The Gods Must Be Crazy

Name: The Gods Must Be Crazy
Genre: Comedy
Released: October 26, 1984
Duration: 109 min
Rating: 73
Cast: N!xau

1984

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Generally favorable reviews based on 6 Critics

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The Gods Must Be Crazy

Movie Details & Credits

Jensen Farley Pictures | Release Date: October 26, 1984

Starring: N!xau

Summary: A comic allegory about a traveling Bushman who encounters modern civilization and its stranger aspects, including a clumsy scientist and a band of revolutionaries.

Director: Jamie Uys

Genre(s): Comedy

Rating: PG

Runtime: 109 min

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Critic Reviews

Washington Post - Rita Kempley

The Gods Must Be Crazy is like nothing you've ever seen, a one-of-a-kind experience that's both strange and wonderful. It's most like an anthology of vintage Disney -- a wildlife narrative, a fairy tale with little people, and a love story suitable for general audiences. [02 Nov 1984, p.29]

Time - Richard Corliss

The film's pleasures are simple and obvious: an original plot, lots of slapstick and a lead performance by the Bushman N!xau, who registers every absurdity with the aplomb of an aboriginal Buster Keaton. Read full review

Variety - Staff (Not Credited)

Film’s main virtues are its striking, widescreen visuals of unusual locations, and the sheer educational value of its narration. Read full review

The New York Times - Vincent Canby

The Gods Must Be Crazy is so genial, so good-natured and, on occasion, so inventive in its almost Tati-like slapstick routines, that it would would seem to deny the existence of any racial problems anywhere. Read full review

Chicago Sun-Times - Roger Ebert

It might be easy to make a farce about screwball happenings in the desert, but it's a lot harder to create a funny interaction between nature and human nature. This movie's a nice little treasure. Read full review

Washington Post - Paul Attanasio

The movie's smarmy condescension toward the Bushmen, how dainty and gentle and unknowable they are, is not at all foreign to the old American image of lovable blacks who were granted some sort of emotional superiority as a sop for the horrors they suffered. This kind of thing might spell liberalism in South Africa, but here it just leaves you reaching for your Rolaids. [05 Nov 1984, p.C6]

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