El Topo decides to confront warrior Masters on a trans-formative desert journey he begins with his 6 year old son, who must bury his childhood totems to become a man.
You may find it a tiresome, macho relic -- or a ragtag circus wandering through a fantasy realm part Treasure of the Sierra Madre, part Tolkien's Middle-earth.
– J. Hoberman,
Village Voice,
12 Dec 2006
rotten:
This is gutbucket Luis Bunuel , surrealism on the cheap, and it hasn't dated well -- the blood is patently fake and the gunshots are dubbed.
– Ty Burr,
Boston Globe,
26 Jan 2007
fresh:
The movie's lure is sensual and unflagging; that's what makes it, for all its arty absurdity, the last great movie of the 1960s.
– Joshua Rothkopf,
Time Out New York,
10 Feb 2007
rotten:
A dreary, protracted exercise in sadomasochism.
– Kevin Thomas,
Los Angeles Times,
16 Mar 2007
fresh:
The film is by turns comic and profound, hysterical and pompous, fully complex enough to deserve more than a simple yea or nay.