Critic Reviews

If you don’t love monkeys already — and really, we all should — then Monkey Kingdom will swing you in the right direction.

Fun, touching, and expertly assembled.

The film boasts all the cinematic strengths we’ve come to expect from the animal-focused nonfic label... But director Mark Linfield’s film is also distinguished by its fascinating focus on the rigid but not immutable social hierarchy of the macaque world, as well as a smartly structured story of repression, rebellion, and triumph.

The eighth entry in Disney’s eco-minded Disneynature series, Monkey Kingdom may well be its cheekiest, funniest and most purely entertaining.

The film offers a valuable life lesson in the powers of determination and timing, but most of all it's darned entertaining.

Monkey Kingdom is a delightful gambol, visually stunning and educational without feeling like it, with a propulsive drama about escaping one's lowly social class at its core that inspires reflection on some uncomfortable truths about ourselves.

Hey, hey, it’s the monkeys that rule this particular spot on the Earth, and watching them monkey around is a G-rated trip and a half. And with Tina Fey’s enthusiastic narration, you might even learn something, too.

The cumulative effect is cheerily life-affirming, a bracing infusion of macaque-style joie de vivre.

The gorgeous flora and fauna of Sri Lanka are well-represented, even as the monkey business ranges from cute to cutesy.

On the whole, though, you couldn’t do much better than Monkey Kingdom to get kids invested in learning about, and protecting, the natural world.