Sir. Richard Attenborough's cradle-to-grave, rags-to-riches biopic of Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977) is anything but a hagiography, and should be more appositely re-titled as CHAPLIN AND HIS WOMEN, since the meat of this lofty work sees Charlie (Downey Jr.) gyrating from one wife to another (four in toto plus other conquests), meanwhile the more intriguing facet of his cinematic creative process is ruefully taken a back seat. It is a warts-and-all treatment, yet somehow overreaches itself on the "warts" department, Chaplin is repeatedly portrayed as a love fool who cannot overcome his sexual predilection of younger girls (viz. jailbait), starting from his first crush Hetty Kelly (Moira Kelly), to first wife Mildred Harris (a barely 16-year-old Milla Jovovich striking the bull's eye of the ingénue seduction with flaming lips), an ill-fated union with the independent Paulette Goddard (a classy Lane), until his last spouse Oona O'Neill (Kelly again to finish the circle), a none-too-subtle way of intimating that the right one is actually the one who gets away, which to a certain degree, cunningly shifts the blame on Hetty, the undertone seems to suggest that if she had accepted Chaplin's marriage proposal before he would put his name on the map in the celluloid boom town, his subsequent failed marriages would have no place in the history, a low move that hurts the film's integrity. Plus, save for her physical resemblance, we have no inkling why Oona is the one for keeps because Attenborough never shed any lights on her story (although Kelly is game enough to take on the dual role with slight discrepancy). The frame narrative is actually set in Switzerland where an aging Chaplin discusses his biography at length with a fictive writer George Hayden (Hopkins), the tactic doesn't quite work out, not just because Downey Jr.'s somewhat unconvincing warpaint (he looks rather hale beside Hopkins and the sparks in his eyes cannot disguise his real age of 26), but also it is padding out the story, only to prepare audience for the coda when Chaplin is given an overdue gong in the 1972 Academy Award ceremony for a special Lifetime Achievement, with footage of Chaplin's films playing to make the most of one's nostalgic admiration, but the emotional punch never packs, after 140 minutes, we still have a very indeterminate image of Charlie Chaplin, is he a Communist? Why he doesn't apply for a USA citizenship after years in Hollywood and once being rejected for his assumed political orientation, it cuts an unrecoverable wound in his exile days, it contradicts with his apparent belief of the land of freedom and opportunity. All those questions are posed but not satisfactorily answered, maybe one should read his biography instead. But in the end of the day, CHAPLIN has its inherent edge, it is a film about the king of comedy, so at the very least, it is never tedious on the eyes, not with a charismatic Robert Downey Jr. fleetly mimicking the tramp's slapstick (he makes them look as effortless as Chaplin himself) and conscientiously emanating Charlie's more subdued affect when he has his own hurdles to grapple with, may it be the resistance to the sound cinema, or a bigoted lawsuit from his former lover Joan Barry (Travis). It is also noteworthy that Geraldine Chaplin plays Hannah Chaplin, Charlie's head-case mother and her own grandmother with great affection, which prompts the inference that perhaps there is a hardwired monkey wrench in the works could be partially but potentially answerable for Charlie's personal conflicts between his genius and frailties.

