ManiakJiggy This is How Movies Should Be Made

Livestonth I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Alan Smithee Esq. A man-child on an epic quest to reclaim his prized bicycle. Full of some of the strangest and most brilliant characters you'll ever see. It's quirky in the best ways and it's humor is wonderfully off-beat and bizarre. Needs to be seen for the opening breakfast scene alone...and just gets better.

mark.waltz Somebody has stolen Pee Wee's bike, and he must get it back. Like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, this isn't just any bike. It's his prize possession. No, it doesn't float or fly, but it might as well in his mind. An obnoxious, spoiled rich kid (just as child-like as Pee Wee, but not in a good way) covets the bike, but Pee Wee won't part for it for all the money in the world. When it all of a sudden vanishes, Pee Wee becomes desperate and that is where his adventure begins.The music of Danny Elfman becomes practically a supporting character as Pee Wee goes on the road, hitchhiking and meeting all sorts of strange characters along the way. It all ends up in Hollywood where everything comes together, turning kiwi into a celebrity of this. But in this situation comedy, it's the individual sequences that stand out, and boy, are some of them unforgettable! Of course, the most famous is his meeting up with grim woman truck driver Large Marge, played with joyous dark wit by Alice Nunn. Future "Saturday Night Live" star Jan Hooks is hysterical as a tour guide in the Alamo.Also popping in is none other than Elvira, appearing as a rather tough biker chick. Pee Wee gets to save his butt by doing the big shoe dance. An escaped convict nearly makes Pee Wee his bride, a truck stop dinosaur comes to life, and heroic Pee Wee shows his love for caged animals in a burning pet store. Practically ruining a Hollywood studio, Pee Wee shows that underdog can be the hero, and most especially that bullies never win.This all comes from the mind of the very inventive Pemberton, here making his feature film debut and what an opening sequence he creates with kiwis start of the day in his very extraordinary kitchen. Salesman score becomes almost the march of the bicycles, and long after this movie is over, you may be humming that music in your head. Of course at this time, Pee-wee Herman was the star of his own television show and while he only had infrequent appearances in films afterwards, his feature film debut would go on to become one of the great comedy classics of the 1980s. It is one that you can continuously watch over and over again and always find something to laugh with.

Leofwine_draca Tim Burton's directorial movie debut is a film for acquired tastes. I remember seeing it on television when I was around 5 years old in the 1980s and thinking it was very funny; time hasn't been kind to it since then, however. Pee-wee Herman feels like an American version of Rowan Atkinson's Mr. Bean, although nowhere near as funny.Indeed, Paul Reubens gives such an over-the-top performance of constant mannerisms and tics - not to mention THAT laugh - that he becomes irritating after about, oh I don't know, five minutes. The resultant film, which follows a journey narrative as he goes on a nationwide hunt for his stolen bicycle, is therefore tiresome. For most of the running time I kept thinking about the various run-ins with the law that Reubens has had since, and for some reason I found THAT funnier than the supposed humour here.PEE-WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE isn't a complete mess. Burton's direction feels assured and confident even at this early stage of his career and he certainly puts in a lot more effort here than he did in something like the CGI monstrosity that was ALICE IN WONDERLAND. There are also a handful of funny moments along the way, like the bar dance, although my favourite moment is the excellent homage to the Japanese Godzilla series. A shame the rest of the movie couldn't have followed suit.

Dalbert Pringle This may have been a tale about Pee Wee's "big" adventure, but everything about it said "small" to me. It's like the saying goes - "Small things amuse small minds" - And, yes, so, indeed, does this movie.It sure seemed to me like everything in this garishly loud, flippantly gay movie was being shown to me as if I were all still in kindergarten.Wearing mascara, face powder, and even lipstick, Paul Reubens' Pee Wee Herman character (with his slight frame and decidedly effeminate mannerisms) came across to me like some sort of frustrated transvestite who would've obviously been much more comfortable wearing 6" stilettos and a frilly dress.The small-minded mentality and eccentric humour that prevailed throughout Pee Wee's Big Adventure was strictly hit-n-miss stuff which only worked to its advantage about half the time.For the life of me, I cannot fathom Reubens' Pee Wee character being as popular as he apparently was back in the 1980s. At best, I found his often-bitchy shenanigans to be only marginally amusing, for the most part.As well, I find it hard to believe that this film of flighty nuttiness was actually directed by the heavy hand of Mr. Gloom & Doom, himself, Tim Burton.