Chaplin

No film biography can capture or explain or add to the magic of Chaplin at his best, because these screen moments are perfect in themselves. But Chaplin, with dignity and some vitality, does what it can -- it holds up a light and points the way. [08 Jan 1993, p.D1]

For a brilliant approximation of the man himself, watch Downey in this film. This is a performance created out of equal parts talent, hard work and love. It's uncanny. [08 Jan 1993, p.3]

Chaplin is a mediocre movie that you can't take your eyes off. Your wandering mind is telling you one thing: This is a standard check-list biography, the kind of glossy whitewash that treats a man's accomplishments like so many vegetables from the produce aisle - toss 'em in, tick 'em off, and move on. But those riveted eyes are saying something else entirely - they're watching Robert Downey, Jr. with rapt attention, marvelling at his every move, pondering his every gesture.

The biography Chaplin, directed by Richard Attenborough, may not qualify as a completely successful film, but there are enough good moments about the great entertainer to make it worth watching. [12 Jan 1993, p.4D]

Telling the entire story of Chaplin's 88 years was probably a hopeless goal, but the biopic does offer the saving grace of a truly remarkable central performance by Robert Downey Jr. and some lovely moments along the way. Read full review

Sir Richard Attenborough's long-in-the-making account of the life of Sir Charles Chaplin is a film you desperately want to like, but it emerges as a big, shiny, old-fashioned biopic that ultimately fails either to illuminate the genius of its subject or to excite as a story. Read full review

Robert Downey Jr sparkles as the British comedy giant but Richard Attenborough's film feels somewhat dutiful around him. Read full review

Richard Attenborough's Chaplin is little more than an illustrated crash course on Charlie Chaplin. But, while superficial, it at least avoids disgrace. [08 Jan 1993, p.25]

The film's one great asset, a real surprise, is Robert Downey Jr. in the title role. He grabs something of the Little Tramp's innate grace and anarchic wit, and he runs with it -- pratfalls with it and waddles off into the sunset with it. [08 Jan 1993, p.G5]

CHAPLIN is the cinematic equivalent of a whistle-stop tour of Europe--the kind that takes you to ten cities in five days at such speed that everything melts into a vaguely entertaining blur. Read full review

Director Richard Attenborough's Chaplin is catastrophic only partly because it tries to squeeze in topics, subtopics and more. [24 Dec 1992, p.3D]

This film wanders and dallies and much of it is fun to watch, but you really know about as much about Chaplin when you leave the theatre as when you enter, and what's missing is the magic. Read full review

This packaged tour through the great man's career is unenlightening and obfuscating, despite an adept lead performance by Robert Downey Jr. Read full review

All-in-all, however, even though Chaplin is fitfully entertaining, it fails to touch enough emotional chords to make it of more than passing interest. Read full review

Attenborough's very traditional biopic is a disappointment. Downey has captured the idealism and the melancholy, but not the sentimentality of the comic. Read full review

It's a monumental biopic that cheapens the hero's successes by glossing over the failures that surely also shaped the man. Read full review

Chaplin is to serious biography, even to Mr. Attenborough's Gandhi, what unfortified cornflakes are to real food. It's slick packaging around what is mostly warm air. Read full review

This is a disappointing, misguided movie that has all of the parts in place to be a much better one. Read full review

Chaplin is a screen biography of a comedy legend that takes itself much too seriously. [08 Jan 1993, p.8]

Richard Attenborough's glumly misconceived Chaplin trudges its way through the great comic's long, brilliant, scandal-ridden career without ever catching fire. [28 Dec 1992, p.56]

An unfortunate melding of style and subject matter, too intent on turning the Little Tramp into an icon to be regarded with stately awe to do justice to the disturbing energy of his life. Read full review

A massive Hollywood biopic about a man who never quite seems there. Read full review