KrollNewsweekJack KrollThe Clan of the Cave Bear is dog. [27 Jan 1986, p.69]
- 25TV Guide MagazineTV Guide MagazineThe cinematic adaptation of the novel, however, is so laughably awful that Auel later sued the producers for creating such an inaccurate work.