Brooklyn CastleMovie Reviews

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Avg. Critic Score: 77 out of 100 Generally favorable reviews Metascore® based on all critic reviews
Information for Parents:
8 OK for kids 8+
Read Common Sense Media review

Critic scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.

  • 100
    Chicago Tribune | Michael Phillips

    See it, and I dare you not to care about what happens to these kids, these Yankees of chess. Read full review

  • 88
    Chicago Sun-Times | Roger Ebert

    Katie Dellamaggiore's inspiring documentary covers two years in the history of the school chess team, during which one team member, Rochelle Ballantyn, approaches her dream of becoming the first female African-American grandmaster in U.S history. Read full review

  • 80
    The Hollywood Reporter | John DeFore

    The feel-good documentary is engaging enough to draw a respectable audience at arthouses, but distribs should work for exposure within communities like the ones this school serves. Read full review

  • 80
    New York Daily News | Joe Neumaier

    A sweet testament to the power of intelligence to win over adversity - even in a Brooklyn middle school where the majority of students live below the poverty level. Read full review

  • 75
    New York Post | Farran Smith Nehme

    Brooklyn Castle is an engaging tale, and the principal is wrong: These kids are much more lovable than the Yankees. Read full review

  • 75
    Washington Post |

    Enlightening, inspiring and expertly crafted documentary. Read full review

  • 75
    Boston Globe | Mark Feeney

    The biggest complaint about Brooklyn Castle is that there's not enough of her. A presence as magnetic as Vicary's demands more screen time. How did she come to chess (a notoriously male-dominated game)? How did she come to 318? Read full review

  • 75
    Entertainment Weekly | Lisa Schwarzbaum

    A great subject goes a long way in this standard but effective entry in the amazing-kids documentary category. Read full review

  • 75
    San Francisco Chronicle | Walter Addiego

    You might hope for a bit more depth on the kids Dellamaggiore profiles - perhaps she could have homed in on, say, two of them - but this is really nitpicking. The film is well made and genuinely inspirational. Read full review

  • 63
    Slant Magazine |

    It pays to consider even the small details of society's greatest investment in the future: our future generations. Read full review

View more reviews for Brooklyn Castle on Metacritic

Information for Parents
Common Sense Media says OK for kids 8+ Kids discover life on and off chess board in moving docu.
What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that Brooklyn Castle is a documentary that follows the chess team of a public New York middle school, a largely lower-income squad who've devoted themselves to studying the game and have racked up a string of national titles. It's an uplifting tale with the strongly positive message that hard work will be rewarded. There's no smoking, drinking, or sex -- just chess and more chess (and very infrequent swearing, a la "bulls--t," from kids who are sometimes frustrated by the results of a tough match).
  • Families can talk about the movie's messages. What does it say about competition and teamwork? How do you cope with losing even when you try your best? What's the value of working together toward a common goal?
  • Are you surprised, impressed, amazed (or all of the above) that a bunch of middle-schoolers could achieve such high rankings in chess?
  • Is this movie only about chess? Or is there more going on here? Why does it spend so much time talking about the 2008 financial crisis? How does that relate to these kids?
The good stuff
  • message true5 Positive messages: Hard work will be rewarded, if the students of New York's IS318 are any example. The school is largely lower income, and many of the students are the children of immigrants, but by devoting countless hours to the study of chess, they manage to excel, taking home many national titles and clearly demonstrating that they've earned their rewards -- in this case, admission to some of the most prestigious of New York's public high schools and even college scholarships.
  • rolemodels true5 Positive role models: The featured students are all from lower-income, minority families and achieve greatness through the game of chess. Through hard work, focus, discipline, and then more hard work, they manage to win a string of national titles. It's about as pure an example of a meritocracy as possible, showing that anyone can get ahead if they put their mind to it.
What to watch for
  • violence false0 Violence: Not an issue
  • sex false0 Sexy stuff: Not an issue
  • language false1 Language: One junior high school student says "bulls--t," once.
  • consumerism false0 Consumerism: Not an issue
  • drugsalcoholtobacco false0 Drinking, drugs and smoking: Not an issue
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