How wrong can you get it? Not much more wrong than in this film. It goes no way to depicting the real Chaplin. Chaplin's early life is fairly well treated, although we don't know when or where he was born. He had no birth certificate! UK and US intelligence services concluded he originated in Eastern Europe. Butte, Montana, where does this come from? Chaplin was in Oil City Pa. when he got 'the call'. A railroad running outside Keystone Studio? Attenborough was thinking of Essanay studio in Niles, surely. Keystone Studio with a Spanish mission frontage? Not when Charlie first went there, Mr A. Chaplin too young for Sennett? Well yes, but the film doesn't give the reason, which is that Charlie was too close in years to starlet / girlfriend Mabel Normand for white- haired Mack Sennett to tolerate. Mabel screeching like a demented Lucille Ball when the egotistical Charlie refused to follow her direction? Read Charlie's autobiog – it never happened that way. The wedding scene – what wedding scene? Charlie first used the tramp in Mabel's Strange Predicament, and the character first went public in Kid Auto Races in Venice. Syd Chaplin negotiating Charlie's contract with Keystone? Syd wasn't even in the U.S. at the time negotiating began. He became a Keystone actor soon after, and would not have jeopardized his $200 per week by having a go at his paymaster. Fred Karno with a north country accent? I doubt it, he came from the west country.Let's end Charlie's time at Keystone there shall we? Whoaa, hold on a minute Mr Attenborough, didn't you know Charlie made his movie bones at Keystone, and Mabel Normand was instrumental in honing his skills AND the tramp character? The original cruel tramp was toned down during discussions with Mabel and pathos had been added to the tramp's character in post-'Mabel At The Wheel' movies. In Mabel's Busy Day, Mabel becomes the tramp, while Charlie is a kind of dude with feelings. We can also add that Mabel regularly bought Charlie new shirts, as Chaplin's were never washed, and he was too cheap to buy new ones (Minta Arbuckle).The most important period in Chaplin's movie career occurred between January and December 1914, yet Attenborough dismisses it in a few minutes. It seems odd that of all movie folk, only Attenborough thinks Mabel ceased acting in 1922. In fact, she starred in Sennett's 'Extra Girl', released 1923, and starred in a series of movies for Hal Roach up until 1927.When Chaplin went to Essanay he ran into Edna Purviance who was lying in wait for him. Wrong!! Edna was a regular at a certain cafe pointed out to Chas. He had already used Gloria Swanson, who objected to Chaplin's manner and slapstick comedy. Of course Charlie could have signed Mabel Normand, but he did not want an actress with a big price tag, nor one that had a mind of her own, that could not be molded the way control-freak Chas wanted. On occasions Mabel would spot Charlie in a restaurant and shout to him, 'Charlie I'll be your leading lady yet!' Poor naive Mabel just didn't get it. Charlie had a cockney accent, as pointed out by the film's Mary Pickford. Wrong again! Chas had developed an aristocratic way of speaking, long before 1914, and had been a dude in his time, even if he was dirty and smelly. The film depicts some low-level angst between Pickford and Chaplin, but does not go into the reasons. Unfortunately for Mary, she became involved in business with Chas. She was also involved socially with him via her husband, and the 'tramp' would often turn up at their house on Sundays. The boys would head off to the hills, while Mary was left to amuse whichever dumb, empty-headed wife Chas had brought with him. Whilst Robert Downey Jr makes a good stab at Chaplin's physical characteristics, the film falls at the first hurdle, as Attenborough has failed to depict the disparity between the Charlie that walked onto the Keystone lot, and the one that exited the gate a year later. Apart from everything else, the wistful and brooding Mabel had taught similarly endowed Charlie how to create allies in Hollywood, by being the life and soul of the party and of the lot. Without these acquired skills, introverted Charlie would have fallen flat on his face, and disappeared back into the vaudeville ether. If we ignore Attenborough's early failings, then we can say this is a well-crafted film, which makes for good entertainment. He leaves the nuances of Chaplin's character to be explained during discussions between Chaplin and his (fictitious) biographer. A similar ploy was used in Alexander the Great (2004) where the director used biographer Ptolemy to explain the intricacies of Alexander's otherwise unfathomable character. If you want a summary of Chaplin, then Mary Pickford's words will suffice: '…that obstinate, suspicious, egocentric, maddening and lovable genius of a problem child, Charlie Chaplin'. Biographical film unnecessary.

Before I watched this film, I knew that Charlie Chaplin was a famous actor during the 1910s and 20s. I also recognized him in a few movies like "The Great Dictator". I also knew he had a strange mustache. I didn't know a lot about Chaplin's personal life. I didn't know he went through many difficult times. I learned a lot about him through watching this movie. I found out that he had three wives, all which were very young. I also found out he didn't have the best childhood because his mother was going crazy. Although it was very interesting, it wasn't enjoyable because it didn't have enough information. I felt that it wasn't goofy and funny enough as well. There also times where there was dialogue which lasted to long and felt boring. To conclude, "Chaplin" was a decent movie but could have some adjustments to help it be better

I won't review the movie itself, as many people have done so and I do believe Robert Downey's performance as Charlot was very good as well as some of his support actors.I want to talk about the old Charles Chaplin's make-up. One thing that Hollywood can't get right yet is that of aging an actor. No matter how many make up techniques they use, how much experience make-up artists have, aging an actor is a real feat for them. Why can't they just find a look-alike actor around the same age of the character instead of making one look like a fake human?In this case, when Charlie is at his Switzerland house being interviewed by Hopkin's character, his face instead of looking 'aged' looks more like as if he's had a fire accident and his features are the result of a bad burning and a myriad of surgeries where he lost most of his hair and his eyebrows.To make matters worse, when he's waiting on his wheelchair awaiting for his academy award, his face looks like it is the result of a real bad face transplant, the shape of his eyes look weird, his lips look very stiff and badly shaped and his skin looks very waxy and and like it's melting with the lights. To be honest it reminded me a lot the face of the Phantom of the Opera of 1925. It's almost unbearable to watch and spoils the film's great performances.Now, for some reason, when Robert Downey Jr. had this make up on, his performance was very wrong (besides being a 20-ish years old playing a non believable 60-something years old man), a thumbs down for the great Richard Attenborough. But when you watch footage of interviews of Chaplin at this age (60s), he was really such a sweetheart, very kind, still funny and very smiley. Downey's Old Chaplin looks sad, dark, depressed, boring, dry, uninteresting, and of course he looks like anybody else but not like the great Charles Chaplin when old.