Edward Scissorhands

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jay Scott

A classic... Edward Scissorhands is a sharp salute to the oddball in all of us.

Entertainment Weekly Lawrence O'Toole

Simple, funny, gorgeous, sad, and sweet, perfect for playing over and over.

Los Angeles Times Michael Wilmington

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]

Time Richard Corliss

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]

Variety Staff (Not Credited)

A delightful and delicate comic fable.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Depp, as the the fragile but irresistibily fabulous title character, is a delight.

Chicago Tribune Dave Kehr

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]

Empire Joe Berry

An ambitious and quite beautifully conceived fairy tale for the 90s.

The New York Times Elvis Mitchell

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.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Amusing and inventive.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

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]

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Edward Scissorhands isn't perfect. It's something better: pure magic.

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.

USA Today Mike Clark

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]

Washington Post Rita Kempley

Tim Burton remains the Wizard of Odd with this eye-filling if problematic confection.

The New Yorker Pauline Kael

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]

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The disappointment is that Burton has not yet found the storytelling and character-building strength to go along with his pictorial flair.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

The Spielbergian attempt at sweetness--heralded by references in Danny Elfman's score to the Nutcracker Suite--never fully convinces.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

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]