After watching such great movies during the mid 1990s, I stumbled upon this one. Based on a comic strip by Hank Ketcham, this is Dennis the Menace the movie, featuring the voice talents of Walter Mathew, Mason Gamble, Joan Plowright, Lea Thompson, Paul Winfield, and Christopher Lloyd.
It tells the story of our likable character named Dennis, who is out of school for the summer, is too plain busy annoying his next-door neighbor Mr. Wilson. Meanwhile, a threatening villian named Switchblade Sam, steals all of the people's belongings and its up to Dennis to save the day.
There are a few things that were wrong with this adaptation.
It was written by John Hughes, who wrote screenplays for such great movies. Then, all of a sudden, he planned to reused the same jokes from Home Alone and he put them in this adaptation of a comic strip. None of them were funny and they would've been much better. The storyline had too many plot holes like "Why the heck was Dennis busy trying to annoy Mr. Wilson while Christopher Lloyd was stealing people's stuff?" and more. There was going to be violence but in the most gentle way.
Now for the good parts.
The setting is very creative to take place from the comic books. Even the houses (especially the Mitchell's house and the Wilson's house was great) were worth a see to look at. The actors were portraying the characters were in fact very likable. The chemistry between Dennis/Mr. Wilson was great. Even the "Hey Mr. Wilson!" line stayed true to this movie. The antagonist in this movie was in fact very threatening especially in a kids movie. The Jerry Goldsmith music score was amazing and had a lot of emotion to it.
Is it the worst movie of all time? No, but it doesn't even hold the candle to the comics. It's the weakest, yet harmless adaptation not intended for adults, but only for the kids and it is worth a watch on DVD or VHS.
Rating: 2.5/5 stars
