|
New This Week
Critics & Publications
Archives: A-Z Index
Advanced Search
Upcoming Release Calendar
Awards & Bests By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Cradle Will Rock
Buena Vista Pictures
MPAA RATING: R for some language and sexuality
Starring
Hank Azaria,
Ruben Blades,
Joan Cusack,
John Cusack,
Venessa Redgrave,
and
Susan Sarandon
Centered around a leftist musical drama and attempts to stop its production, the film is a true story of art and politics in America in the 1930s.
| GENRE(S): |
Drama
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Tim Robbins
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Tim Robbins
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: May 16, 2000
Video: May 16, 2000
Theatrical: December 10, 1999
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
132 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA |
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...
90
TV Guide
Steve 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.
89
Mr. Showbiz
Kevin 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.
88
USA Today
Mike Clark
Rock actually rocks out as one of the year's most purely entertaining movies (just keep thinking: Bill Murray as a ventriloquist).
88
Baltimore Sun
Ann Hornaday
The movie's best moments belong to Bill Murray,
80
TNT RoughCut
Don Kaye
Entertaining and educational.
78
Austin Chronicle
Russell Smith
Commands respect as mainstream filmmaking with more of an agenda than just pimping cinematic junk food to the brain-dead masses.
75
Boston Globe
Jay Carr
Brings the '30s vividly to the screen.
75
Charlotte Observer
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.
75
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
It needs a study guide, and viewing "Citizen Kane" might be a good place to start.
75
Entertainment Weekly
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.
75
Christian Science Monitor
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.
75
Miami Herald
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.
70
Variety
Todd McCarthy
Succeeds far more often than not in delivering a credible, kaleidoscopic portrait of creative, and often famous, individuals.
70
Los Angeles Times
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.
67
Portland Oregonian
Shawn Levy
A frustrating, pedantic, cacophonous jumble of a picture, peopled with as many straw men and caricatures as living, breathing humans.
63
Chicago Tribune
Michael Wilmington
Cradle Will Rock is the masterpiece that wasn't, a magnificent opportunity blown to hell.
63
Philadelphia Inquirer
Carrie Rickey
An ambitious effort that fails as satire and as history, although it probably succeeds as a cautionary tale.
63
San Francisco Examiner
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.
63
New York Daily News
Jack Mathews
A missed opportunity to shed light on one of America's most turbulent times.
63
San Francisco Chronicle
Edward Guthmann
Wildly ambitious, unwieldy epic.
60
Salon.com
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.
60
Village Voice
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.
60
LA Weekly
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.
60
Chicago Reader
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.
60
Film.com
Peter Brunette
Thoroughly artificial and overly schematic, to the point of caricature even, but often lively and witty nonetheless.
60
The New York Times
Elvis Mitchell
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.
58
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
William Arnold
It's an interesting and likably ambitious movie with an ensemble of mostly engaging character vignettes, but, sadly, it misses its mark.
50
Washington Post
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.
50
Newsweek
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.
50
Dallas Observer
Andy Klein
In the end, it's all just too damned much. It's more exhausting than edifying.
38
New York Post
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.
 The average user rating for this movie is 7.6 (out of 10) based on 5 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Discuss this movie in our forums |
|
