Malcolm X Reviews
Groucho Reviews
Spike Lee called 1992's Malcolm X "the picture I was born to make," and star Denzel Washington referred to the titular civil-rights leader as "the role of a lifetime." They're both right...[Blu-ray]
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/4
Top Critic
Combustible Celluloid
The perfect combination of epic and personal, intimate and spectacular.
Common Sense Media
Insightful and well-rounded portrait of Malcolm X.
Full Review
| Original Score: 5/5
Empire Magazine
Lee's film suffers from message over substance and is slightly tedious as a result.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
Lee and company have performed a powerful service: they have brought Malcolm X very much to life again, both as man and myth.
Film4
Visually and dramatically, Lee pulls out all the stops, but it's Washington's performance that really energizes the film, and he's an exhilarating presence throughout.
EmanuelLevy.Com
Lamoclm X may seem conventional by Spike Lee's standards, but as a biopic of a controversial historical figure, it's superior to the nobility of spirit of a movie like Gandhi, for example, and Attenborough's high-mindedness.
Full Review
| Original Score: B+
It plays surprisingly safe as a solidly crafted trawl through the didactic/hagiographic conventions of the mainstream biopic.
Old School Reviews
a thoughtful and insightful rendering that promises to educate generations about the real Malcolm X
Full Review
| Original Score: B
Creative Loafing
In the leading man category, Denzel Washington in Malcolm X managed to deliver the best performance of the decade.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/4
Movie Metropolis
This is undoubtedly the way Spike Lee should have done it; nothing flashy. He lets the main character's life speak for itself.
Full Review
| Original Score: 8/10
Slant Magazine
Finds Lee's tendencies towards gadflyish social outrage folded into the fabric of the typically reactionary biopic genre.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
Kansas City Kansan
Controversial, compelling story...Spike Lee in good form.
| Original Score: 5/5
Nolan's Pop Culture Review
Denzel brings the legend to life.
| Original Score: 4/5
