The powerful story of Jackie Robinson, the legendary baseball player who broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier when he joined the roster of the Brooklyn Dodgers. The film follows the innovative Dodgers’ general manager Branch Rickey, the MLB executive who first signed Robinson to the minors and then helped to bring him up to the show.
A square, uninventive, but detailed and stirring bio-pic devoted to the two years in an athlete's life that changed a nation.
– David Denby,
New Yorker,
22 Apr 2013
rotten:
So 66 years after Robinson became the first black major league baseball player, here we are with 42, which has been made with such reverence for Robinson's importance that Robinson is barely there.
– Wesley Morris,
Grantland,
6 Jan 2014
fresh:
The style of the film, lush and traditional, is nothing special, but the takeaway, a daily struggle for dignity, is impossibly moving.
– Joshua Rothkopf,
Time Out New York,
7 May 2014
fresh:
It's not easy to play a stoic, but Boseman anchors the movie, and when he smiles, 42, already such a warm story of such cold times, gets even brighter.
– Mary F. Pols,
TIME Magazine,
7 May 2014
fresh:
A dramatization of what Robinson did and what it required, 42 will not disappoint.