Rating: 
Summary: Okay.
Review: A mostly entertaining movie, but nothing to get too excited about. Other films do it far better, without the colossal pretensions that this one has. The idea is to subvert all of the classic noir conventions. Fine. Unfortunately, having subverted them, the filmmakers have nowhere to go, except right where any ordinary noir film would go. So it up-ends everything, but to no real purpose. Nice costumes, nice cinematography. Mood mood mood oozing out of every frame. For a real slice of classic Hollywood Noir, get The Maltese Falcon, or Murder My Sweet.
Rating: 
Summary: A Five Star Film
Review: Jack Nicholson is superb as the brooding, seedy detective in this timeless classic. A movie that is so full of life and detail you notice new things everytime you see it. Chinatown seems to get better with age. What an ending!
Rating:
Summary: Adequate, no more.
Review: This is one of the most overrated movies ever made. Don't get me wrong, it is a perfectly good movie, in its pedestrian way. It is just nothing to go crazy over. I do appreciate the way it turns many of the classic elements of film noir upside down. The down at his heels detective with a strong moral code is transformed into JJ Gittes, who runs a successful detective agency and avoids any moral considerations connected with his work. The classic noir plot involving varied perverse characters generally killing each other off becomes a more generalized public threat to the very water that sustains life. Fine and good. Unfortunately, after having gone to all this effort to invert a classic genre, the filmmakers have nowhere to go and nothing in particular to say. We just get to watch the pretty costumes, watch the pretty cinematography, and wonder what Faye Dunaway sees in Jack Nicholson. To be fair, there is one great moment in the film, when John Huston as the ever-so-symbolically named Noah Cross (get it?) tells Gittes that "Most men never have to face the fact that under the right circumstances they're capable of anything." The malign relish with which Huston delivers this line is worthy of Sidney Greenstreet's chuckling malevolence in Huston's own The Maltese Falcon (actually a far superior film). Overall--Okay, but there are much better noirs out there.
Rating:
Summary: a true classic
Review: John Huston makes for possibly the most creepy movie villain I have ever seen. The movie's incredible too. "You know what happens to nosey people? They lose their noses!"
Rating:
Summary: The top in it's genre.
Review: Chinatown sets the standard for all other film noirs. This is my personal favorite. Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway are superb. Rent this movie, you won't be disapointed.
Rating:
Summary: CLASSIC
Review: CHINATOWN is a modern classic, from the opening sepia-toned credits showing to a wonderful trumpet theme in the background to the bitter end where, like real life, the bad guys often win. Jack Nicholson is his deadpan midwestern best as the detective and Faye Dunaway is at once beautiful and unnervingly deceitful as the lady; and the supporting cast is flawless, even perfect, from John Hillerman as a government engineer to director Roman Polanski himself as a thug--and John Huston unforgettable as Noah Cross (The future, Mr Giddes! The future!) If you can ignore the sometimes vulgar language and a few adult scenes (the photos at the beginning) this movie will awe you.
Rating:
Summary: simply the best movie I have ever seen, period.
Review: brilliant, authentic, meticulous in details - costumes, furniture, etc. Exciting, intriguing, wholly unpredictable. And unfortunately, all too true to reality.
Rating:
Summary: One of the All-Time Greats
Review: This movie is an absolute treat - one of the very best, if not the best, I have ever seen. Nicholson is excellent and very, very funny. Actually, Nicholson will have you laughing throughout, as the movie coils up to the wonderful, eerie finale. For suspense and realism (if that's what it is called) no movie is better.
Rating:
Summary: The Best Film Noir Ever!!!!!
Review: It is the most original, stunning, and beautiful films of all time, and defenetly sets a standard for film noir, or at least modern film noir. A true classic in every sence of the word, there is not one false note in this movie!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Watergate & the Holocaust
Review: Sure its about incest and the rapacity of LA but without Polanski's eyewitness to the Holocaust and a country in the midst of political, social and moral crisis, there wouldn't be, "Chinatown."The music for the opening credits couldn't be more perfect, capturing the big band sound of the thirties but hinting at a deep and painful weariness that goes to the heart of the film. This is a film of beautiful surfaces where evil suddenly appears and shocks like maggots swarming the pit of the perfect peach. Jack Nicholson makes J.J. Gittes sleazy, angry and desperate whose quest for truth is both foolish and noble. Fay Dunaway displays a fragile strength and desperate pain as Evelyn Mulray that she doles out beautifully over the course of the film. John Huston uses his oily warmth to great creepy effect. And then there is the screenplay; beautifully constructed, wonderfully original with dialog that is both memorable and natural. Is there a better original screenplay in Hollywood history? Finally what is a mystery to me is how this film which is so sad and hopeless manages to feel so inspiring. Is it that in its richness like all great works of art is the stuff of life?
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