Over-produced and shamelessly manipulative, The Rocket employs a cringe-inducing score that cues every desired audience response, including unalloyed uplift at the end.

| Aug 28, 2019

[It's] a feel-good, triumph-over-adversity story involving a small boy and, although this outcome also isn't in any doubt, at least the journey is fascinating and it's been made with a heart that is warm.

| Sep 1, 2017

In some ways, it feels like a throwback to many '80s teen movies, where everything comes down to a competition at the end, and the hero will finally get the chance to prove his worth.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 31, 2014

Try not to fall off the edge of your seat during the film's nail-biting final scenes.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 14, 2014

It is a likable piece of work whose gentleness is an interesting contrast to the grim and even tragic subject matter.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 13, 2014

A Lao-brow fable that resonates richly with the realities of globalisation.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 13, 2014

A stirring, lushly-constructed celebration of youthful spirit.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 10, 2014

It follows a search for personal salvation while painting a portrait of Laotian life that's both revealing and relatable.

| Original Score: B+ | Mar 4, 2014

A powerful, deeply moving drama about a young boy who comes to terms with the tragedies that have befallen his family by creating a thing of beauty - a gorgeous, high-flying rocket emitting triumphant bursts of color - out of refuse left by the war.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Feb 28, 2014

Mordaunt doesn't always succeed at balancing the sentimental, the political and the ethnographic, but at its strongest the story is a seamless melding of history's dark undertow and a child's indefatigable optimism.

| Jan 16, 2014

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.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 10, 2014

Long on atmosphere and less sentimental about poverty than "Beasts of the Southern Wild," the film carries a potent charge of authenticity.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jan 10, 2014

A pretty, somewhat sleepy and finally strange once-upon-a-time tale...

| Jan 9, 2014

Disamoe demonstrates the resourcefulness he learned during a period when he was a street seller and beggar. It's his exuberant performance, as much as the pungently naturalistic setting, that lifts The Rocket's scenario above the generic.

| Jan 9, 2014

The characters may be clichs, but the performances are utterly fresh.

| Jan 9, 2014

A coming-of-age tale infused with fantastic elements that more than compensate for its predictability.

| Jan 9, 2014

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.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 8, 2014

The adventures of a 10-year-old Laotian boy are subject to radically different interpretations in The Rocket, Australian documentarian Kim Mordaunt's impressive narrative debut.

| Jan 6, 2014

Formulaic but likeable.

| Jan 6, 2014

The film is not only a feel-good affair, though it certainly is that - it has something of significance to say.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 17, 2013