A timely and thought-provoking documentary about efforts in China to deprogram teenagers addicted to Internet gaming.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 14, 2015

The campers, of course, hate it, and many seem to suggest it becomes basically another game to them. Figure it out, get released, go back to the computer.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 12, 2015

Docu explores Internet addiction and family relationships.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 11, 2014

The film is fascinating and often darkly funny, but it's hard not to wish for some actual analysis to flesh out the many scenes of grim people in gray rehab.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 7, 2014

The human stories in "Web Junkie" are instantly identifiable, stories of a world where everyone has been brought closer together and simultaneously kept apart.

| Aug 6, 2014

The kids are as uncommunicative as teenage boys tend to be in every country, and shots of them marching in unison or looking sadly out from behind chain-link fences are only compelling for so long.

| Original Score: C+ | Aug 6, 2014

Without a frame of footage nor a single interview presented from outside the camp, the documentary shows a capitalist nightmare that accords its victims zero wiggle room.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 6, 2014

The film lacks either the immersive intensity that would galvanize emotions or a context that would provide enlightenment. Its brief tour of an unpleasant corner of reality feels less revelatory than voyeuristic.

| Aug 5, 2014

The slow (albeit unevenly paced) unveiling of the boys' stories is persuasive and chilling. Internet addiction is real.

| Aug 5, 2014

A tough love remedy for internet addiction designed for impressionable young minds which prefer virtual reality to relating in the flesh.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Aug 5, 2014

Shlam and Medalia haven't constructed the film particularly artfully... but Web Junkie is a case where the access is so unexpected and revelatory that it's a wonder just to have the footage.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 5, 2014

Heartbreaking, illuminating, frightening and intimate. Bravo to the filmmakers for shedding light on an issue that many people can relate to to some degree.

| Original Score: 7.55/10 | Aug 4, 2014

Web Junkie glides over its most provocative idea-namely, that Chinese youth, often without siblings due to population control, might be making those attachments the only way they know how.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 30, 2014

(The filmmaker's) free form, peak-around-corners style deprives the film of structure but ensures moments of often brutal honesty.

| Jun 26, 2014

An occasionally stirring peek into a place and phenomenon that's only slightly hard to believe exists, but that's as good as it gets.

| Original Score: 2/5 | May 30, 2014

The film is less interested in exploring the questionable science behind the program's practice. It is also uninterested in challenging allegations that the boys are disconnected from reality.

| May 30, 2014

Astute enough to consider the social conditions that nurture such addictions, Web Junkie falters when an underdeveloped rehab success story is ushered in at the end like a quick fix designed to numb the pain.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | May 29, 2014

Web Junkie could almost be viewed as absurd comedy, if it weren't so grimly serious.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 29, 2014

What really undoes the film is its formlessness.

| Original Score: C | Apr 8, 2014

A bizarre and entertaining documentary about China's attempts to reprogram its Internet-addicted youth.

| Jan 27, 2014