60
Kim Mordaunt’s when-life-gives-you-land-mines tale is light on well-drawn characters, but its performances, especially from the nonprofessional junior members, more than light the fuse for the finale.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
90
Wall Street Journal by Joe Morgenstern
Watching Ahlo mix his explosives is like watching a Cordon Bleu chef whipping up a stupendous soufflé.
60
The Hollywood Reporter by John DeFore
Young actor Sitthiphon Disamoe helps keep the tale of a can-do kid from becoming too cute.
80
The Rocket's ample pleasures come from Mordaunt localizing this tested formula rather than trying to reinvent it.
85
The kid performances are impressive and the subtext of a region still shaking off the effects of a long-ended war gives seed to some much needed discussion.
70
The New York Times by Manohla Dargis
What gives this movie its sting is that, despite Mr. Mordaunt’s insistent attempts at uplift, death hovers over this story at every single moment.
75
Slant Magazine by Nick McCarthy
The particulars of Laos's historical conflicts are sometimes only obliquely confronted, but the torrid past of covered-up wars palpably echoes through the scarred yet majestic landscapes.
50
The Dissolve by Noah Berlatsky
The Rocket is a well-constructed delivery system for sparkly cheer, but it lacks a more substantial payload.
91
Mordaunt’s eye indicates a thoughtful filmmaker able to listen to the winds of what a movie needs. Effortlessly natural, his workmanlike craft carries the capacity to keep an ear open to happenstance.
80
Mordaunt previously directed a docu in Laos that featured kids who sold unexploded bombs for scrap metal, and that earlier experience invests this feature’s characters and milieu with an absolute integrity.