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80Zigging and zagging serenely between the extremes of deadpan, postmodern comedy and the antic, Max Sennett-style japery of yore.
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80This is, after all, the kind of movie in which traffic accidents not only mess up getaways but also liberate goats to wander through the airport. We need more of that stuff.
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75Timing is key in a comedy like this, and Sonnenfeld keeps everyone and everything clicking. The pacing is swift and the laughs are steady.
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75The script is consistently humorous, even if a few punch lines are predictable and the wit is neither highbrow nor split-a-gut funny.
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75With a cast of characters so large that Robert Altman would feel at home, Big Trouble manages to do a lot of clever little things and generate quite a few big laughs without wearing out its welcome.
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75There are stretches of big fun in Big Trouble, and little pleasures too.
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75A slick, smart-alecky rat-a-tat crime comedy.
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70Light-hearted and enjoyable film that will have you exiting the theater with a smile.
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67A gleefully overplotted crime yarn that channels in sanitized form the perverse subtropical-noir sensibilities of Carl Hiassen.
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63It's the kind of movie you can't quite recommend because it is all windup and not much of a pitch, yet you can't bring yourself to dislike it.
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63A comedy that doesn't work if you think about it too much. Cut it some slack, however, and you just might have a good time.
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60With all its misfires, though, and with a Strangelovian twist that's a dud, Big Trouble remains a reasonably pleasant way to spend an hour and a half and still get change.
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50Sonnenfeld mishandles the broad part of the comedic formula, preferring repetition to thematic development.
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50There are some decent jokes along the way. And none of the performances is bad. But they are limited by the script, which allows each character only one comic note.
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50The folks at Disney's Touchstone Pictures would have been wiser, however, just to have forgotten all about this hyperactive farce.
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50It seems naive, almost delusional.
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50A feature that suffers from the rarity of its wit yet benefits from the briskness of its pace.
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50Such a feebleminded, good-natured comedy that it actually makes you laugh with that timeless gag of somebody pretending to cough while calling someone else a bad name.
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50It's a tribute to the film's goofy, inconsequential charm that it's still possible to laugh as someone sneaks a bomb past airport security.
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50Cute intentions and shaggy comedy only get you so far when the world is falling down around you.
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50A pleasant diversion, a lightly amusing criminal comedy with a plot so complicated even the people in it can't quite believe what's happening.
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50The cast manages to maintain its dignity while sweat and dirt go flying around.
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50It's a letdown from the man who brought us "Men in Black" and "Addams Family Values."
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42It's something we might mildly enjoy on an airplane (well, not anymore) or on a lazy Sunday TV day when nothing else is on, but in theaters, it's a clunker.
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40A genially amusing ensemble farce that doesn't quite achieve enough momentum for liftoff.
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38Juggles so many stories and characters, nothing ever develops into more than a rough sketch.
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30It's not the bomb on the plane that scuttles this film: It's the mugging, ham-fisted direction and total absence of comic timing.
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25What remains discomforting is their sheer failure to be funny.
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25A mediocre movie that will be wiped from its stars' résumés with head-spinning speed.
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20Lazy, infinitely silly cartoon.
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20The big problem with Big Trouble, despite a fine cast and director (Sonnenfeld made "Get Shorty" and "Men in Black"), is that the damn thing isn't funny.
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20Feels like an in-joke, a party where everyone on the screen's having a better time than anyone in the theater, and they all couldn't care less. And that's just no fun at all.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 7 out of 9
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Mixed: 1 out of 9
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Negative: 1 out of 9
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10
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PatC.5Generally unpolished and harmless comedy. But watch for Siobhan Fallon Hogan, delicious as the airline ticket agent.
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LindaA.9