‘Dennis the Menace’ By Rita Kempley Washington Post Staff Writer June 25, 1993

Director: Nick Castle Cast: Walter Matthau; Christopher Lloyd; Joan Plowright; Lea Thompson; Mason Gamble; Robert Stanton Parental guidance suggested Compare prices for this movie Find local video stores More movie shopping Save money with NextCard Visa

Dennis, a resourceful 5-year-old, is himself menaced by a dirty drifter (Christopher Lloyd) while his folks (Lea Thompson and Robert Stanton) are out of town. But the central conflict, as in Hank Ketcham's pulp version, pits the tireless tyke against his long-suffering neighbor: poor old George Wilson (Walter Matthau, perfectly cast as the "Hey, you kids get off the lawn!" guy). The rest of the neighbors smile down from their porches at the tots at play upon their tidy lawns.

Dennis's hometown is a bucolic, anachronistic burg, a firefly-lit little wonderland where nobody ever locks the doors. They're kept safe by the movie's lone black, the sheriff (Paul Winfield) who warns the drifter, a smoker with bad teeth and worse hair, to get out of town when he spots him lurking near a playground. A child molester? Not in a Hughes movie (though I'm still wondering about Jim Belushi's relationship with "Curly Sue"). Nope, Lloyd is a cat burglar who steals Mr. Wilson's stash of gold coins so Dennis can slapstick him silly.

Episodically structured, the movie isn't so much plot as plotz-driven -- as in to die laughing for. This is especially true if you enjoy a great bean-driven joke -- a bona fide pants-splitter -- or other types of baggy-pants humor. Dennis puts Pine-Sol in Mr. Wilson's mouthwash and house paint on his barbecued chicken. Mr. Wilson chokes and hollers, and Dennis, whose pranks are unintentional, gets saucer eyes.

Dennis is basically a well-meaning kid whose curiosity and ingenuity get other people in trouble. When he accidentally breaks Mr. Wilson's dentures, he replaces the missing incisors with Chiclets. Dennis also has the villain's best interests at heart when he ties him up and sets him on fire.

Directed by Nick Castle of the cult kiddie adventure "The Last Starfighter," the movie has none of that film's dark and disturbing turns. Matthau's consummate cantankerousness aside, "Dennis the Menace" is lighter than Barney the dinosaur's brain and every bit as sluggishly sentimental. Dennis's parents stare at the full moon through their hotel window and wonder if Dennis is looking at it too. He is.

Hughes knows that kids like to think that their parents' world revolves around them, which is perhaps the explanation for the ill will his film conveys toward women without children. This being the '90s, Dennis's mother is obliged to go back to work to make ends meet. All her co-workers are contemptuous, but the one woman among them is downright hostile toward Alice, whom she derisively addresses as "mom." "I don't have kids but I do have a life," she sneers in a scene that is otherwise gratuitous.

Mr. Wilson's wife (Joan Plowright) recites a nursery rhyme for Dennis at bedtime. "I would have made a good mother," she says regretfully. Never mind that her husband is little more than an overgrown 5-year-old himself. Then there's Dennis's overbearingly girly playmate Margaret (Amy Sakasitz), who justifies her existence thus: "Without women, we wouldn't have babies."

John, baby, get a grip. Even if some of us don't bear fruit, there'll always be plenty of babies. You'll always have an audience for your movies -- especially ones as wiggy as this.

Back to the top