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 Critic Reviews

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Universal acclaim based on 9 Ratings

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8.3	User Score Universal acclaim based on 9 Ratings

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The Gods Must Be Crazy

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Movie Details & Credits

Jensen Farley Pictures | Release Date: October 26, 1984 | PG

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

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]

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

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

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

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

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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amheretojudge

Sep 17, 2019

Is it a documentary? Is it a parody? No it is Coco cola.

The Gods Must Be Crazy Jamie Uys is not particularly a good filmmaker. And he is directing, editing (we'll get back to this later), producing and writing. But somewhere in between these lines, he makes an amusing storyteller. HisIs it a documentary? Is it a parody? No it is Coco cola.

The Gods Must Be Crazy

Jamie Uys is not particularly a good filmmaker. And he is directing, editing (we'll get back to this later), producing and writing. But somewhere in between these lines, he makes an amusing storyteller. His film isn't pitch perfect. It has the capacity to. It is the Airplane of the spoof movies. If you're going to make a parody you have to go all in. And considering the fact that it can arguably said that it is derived from a documentary style. It would have easily gone far beyond Airplane. It could ground the audience, if necessary. And also it has an incredibly loving, generous, hardworking and more importantly innocent character on lead.

And his nemesis is an empty glass bottle of "coke". This unawareness. The innocence that it digs up while exploring that track of the storyline. I think it was misjudged a lot. If the makers had used this innocence, even if with manipulative nature, it would tear up any hard hearted being. But the film wishes to explore a silly love story. Which too works. Its goofiness is the real treat and not the elaborate setting of the jokes that breathes misunderstood chaos.

And I would draw back to that alienated character- from the world the story is in contrast to- whose equation with every single character is flattering to you. Even his learning ability, he drives good both ways. Good enough to have a successful chase scene. Speaking of chase scene or cars or any wider shot for that matter, the editing is really unearthly. To shorten the runtime of The Gods Must Be Crazy the makers fast forwards the mundane activity instead of editing it out. And what's baffling is that, I think it is a joke played on us, for by the end of the film we play along to all such debaucheries.… Expand

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