Critics reviews

The film’s animation brings verve and vivaciousness to an otherwise rather stereotypical narrative. Shaw gestures towards the duality of good and evil, but ultimately, Cryptozoo fails to sufficiently elaborate on this dichotomy in cryptid nature.

It’s easy to classify Cryptozoo as more of an experience than a narrative. And it is: it’s a movie where one has to “just go with it.” The main issue, however, is the movie does focus on its plot and characters, none of which are all that intriguing.

When you turn on Cryptozoo, you’re in for something that’s unlike anything else you’ve seen before. It is the most interesting and singular animated movie I’ve seen in years.

[Cryptozoo] is a rare beast, an independently made, handcrafted animation, which treats its outlandish narrative and often absurd world with total sincerity, never winking to the camera with a knowing smirk, never acknowledging its occasional silliness.

Though its 60s-inspired, Gilliam-esque animation style is certainly awkward enough to draw the notice of the arthouse and indie crowds, Cryptozoo’s storytelling and themes fail to come up to the complexity of even a middling Pixar effort.

Cryptozoo is plain flawed; it’s an assortment of ideas (some of them mildly intriguing) that never coalesce into an engaging story, with attempts at social commentary that are obvious just from reading the plot synopsis.

Utterly bizarre in the best possible way, this lovingly handmade animated feature by writer-director Dash Shaw (originally a comic book/graphic novelist) isn’t like anything you’ve seen before.

While Cryptozoo is visually arresting, the impressive animation regularly overshadows the modest ambitions of its storytelling. It’s all rather morose, and isn’t anywhere near as much fun as its premise suggests.

Love it or hate it, Cryptozoo is unlike any other movie I've ever seen. It tells its story straight as an arrow, without any cynicism whatsoever, and is helped by a strong cast of voices... If you can appreciate the artwork and soften toward its good intentions, you're in for a treat.

Cryptozoo combines dazzling animation and a poignant anti-Disney commentary to present a thrilling adventure film with dozens of uniquely drawn magical creatures. Director Dash Shaw does get a little bogged down by his own ideas, but it still makes for a fascinating entry into the adult animation genre.

“Cryptozoo” is an unusually timid animated fantasy that looks like outsider art, but often moves and sounds like bad pulp fiction... [Much of the film] feels like an earnest, flashy genre exercise that’s more eccentric than thoughtful. It looks great on paper, but not so much on a screen.

At times you might wish that “Cryptozoo” were even more narratively adventurous and unhinged, that its neatly plotted story was as experimentally inclined as its visuals, which sometimes judder like a flipbook and sometimes turn deliriously kaleidoscopic. For all its gestures at moral ambiguity, Shaw’s script is a mostly blunt, simple, declamatory affair.