The new movie on Jackie Robinson, 42, opens in theaters today. I was interested in what the critics had to say. While some critics raved, the general consensus seems to be that director Brian Helgeland could have done more with the story.

A.O. Scott in the New York Times appeared to be underwhelmed:

But while “42,” Brian Helgeland’s new film about Robinson, gestures toward the complicated and painful history in which its subject was embroiled, it belongs, like most sports biopics, in the first category. It is blunt, simple and sentimental, using time-tested methods to teach a clear and rousing lesson.

In other hands — Spike Lee’s, let’s say, or even Clint Eastwood’s — “42” might have taken a tougher, more contentious look at the breaking of Major League Baseball’s color barrier. But Mr. Helgeland, whose previous directing credits include “Payback” and “A Knight’s Tale” (and who wrote “Blood Work” and “Mystic River,” speaking of Clint Eastwood), has honorably sacrificed the chance to make a great movie in the interest of making one that is accessible and inspiring.

High praise from Ann Hornaday in the Washington Post:

Anchored by a solemn, quietly compelling lead performance from Howard University graduate Chadwick Boseman, “42” possesses the solid bones, honeyed light and transporting moral uplift that define an instant classic. With luck, audiences will treat it as such, and flock to it in numbers that encourage Hollywood to keep making ’em like this.

 

Good, not great, is the assessment from Richard Roeper at RogerEbert.com:

(This) is more a ground-rule double than a grand slam.

As written and directed by Brian Helgeland, “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.

To be sure, there are scenes of racist fans heckling Robinson and many of his own teammates signing a petition demanding Robinson not be allowed to join the Dodgers — but “42” falls short in giving us a full measure of the man himself. The Jackie Robinson of “42” is a high school history lesson, lacking in complexity and nuance. Even the domestic scenes with the beautiful Nicole Beharie as Rachel Robinson paint an almost too-perfect picture. The real Rachel Robinson was also a hero, but in “42,” she’s portrayed as a near-saint, patiently counseling Jackie to hold his temper, and looking like a movie star as she quietly endures the morons in the stands behind her.

Michael Phillips in the Chicago Tribune also felt the movie comes up short:

This is a smooth-edged treatment of a life full of sharp, painful, inspiring edges. Helgeland tips the narrative balance in the direction of Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey, played here in a sustained grumble by Harrison Ford, opposite Chadwick Boseman’s implacable Robinson. The latter’s story cannot be brought to life without Rickey’s, and vice versa; their fates and their places in history belonged to one another. But “42” settles for too little, for being an attractive primer, an introduction to the legend of Robinson and the faith that saw him through. The movie doesn’t condescend. Rather, it protects and enshrines.

Owen Glieberman at Entertainment Weekly says it is a B+:

The movie covers just three years of Robinson’s life, beginning in 1945, when he’s a World War II veteran playing in the Negro Leagues and gets recruited by the forward-thinking Dodgers general manager, Branch Rickey, to join his minor-league club, the Montreal Royals. As Rickey, a stogie-chomping grump with a heart of gold, Harrison Ford seems to have reinvented himself as an actor. He gives an ingeniously stylized cartoon performance, his eyes atwinkle, his mouth a rubbery grin, his voice all wily Southern music, though with that growl of Fordian anger just beneath it. Calling Robinson into his office, he tells him that he needs a player who doesn’t so much have the guts to fight back as the guts not to fight back. 42 is a rousing tribute to how impossible, and therefore heroic, a stance that was.

Scott Foundas in Variety felt the movie was too ordinary:

(Brian) Helgeland, a fine screenwriter (“L.A. Confidential,” “Mystic River”) with a patchy career as a director, doesn’t even try for any of the irreverent stylistic touches here that he brought to his earlier “Payback” and “A Knight’s Tale,” framing the action in the same, unwavering procession of medium shots and closeups whether we’re on the field, in the dugout or in the locker room. Shot by regular Robert Zemeckis collaborator Don Burgess, the images have the overly lit, diffuse halo effect that seemed to attend Redford every time he stepped up to plate in “The Natural,” while the entire movie bears the too-new look of certain period films, with every freshly pressed costume and vintage automobile gleaming like it just came off the assembly line. A movie about Robinson isn’t obliged to be dark or edgy, but for all of “42’s” self-conscious monument building, the cumulative effect is to render its subject markedly smaller and more ordinary than he actually was.