Metacritic reviews

It avoids the typical trappings of the genre pastiche by utilizing its clear indebtedness to numerous other films as merely a starting point, rather than an end.

Young Ones is an old-fashioned, worthwhile curio down to the closing credits.

This spare but potent melodrama revels in the desiccated landscapes provided by South Africa and photographed with dusty purity by Giles Nuttgens. Through his lens, the spectrum of sunbaked skin and parched dunes is as rich as any rainbow.

Would that there were more beneath the surface of this strange brew, but it’s certainly compelling while it lasts.

The way it reaches to find the humanity in a place devoid of hope shows admirable attempt at a singular vision. But Paltrow overestimates the timeless nature of the story.

The sophomore effort from Jake Paltrow (“The Good Night”) gets so bogged down in its primal tale of murder and revenge that the most intriguing elements become little more than futuristic window dressing.

Paltrow shows a capable hand with the actors... However, the characters only intermittently engage our interest.

Paltrow's kitchen-sink visual sense may keep your eyes engaged, but it sucks dry any inherent drama, leaving you with a bunch of characters who feel pegged by a conjurer rather than nurtured from a wretched new Earth.

Young Ones looks promising in the early going, when it’s relying on Shannon’s customary intensity and building its harsh, arid world. (Principal photography took place in South Africa.) Shannon quickly disappears, though, and that’s when the dreary plot kicks in.

Director Jake Paltrow’s stark sense of place fades as familiar genre elements are introduced. It winds up like “There Will Be Blood,” but with H2O, not oil. It’s food for thought, nothing more.