Kilmer never breaks... it’s a work of near-sorcery, anchoring an actually serious movie that the filmmakers smother with jokes until it becomes a completely different thing.

| Apr 10, 2025

…Val Kilmer’s cinematic debut is one for the ages, platforming a personable, handsome leading man who can sing, dance and handle comedy with Peter Cushing to Omar Sharif…Kilmer had talent to spare, and Top Secret! is the place to see it on full display…

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 2, 2025

A delightfully silly spoof [that] is blessedly under no illusions as to what we want from a movie like this.

| Aug 25, 2023

...a hit-and-miss comedy that benefits from its stirring performances and smattering of hilarious set-pieces...

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 5, 2022

Along with his megawatt grin and pitch-perfect singing, which covers a range of musical genres, this was the moment that we saw a movie star born.

| Jun 27, 2022

Although there is no question that this free-swinging spoof... runs out of steam, it is a wonderfully flaky example of what Hollywood has to offer in this traditionally silly summer season.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 20, 2021

If you're in the mood for some frequently inspired silliness (and have been weakened by the heat) you'll no doubt find something to laugh at in this movie.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Apr 20, 2021

The jokes leave you tickled, but never build to a comic crescendo.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Apr 20, 2021

It's no classic, but Top Secret is funny, good-natured, and - with one exception early on involving a marital aid - clean.

| Apr 20, 2021

The result is a non-stop barrage of gags, many of them inspired and hilarious themselves but scattershot in effect because the premise isn't sturdy or coherent enough to hold them together.

| Apr 20, 2021

Not even half as funny as "Airplane!' but still... a lot more clever than most movie comedies made today.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 20, 2021

Abrahams-Zucker-Zucker scatter the jokes the way farmers scatter corn around a chicken house. They're shameless.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 20, 2021

It's amusing enough in a Mad magazine sort of way to be worth a look.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 20, 2021

lt's as if "Airplane" were a jam session in which fine musicians, through their spontaneity and improvisational talents, made noticeable improvements in a second-rate score, and "Top Secret" were the same tune, played note-for-note as written.

| Apr 20, 2021

Insouciance runs so deep in the film it extends clear down to the structure, which must be ingenious to support the film as nimbly as it does, but which appears to be ad hoc.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 20, 2021

Directors David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker have substituted chuckles for guffaws with less than side-splitting results.

| Original Score: 5/10 | Apr 20, 2021

Not as funny as it should be, but entertaining enough.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 20, 2021

There are so many jokes, puns, sly references, sight gags, and recurring bits that two or three strike home for every one that misses the mark.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 20, 2021

The trio of Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker approach movie comedy as a systematic exaggeration of genre cliche's designed to sustain 90 minutes of infectiously silly non sequiturs and sight gags.

| Apr 23, 2018

The plot combines the rock musical with the spy thriller (not to mention assorted other genres), and the comic invention is fairly constant.

| Oct 18, 2011