Cecil B. DeMented

San Francisco Examiner Wesley Morris

The shenanigans have been pared into 84 minutes of transgressive, potty-minded farce, that is often Waters at his most cheerful and most thematically focused.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

A fast, furious and funny fusillade of a movie.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

DeMented is Waters the way we like him--spiked with laughs and served with a twist.

Time Richard Corliss

Cecil B. proves how a dose of smart bad taste can be jolly good fun.

TNT RoughCut Susannah Breslin

Not to be missed, one of the year's best, a whole lotta laughs, and 4-stars all rolled into one.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

If this movie does anything to rally crowds against cinema's mass distribution of mediocrity then it has served a noble purse.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

For good and ill, there is only one John Waters.

Baltimore Sun Ann Hornaday

For movie fans who despair of the state of American cinema, the in-jokes are hilarious.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

It's Waters' way of saying: It's only a movie.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

The comedy is frantic and tasteless in the usual Waters mode, but it takes telling potshots at the Hollywood establishment, which isn't nearly so open about the tackiness of its products.

San Francisco Chronicle Bob Graham

It's an audacious little comedy with bursts of hilarity and a certain giddy energy.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

This is a sweet-spirited movie about a nice bunch of kids having good clean fun.

Film.com Robert Horton

A small, scruffy, but agreeably energized comedy.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

Neither Waters' funniest film nor, by a long chalk, his most radical. But it is, as promised, a passing of the torch and an article of suitably perverse faith in the next generation of nutso cinéastes.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Funnier than "Pecker" but a far cry from the best of Waters's Divine movies.

Dallas Observer David Ehrenstein

Waters offers a worldview that's uniquely his own.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

It's the cinematic equivalent of one of those prop guns where you pull the trigger and a little flag comes out of the barrel, waving gaily.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Has the grace to send the audience out with a piece of Waters-written rap.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

Consistently amusing and smart in its choice of targets, but it lacks the manic edge of some of Waters' earlier movies.

TV Guide Steve Simels

Has a giddy silliness that's thoroughly endearing.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Has a few viciously funny moments.

Variety David Rooney

Diverting but uneven.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Weighed down by the presence of Griffith. She plays her satiric part without much gusto or conviction - as if she were afraid we might believe she really is Honey.

Film.com Ernest Hardy

Hamstrung by a script that is too often smug, obvious and self-important.

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

Disappointing and surprisingly crude.

USA Today Susan Wloszczyna

Where once Waters was brilliantly polluted, now he comes off diluted.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

Not so much a movie as a self-contained world for like-minded people who wear their outsider status on their sleeves.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Even with Cecil B. Demented, which fails on just about every level, you've got to hand it to him (Waters): The idea for the film is kind of inspired.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Maybe Waters set out to prove Karl Marx's observation that all great events happen twice, first as tragedy and the second time as farce.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Shrill and sloppy film.

Washington Post Rita Kempley

An insufferable, self-important, sloppily made bore.

Mr. Showbiz Michael Atkinson

Appears to have been written and directed by a grade-school dropout snorting airplane glue.