Mrs. Doubtfire

Variety Brian Lowry

Director Chris Columbus shrewdly brings together many of the same selling points as in his "Home Alone" movies, mixing broad comedic strokes with heavy-handed messages about the magical power of family.

Empire Caroline Westbrook

Although the broad comedy of the first half soon gives way to a tidal wave of entirely uncalled for sentimentality, this is still a laugh riot - the sight of our hero setting fire to his falsies never fails to amuse.

Washington Post Rita Kempley

And you will laugh till your ribs ache -- not because director Chris Columbus of the "Home Alone" movies has a gift for farce, which he does, but because Williams is to funny what the Energizer Bunny is to batteries. He keeps going and going and going.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Strictly speaking, it's not a top example of movie making, but it offers two hours of undeniably solid entertainment, and not too many viewers can argue with that.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Williams gives an inspired comic performance. Unfortunately, he outclasses the movie, which is basically a patchwork rip-off of Tootsie.

Time Richard Schickel

Most of the fun comes from seeing people fooled by what seems to us, who are in on the joke, a completely penetrable ruse. Curiously enough, what's really unpersuasive about Mrs. Doubtfire -- not to say draggy -- is its nondrag sequences.

TV Guide Staff(not credited)

Daniel is so hopelessly immature, and played with such puppy-dog overkill by Williams, that it's impossible to root for him--until you meet his wife, whom Sally Field makes even less appealing.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

But the film is not as amusing as the premise, and there were long stretches when I'd had quite enough of Mrs. Doubtfire.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Williams has to break out of a second-rate "Tootsie" imitation, ankles clamped in pathos and face covered in latex. He pulls it off in the end, but it's not pretty.

The New York Times Elvis Mitchell

The movie's biggest challenge, one that it does not exactly meet, is to persuade the audience that this husband and father's escapade is somehow an act of love.

USA Today Susan Wloszczyna

That Mrs. Doubtfire, a Tootsie Poppins for our times, misfires in the plausibility department and mis-aims its well-meaning if muddled messages about divorce doesn't matter. [24 Nov 1993 Pg. 01.D]

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Anyone looking for the kind of comic brio that Dustin Hoffman and company brought to "Tootsie" will not find it here. [24 Nov 1993 Pg. F1]

The New Yorker Terrence Rafferty

But the picture as a whole isn't in the class of "Tootsie" and "Some Like It Hot," mostly because its premise is sentimental, not cynical.

Austin Chronicle Robert Faires

It's just raw, uncoated stupidity that sticks in your throat.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Now that Robin Williams has been emasculated--dangerously schizoid comic turned into nice-guy movie star--it isn't too surprising that a commercial hack like Chris Columbus would use him the way he does in this cutesy 1993 comedy: cutting between Williams trying on different voices rather than holding the camera on him as he lurches between these voices without notice.

Film Threat Brad Laidman

Mrs. Doubtfire is overlong, barely funny, and a surprisingly bitter movie especially for a film aimed at children.