Chaplin

For a brilliant approximation of the man himself, watch Downey in this film. This is a performance created out of equal parts talent, hard work and love. It's uncanny. [08 Jan 1993, p.3]

Telling the entire story of Chaplin's 88 years was probably a hopeless goal, but the biopic does offer the saving grace of a truly remarkable central performance by Robert Downey Jr. and some lovely moments along the way.

The film's one great asset, a real surprise, is Robert Downey Jr. in the title role. He grabs something of the Little Tramp's innate grace and anarchic wit, and he runs with it -- pratfalls with it and waddles off into the sunset with it. [08 Jan 1993, p.G5]

It's a monumental biopic that cheapens the hero's successes by glossing over the failures that surely also shaped the man.

This packaged tour through the great man's career is unenlightening and obfuscating, despite an adept lead performance by Robert Downey Jr.

Chaplin is a screen biography of a comedy legend that takes itself much too seriously. [08 Jan 1993, p.8]

A massive Hollywood biopic about a man who never quite seems there.

A well-made biopic about one of the most extraordinary talents in the history of Hollywood. Richard Attenborough directs 'Chaplin', and stars a charismatic Robert Downey Jr. as Charles Spencer Chaplin, who grew up with his brother Sydney (Paul Rhys) and his mother (Geraldine Chaplin) in a poverty-stricken household. Charles then enters the entertainment business at a very young age, and this proves to be working out since he has a bright future ahead of him in that field. We see his mother doesn't hold very well, as she develops certain mental issues that lead her to stay isolated for her own good. And it seems that Charles doesn't take this as well as he should. Charles then enters the film industry, but decides to make his own films as he has a certain taste for comedy, that may not be for everyone, but his success overshadows his personal life. We see that Chaplin has been in many relationships with many different women, but they all don't have the time or patience for Chaplin's extensive working time. Time and time again, he works from one movie to another, and it seems that he is becoming over-worked, and even ruling himself against the innovation of cinema when "talkies" are being produced. As I mentioned above, this is a well made biopic that focuses mostly on the downfalls of Chaplin's life, but it doesn't explore the deep and dark emotions as well as I had hoped it would. Downey is electrifying as Chaplin, and deserves his Oscar nomination for the role, but the movie is hollow and too dreary for us to care. Had this film explored the deeper route of Chaplin's life, it would have made an exceptional picture for one of the greatest film legends of all time.

Robert Downey Jr. takes the title role in this dramatized biography of the great pioneering silent movie star. Chaplin’s real life was stuffed with scandalous tidbits - romances with much younger women, an ugly paternity suit, clashes with the Hollywood elite, accusations of communism - and those all make it into the film, but muster very little power. Perhaps because they’re noted and discarded so quickly, mere bumps in the golden-paved road that barely cause an inconvenience. The film tries to excuse this with a flimsy framing device, the gray-haired star discussing his career with a ghost writer and intentionally skipping the difficult or revealing bits, but I don’t buy it. Instead it feels intentionally glossy and reverent, a take that’s more into its subject as a heroic underdog than a real, flawed human being. And hey, great, I revere Chaplin too. We don’t need to drag him through the mud to make this biopic interesting... but it does need to be interesting. In that crucial respect, Chaplin is a whiff. Intriguing as it may be to see Tony Stark cosplaying as the little tramp, Marisa Tomei as Mabel Normand, Kevin Kline as Douglas Fairbanks (perfect casting) and an under-aged Milla Jovovich as one of Chaplin’s under-aged brides, there’s very little to carry this film beyond sentiment and star power. A true coattail-rider, told with a dearth of energy and enthusiasm, which is ironic as those are precisely the traits that have made its subject so beloved in the hundred-plus years since his heyday.