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Corporation, The
Generally favorable reviews
Based on 28 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 32 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Documentary
Written by:
Joel Bakan (also book The Corporation : The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power)
Harold Crooks
Directed by:
Jennifer Abbott
Mark Achbar
Release Date:
Theatrical: June 4, 2004
DVD: April 5, 2005
Running Time: 145 minutes, Color
Origin: Canada
Summary
RATING: Not Rated
Starring Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Naomi Klein, and Milton Friedman
This feature documentary analyzes the very nature of the corporate institution, its impacts on our planet, and what people are doing in response. (Zeitgeist Films)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site Film Forum Profile Official Distributor Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
It’s coolheaded and incisive, a thorough and informative study of corporations, their origins and their place in the modern world.
Read Full Review >Premiere Glenn Kenny
Over the course of almost two and a half fascinating hours, they make a cogent, compelling, powerful argument, and they also make a terrific movie.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
The Corporation has better manners and a longer fuse than ''Fahrenheit 9/11.'' But the acerbic, sardonically illuminating Canadian documentary shares with its American cousin a certain bleak leftist glee in pursuit of its cause.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
The Corporation takes great and successful pains to be as visually diverse and clever as it is intellectually provocative.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar
Powerful, infuriating, and ultimately sobering. Make an effort to see it.
Read Full Review >Variety Dennis Harvey
A surprisingly cogent, entertaining, even rabble-rousing indictment of perhaps the most influential institutional model for our era.
Read Full Review >Empire Dan Jolin
What it covers is so fundamentally relevant, and its polemic so persuasively structured, it’s worth braving the runtime even if it could easily have been more concise.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Marta Barber
Takes one side, but it tries to offer hope that change can happen.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
One of the film's cleverest devices is a "Personality Diagnostic Checklist" that equates corporate "serial behaviors" - exploitation, deception, greed, lack of empathy and guilt - with the antisocial makeup of a certifiable psychopath.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
At its most effective, the movie is a chastening, sobering, and thorough work of film journalism, however shortsighted.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
An impassioned polemic, filled with information sure to break up any dinner-table conversation. Its fault is that of the dinner guest who tells you something fascinating, and then tells you again, and then a third time. At 145 minutes, it overstays its welcome.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Bill White
Too short to tell the whole story. It is, however, a fast-paced, highly enjoyable and provocative introduction.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
It's good stuff: a non-fiction film on weighty issues that also manages to entertain.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jami Bernard
An informative, amusing and unnerving overview of the history and consequences of corporations.
Read Full Review >New York Post Megan Lehmann
Delivers its provocative message in the measured tones of a college professor -- yet there's no danger of falling asleep in this lecture.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Ella Taylor
The filmmakers are pretty nimble at filling the screen with snappy graphics and canny editing to keep you alert and amused.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
It's a powerful polemic in its own right, despite some maddeningly glib generalizations, a documentary that functions as a 2½-hour provocation in the ongoing debate about corporate conduct and governance.
Village Voice J. Hoberman
A leisurely, never boring, grimly amusing, and not entirely hopeless disquisition on the contemporary world's "dominant institution."
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
Bakan's arguments are buttressed by entertaining clips culled from commercials, industrial films and, appropriately, monster movies.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Dana Stevens
The Corporation is a dense, complicated and thought-provoking film, but it simplifies its title character.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
With an over two-hour running time, these side issues come across as unnecessary weight and threaten to turn off the very viewers the filmmakers worked so hard and so ably to win over in the first place.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Melissa Levine
As a clear, exhaustive and highly intelligent discussion of one of the most pressing issues of our time, it's a success. As a work of documentary, however, it's flawed by its failure to limit its scope (or at least pare down its material), by its strangely stylized narration and by its lack of a story.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin
Without a unifying authorial voice to tie it together, the film often feels shapeless and rambling, brought together by little more than free-ranging contempt for capitalism's excesses.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Richard James Havis
The film will still prove a tonic to those holding left-of-center views.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Stephen Hunter
This is another unhelpful screed, uncontaminated by sense or perspective, that preaches loudly to the choir.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 8.7 (out of 10) based on 32 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Morgan G. gave it a10:
A wonderful, compelling indictment of the most powerful institution of our times. For those that claim about partiality; it is supposed to be. The film makers clearly state they are looking to critique this institution; and even still they clearly present the arguments of those on the far-right and prominent corporate figures. Critical theorists in political philosophy always preach that, even when attempting to be, impartiality is impossible. Indeed, the guise of impartiality is as much a subordination to an illiberal and unfair status quo. Thus, what is left is to make an argument based on logic and evidence; reason, to make one's point. This, the corporation clearly does. The movie makes a clear argument and takes on opposing evidence! A great documentary that will hopefully open the eyes of some.
Pep P. gave it a9:
Fantastic documental movie!!!
Rudy S gave it a10:
Those who condemn it as some form of propaganda or completely partial fail to realize that this film attempts to give you one side of the story. The movie makes convincing arguments as to why the corporate agenda may not be sustainable. Criticizing the movie for not giving a pro-corporation side is condemning it for something it isn't meant to be. It's a critique of the corporate agenda and should be something people on all sides of the political spectrum should see. Even if you disagree with their positions view it at least to broaden your own view and understand the anti-corporate side of the argument while people who agree with this movie should examine the pro-corporate side.
Mike B. gave it a4:
About as impartial as Triumph of the Will, this mashup of lefty talking points will no doubt thrill the hearts of the choir to which it preaches, but it leaves the rest of us bored silly by its two-plus hours of unrelenting Chicken Little-ism. The politics are hopelessly naive--does anyone to the right of Noam Chomsky really think that the solution to our problems is just to turn the economy over to the government? There may be valid points tucked away in all the verbiage, but the treatment is so unrelentingly one-sided that you end up distrusting everything the movie puts forth. A couple of the incidents discussed would have been interesting if both sides got a fair hearing, but then, that wasn't the point, was it?
Kevin gave it a9:
Forget your standard-issue horror flicks, this film is truly the most frightening piece of cinema I've ever subjected myself to. The Corporation puts the fear of the Invisible Hand into the viewer, doing for capitalism what Jaws did for beaches.
Mark gave it a10:
Another must see! Open your eyes folks and be engrossed, scared and perplexed with this powerful film.
Dor J. gave it a10:
Excellent film. Thought the comparison to psycopathic traits very interesting. Film quite balanced. The book is very worth reading. Lots of sources, very detailed.
