Metacritic reviews

Thirty-five years later, Rene Laloux's surreal animated film remains a singular psychedelic experience. For the uninitiated, think Yellow Submarine but way more arty, trippy and funky. Highly recommended.

Fantastic Planet uses an accessible medium to show the evils of propaganda and express the need for individuality. Laloux's vision of a Dali-meets-Krazy Kat alien landscape populated by twisted creatures is quite striking, even if the film's psychedelic elements haven't exactly aged well.

Although the visuals are worth the ticket alone, Fantastic Planet also crackles with emotional and political resonance.

Eerie, surreal and a welcome respite from Disney-style animation, this French sci-fi allegory may not offer any mind-blowing insights (genocide is bad isn't exactly a new thought), but it's a trip.

Fantastic Planet’s blend of straightforward, almost elementary storytelling (any missing context is filled in via a voiceover by Jean Valmont as the adult Terr) with heady themes and eroticized imagery marks the film as a relic of an era with much looser standards around the dichotomy of the children’s film and the adult drama.

Between the funky Alain Goraguer soundtrack, the sexy outfits, the surreal landscapes and the heavily metaphorical plot, the film still looks and sounds unlike anything else, either in animation or in sci-fi. [21 Jun 2016, p.C3]

Set in an exotic world inhabited by humanoids of wildly different sizes, the fantasy reflects the interest of director Laloux and designer Roland Topor in surrealistic art. [24 Dec 1999, p.B6]

This is highly engrossing science-fiction, a French-Czechoslovak co-production in animation.

The film has a flat quality that cannot entirely be overcome by the sensational animation and the obvious good intentions of its creators.

Some will say weird is fun for its own sake, but we say weird does not equal cinematic satisfaction. [05 Mar 1999, p.C6]