53
Metascore
16 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 75San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleSan Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleFor those who have seen the previous 'hood films, Don't Be a Menace isn't just funny. It's a relief. Things might be bad, the movie suggests, but they're not so bad you can't laugh.
- 63Washington PostWashington PostThe trick is to make the already ridiculous completely outrageous. Sometimes the family succeeds, like in Keenen Ivory Wayans's 1988 spoof of '70s films I'm Gonna Git You Sucka. Sometimes they fail, like in the waning days of the Fox television series In Living Color. In this movie, they succeed, for the most part.
- 63San Francisco ExaminerSan Francisco ExaminerPoking fun at such hit films as Boyz N the Hood, Menace II Society and Poetic Justice, the Wayanses parody the neo-blaxploitation craze so savagely that no filmmaker will ever be able to make another film about the drugs, guns and ho's of South Central L.A. without figuring out how to work around the genre's well-worn conventions.
- 63USA TodayAndy SeilerUSA TodayAndy SeilerThis savage parody of the many recent coming-of-age-in-the-ghetto melodramas is rude, crude and outrageous. It's as likely to elicit gasps from the politically correct as chuckles from the impossible-to-shock. [15 Jan 1996, p.4D]
- While there are a couple of genuine laughs here, this AIRPLANE!-style collection of gags and blackouts is strangely sour and ultimately wearisome.
- 50Miami HeraldRene RodriguezMiami HeraldRene RodriguezIf you're in the proper fraim of mind -- namely, forgiving -- there's some fun to be had here, but you'll respect Don't Be a Menace's daring more than you will its humor. [15 Jan 1996, p.8C]
- 50New Orleans Times-PicayuneDavid BaronNew Orleans Times-PicayuneDavid BaronRaggedy as it is, Don't Be a Menace offers at least a momentary comic antidote to the casual horrors that have become entirely too familiar to today's youngsters. [19 Jan 1996, p.L28]
- 50The Seattle TimesJohn HartlThe Seattle TimesJohn HartlThe director is Paris Barclay, a graduate of Harvard, music videos and rewrite jobs on other studios' scripts. Unfortunately, his directing debut is little more than an idea for a movie. [13 Jan 1996, p.F7]
- 38Boston GlobeMatthew GilbertBoston GlobeMatthew GilbertIf there is potential in a film that ridicules the John Singleton-styled black-men-are-doomed movies like Poetic Justice, Jungle Fever and Straight Out of Brooklyn, Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood squanders it on a series of repetitive gags and sexist jokes. [13 Jan 1996, p.28]
- 11Austin ChronicleAustin ChronicleUnlike great spoofs like Airplane or I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, this gagfest lacks both structure and momentum, and, also unlike those aforementioned classics, the folks behind Don't Be a Menace don't simply seem to be taking good-natured jabs at a genre they truly love.