…watchable comedy, front-loaded with gags that thin out as conventional spy movie mechanisms take over…

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 30, 2023

Dated '80s comedy has strong language, few laughs.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 6, 2018

That Chase is godawful is no surprise -- he's been running on empty for years with variations on that tired "I'm Chevy Chase and you're not" riff.

| Jan 2, 2018

Landis' direction is indulgent, to say the least, with big landscapes, big crashes, big hardware, and big gags filling the screen. What he forgets is character development, that all-important factor that must exist for comedy to work well.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Jan 14, 2011

The movie has since become a cult classic; one that those of a certain age and gender have committed to near memory and can spout lines and scenes on command like a new Army recruit.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 4, 2010

nothing more than a nostalgia trip for people my age who remember seeing it in theatres and, because we were twelve, thinking it was hilarious.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Jul 18, 2010

...may never reach comic heights but, nonetheless, maintains a good-natured charm.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Jul 14, 2010

Landis never bothers to account for the friendship that springs up spontaneously between these two antipathetic types, but then he never bothers to account for anything in this loose progression of recycled Abbott and Costello riffs.

| Mar 26, 2009

The script is so patchy that most of the genuine laughs are squeezed into the first half; the rest is a rather tacky and confused extended joke about the nuclear arms race.

| Jun 24, 2006

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Mar 9, 2006

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 19, 2005

Often funny film boasts no less then 10 film directors on screen in small roles. Stick around for the Paul McCartney penned title song.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 11, 2004

Director John Landis likes to build elaborate cinematic toys, but this one is a comic clinker.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 21, 2004

Too bad audiences didn't.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Jul 23, 2003

[An] irritating comedy in which Aykroyd and Chase play officials who are sent on a secret mission as decoys whilst the real spies do their work. Their inadequacy is matched by a jokey script of dubious morals and taste.

| May 24, 2003

There are seeds of something funny in the film's beginning and in its premise, but they are soon dissipated by so little sustained wit, and so much scenery.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/5 | May 20, 2003

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 16, 2003

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 15, 2003

Once again proof that life is rough after Saturday Night Live.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Dec 19, 2002

Typical lame 80s star vehicle

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 17, 2002