42 Reviews
Top CriticA square, uninventive, but detailed and stirring bio-pic devoted to the two years in an athlete's life that changed a nation.
"This is a competent but mostly unexceptional film about a most extraordinary man."
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
This story inspires and entertains with a vital chapter in this nation's history.
The filmmaking is TV-movie-of-the-week dull and Robinson's ordeal is hammered home to the exclusion of virtually everything else in his life.
Full Review
| Original Score: C-
"A kind and decent film, though it doesn't add to Robinson's legacy."
Full Review
| Original Score: 7.5/10
[Boseman] captures, in a clenched jaw or a sidelong glance, a lifetime's worth of dearly attained dignity and barely contained rage.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
In the hallowed frames of 42, the legend is front and centre and still inspiring. Too bad the more interesting man is nowhere to be seen.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
If anybody deserves to be portrayed as noble, it's Jackie Robinson.
Full Review
| Original Score: B
An inspiring, old-school biopic that doesn't pull any punches in depicting the ugly racism that Jackie Robinson faced on a daily basis as the first African-American player in Major League Baseball.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
A stirring, straightforward and ultimately soaring portrayal of Robinson's historic entry into Major League Baseball in 1947.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
The beauty of the Jackie Robinson story is that it's so naturally inspiring that not even lethal amounts of bombast, sentimental writing, soaring strings, hammy acting or desperate hyperbole can tarnish it beyond repair.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
By burnishing Jackie Robinson's legend to such an unnaturally high polish, 42 does Robinson the man (and the actor who plays him, the relative newcomer Chadwick Boseman) a disservice.
Robinson's story had so much drama in real life, and his sacrifice and pain made such a lasting influence, that "42" ends up being effective in its gee-whiz way almost in spite of itself.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
For all the 1940s hokiness of 42, with its big cars and big bands and peanuts and Cracker Jack, it's a wonderful surprise to see that there's a recognizable human being at the center of the hoopla.
42 escapes the trappings of sheer hero worship largely thanks to Boseman, whose relative anonymity eliminates any potential star baggage. More than that, he strikes a tough balance.
Full Review
| Original Score: B
Mr. Helgeland's ponderously reverential biopic is a string of unearned runs.
It's a great and triumphant story, and writer and director Brian Helgeland (an Oscar winner for his L.A. Confidential screenplay) brings it to life in burnished, old-fashioned Hollywood style.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
Though not accurate in every particular, the movie mostly succeeds in respecting the facts of history and the personality of its hero, and in reminding audiences why he mattered.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
Well-paced and often riveting, and manages to inspire while remaining true to the sport and to the player who changed it and all of professional sport forever.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
There's not enough of Robinson's back story to convey the full drama of his place in history.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
Ironically, the most valuable player here is Harrison Ford, giving one of the best performances of his career as Brooklyn Dodgers manager Branch Rickey.
It's a valuable history lesson, an intelligent drama that hits all the right emotional buttons, and an inspiring portrait of a true American hero.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/4
It's worth seeing because the film is competently presented and the story is inherently important, but I couldn't help be disappointed that the result wasn't more fresh or visionary.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
A likable hagiography as nuanced as a plaque at the Cooperstown Hall of Fame.
It's a sports film nonsports fans can love; it's a family film that never preaches; it's a biopic that also takes in the world and people around its subject.
Full Review
| Original Score: 5/5
"42" settles for too little, for being an attractive primer, an introduction to the legend of Robinson and the faith that saw him through.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
If you want a crowd-pleaser that confirms your belief in America's steady, pre-ordained progression away from racism, this will do fine.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
"42" can feel incomplete (the bland music and the filmmaker's obsession with dates and places are problematic), yet at the same time it offers a very good place to start.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
Helgeland has given us an impressive introduction to one of the most important men in U.S. history. But you can't help wanting more.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/5
There are many less flattering things you could say about a movie than that it's enjoyable in a square, uncomplicated, stirringly old-fashioned way.
Full Review
| Original Score: B+
"42" is competent, occasionally rousing and historically respectful - but it rarely rises above standard, old-fashioned biography fare. It's a mostly unexceptional film about an exceptional man.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
This big-budget period piece is more concerned with burnishing a legend than dramatizing a life.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
At the top of a new baseball season, it's hard not to root for a movie that's in it for the love of the game.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
If you want a sense of a true all-American hero, this film is a fine place to start.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
With 42, [Helgeland] expands his skills to turn a mountain of research into a cogent life story worth retelling.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
For all the hate and hostility it depicts, 42 is a film about decent-hearted people. Hate can be infectious, but so can decency. It's the decency you'll take away from 42.
Rather than letting its hero's accomplishments and behavior speak for themselves, Helgeland hammers home every achievement and then puts a halo around it, as if anyone won't get it otherwise.
A relentlessly formulaic biopic that succeeds at transforming one of the most compelling sports narratives of the 20th century into a home run of hagiography.
