Magnus

An engaging study of a beautiful but mysterious mind, which also reveals the stressful nature of world-class chess tournaments and raises the deep question of where intelligence actually comes from.

Magnus, it turns out, is the anti-Bobby: a fascinatingly “normalized” prodigy.

Ree makes things easy for people who don't play chess, deftly pacing Carlsen's triumphs and failures and milking the suspense as "the Mozart of chess" employs his intuition to win, in an age when many players depend on computers to hone their skills.

[Ree] virtually never surprises us, making his film more a celebratory hagiography for proud Norwegians than anything the rest of the world, in and out of chess, can embrace.

Watching the goofy boy develop into a man, we share in his experiences and root for him each step of the way.

Magnus is gifted with a tremendous opportunity and mostly squanders it, creating a profile that certainly admires Carlsen, but does little to uncover the methodology or magic behind the dazzling display he demonstrates on the board.

[An] insipid and uninformative portrait of singularity and obsession.