| 100 |
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
A classic... Edward Scissorhands is a sharp salute to the oddball in all of us.
|
| 100 |
Entertainment Weekly
Lawrence O'Toole
Simple, funny, gorgeous, sad, and sweet, perfect for playing over and over.
|
| 100 |
Los Angeles Times
Perhaps the most original movie fantasy creation of the year: an icon of tenderness and artistic alienation that clings, stickum-like, to your mind's eye and the softest, most woundable parts of your mass-culture heart. [7 Dec 1990, Calendar, p.F-1]
|
| 100 |
Time
A witty comedy of manners that arcs into poignance, this is a Christmas movie only a Grinch could hate... One of the brightest, bittersweetest fables of this or any-year. [10 Dec 1990, p.87]
|
| 90 |
Variety
Staff (Not Credited)
A delightful and delicate comic fable.
|
| 89 |
Austin Chronicle
Depp, as the the fragile but irresistibily fabulous title character, is a delight.
|
| 88 |
Chicago Tribune
Strange, funny and powerfully moving… Burton has found a way to move through camp to emotional authenticity, to communicate-through a concentration of style and an innocence of regard-a depth and sincerity of feeling that his deliberately (and often, comically) flat characters could not summon on their own. [14 Dec 1990, Friday, p.C]
|
| 80 |
Empire
Joe Berry
An ambitious and quite beautifully conceived fairy tale for the 90s.
|
| 80 |
The New York Times
Like a great chef concocting an exquisite peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich, Mr. Burton invests awe-inspiring ingenuity into the process of reinventing something very small.
|
| 80 |
Washington Post
Amusing and inventive.
|
| 75 |
Christian Science Monitor
Tim Burton's fantasy is more original than his previous film, “Batman,'' and its colors make “Dick Tracy'' look drab. Add wry dialogue and a mischievous critique of suburban life, and you have a diverting fable that doesn't quite live up to its quirky premise. [7 Dec 1990, Arts, p.12]
|
| 75 |
Rolling Stone
Edward Scissorhands isn't perfect. It's something better: pure magic.
|
| 70 |
TV Guide
Staff (Non Credited)
The theme--that just beyond the edge of the perfectly normal lies the truly bizarre--is realized with intelligence and visual flair.
|
| 63 |
USA Today
If the script were half as witty as its production design and Danny Elfman's score, the film might be a classic; instead, it recalls the “Beetlejuice” half that doesn't have Keaton. [7 Dec 1990, Life, p.4D]
|
| 60 |
Washington Post
Tim Burton remains the Wizard of Odd with this eye-filling if problematic confection.
|
| 50 |
The New Yorker
When the picture stops being comic it turns into a different kind of kitsch... The material turns into cheesy plot-centered melodrama... Beetlejuice would have spit in this movie's eye. [17 Dec 1990]
|
| 50 |
Chicago Sun-Times
The disappointment is that Burton has not yet found the storytelling and character-building strength to go along with his pictorial flair.
|
| 50 |
Chicago Reader
The Spielbergian attempt at sweetness--heralded by references in Danny Elfman's score to the Nutcracker Suite--never fully convinces.
|
| 25 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Great to look at but not much fun to watch… An emotionally uncommitted picture that's smirky and mawkish, by turns, and at heart, empty. [14 Dec 1990, Daily Datebook, p.E1]
|
