Cradle Will Rock

Touchstone Home Video | Release Date: December 10, 1999

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

64	METASCORE Generally favorable reviews based on 31 Critic Reviews

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Mixed:

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Critic Reviews

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David Sterritt

Some may find the movie too crowded and preachy to serve as a meaningful history lesson, but it will delight anyone who thinks our cynical age could benefit from recalling the vigorous idealism and venturesome artistry of a bygone era. Read full review

Dallas ObserverAndy Klein

In the end, it's all just too damned much. It's more exhausting than edifying. Read full review

Kenneth Turan

Its nervy decision to cut as wide a swath as possible through one of the most exciting and meaningful periods of our history have created something that's impossible not to both applaud and enjoy. Read full review

Shawn Levy

A frustrating, pedantic, cacophonous jumble of a picture, peopled with as many straw men and caricatures as living, breathing humans.

Michael Wilmington

Cradle Will Rock is the masterpiece that wasn't, a magnificent opportunity blown to hell.

Jonathan Foreman

There is hardly a moment during this overlong, stunningly smug exercise in moral self-satisfaction when you actually care about a character, real or invented.

Mr. ShowbizKevin Maynard

Even if the great debate that pits artistic integrity against corporate compromise doesn't thrill you, see Cradle Will Rock anyway. It's marvelous, provocative entertainment; art for art's sake.

Todd McCarthy

Succeeds far more often than not in delivering a credible, kaleidoscopic portrait of creative, and often famous, individuals. Read full review

TV Guide MagazineSteve Simels

Stunningly cinematic and audacious on every level, writer/director Tim Robbins's look at the collision of the Depression-era art world and politics may well be a masterpiece. Read full review

J. Hoberman

Historical forces and famous ghosts jostle past each other in this evocation of mid-1930s New York like harried commuters at Grand Central Station. Read full review

Lawrence Toppman

It's packed with such passion, humor, fine acting in small roles - there are no big ones - and vitality in the storytelling that the lesson comes across entertainingly. Read full review

Charles Taylor

Obviously influenced by the style of Robert Altman's multi-character extravaganzas, Robbins has seized on this incident as the centerpiece in a carnival about the conflicts among art, politics and commerce. Read full review

Russell Smith

Commands respect as mainstream filmmaking with more of an agenda than just pimping cinematic junk food to the brain-dead masses. Read full review

Jay Carr

Brings the '30s vividly to the screen. Read full review

William Arnold

It's an interesting and likably ambitious movie with an ensemble of mostly engaging character vignettes, but, sadly, it misses its mark. Read full review

TNT RoughCutDon Kaye

Entertaining and educational.

Edward Guthmann

Wildly ambitious, unwieldy epic. Read full review

Ann Hornaday

The movie's best moments belong to Bill Murray,

Stephen Hunter

Cradle Will Rock is left in mid-rock, as it were, its energy squandered, its sense of history confused, its sound and fury ultimately signifying nothing. Read full review

Jack Mathews

A missed opportunity to shed light on one of America's most turbulent times. Read full review

Manohla Dargis

Robbins has made a drastically different film from the one Welles envisioned -- it's wacky where Welles is absurd, cynical where Welles is canny. Read full review

Jonathan Rosenbaum

There's something stirring and gutsy about this evocation of collective ferment -- not to mention timely, in the wake of the Seattle uprising against the World Trade Organization. Read full review

Roger Ebert

It needs a study guide, and viewing "Citizen Kane" might be a good place to start. Read full review

Janet Maslin

Although Robbins might have drawn some of these characters with less obviousness and more satirical bite, he ably keeps this lively, complicated film on track. Read full review

Edvin Beitiks

A fun movie, with moments guaranteed to bring you close to tears. But, like most of Robbins' work, it's a cartoon, an emotional cartoon.

Film.comPeter Brunette

Thoroughly artificial and overly schematic, to the point of caricature even, but often lively and witty nonetheless. Read full review

Mike Clark

Rock actually rocks out as one of the year's most purely entertaining movies (just keep thinking: Bill Murray as a ventriloquist).

Carrie Rickey

An ambitious effort that fails as satire and as history, although it probably succeeds as a cautionary tale.

Lisa Schwarzbaum

Robbins the agitprop celebrity may be blowin' in the wind, but Robbins, the son of a folksinger, knows how to get audiences clapping along. Read full review

David Ansen

Robbins eschews leftist diatribes for a bold cartoon version of history. It's as crowded and energetic as a big parade...and just about as subtle.

Christine Dolen

An ensemble cast brimming with great theater actors and movie stars tears into a collection of meaty, moving, funny roles, with largely vibrant results.