Rating: 
Summary: Absolutely fabulous
Review: Robin Williams in perhaps the single most vicious, despicable, and possibly the very funniest role of his entire career. Edward Norton as a soy-dog devouring "bottle of pancake syrup with legs". Danny Devito as a low-down greaseball. Okay, two surprises and one standard role. All three shine in this Devito-directed self-proclaimed 'black comedy', which has sparked protests from parents nationwide. Why? Don't ask me. Despite the R rating in the US and the equivalent rating of AA (Adult Accompaniment) in Canada, there actually seem to be some twits out there who will take their kids to see this simply because kiddie shows happen to be the subject material. Therefore, I will warn you now: THIS IS NOT A CHILDREN'S MOVIE. That said, it's a hilarious satire of the world of children's television and a very satisfying parody of Barney the Dinosaur. (At last!) It's also just a thoroughly enjoyable story that only gets better the second time. It has a bumper crop of corrupt, nasty villains, including the gravel-voiced Harvey Fierstein. It has enough platitudes and slipped-in health tips from Norton's free-spirited character to make anybody sick. It even has a costumed Elvis Stojko doing what he does best-- figure skating. In other words, this is one movie I may not let my kids see, but I'll be staying up late to watch it myself again and again.
Rating: 
Summary: Death to Smoochy's Hype - Wait to Rent it at the V - store
Review: I saw Robin Williams on David Letterman, and he plug his new movie "Death to Smoochy". Great. Robin William is FUNNY. So, Why not go and checkout this movie. Well, I can only say one thing "Disappointing"! Robin Williams said in the interview that Danny Devito directed the movie and compared him to "a troll without a bridge". Yea, without a bridge to the audience. I took a date with me to watch this movie. HUGE MISTAKE. We watched the first thirty minutes or so. BORING AND ANNOYING! If you have ever been tortured by your five year old brother or cousin or relative watching Barney or any other stupid, annoying sing-a-long bullcrap. Well, brace yourself because that is what your in for most of the first thirty minutes. The only semi-funny part is when Edward Norton is being scouted by a women to replace the reject Robin William character, and he is singing to drug addicts to help keep them from relapsing (the lyrics are some what ironically funny). I had no problem with Robin Williams acting or Edward Norton's acting, but the movie itself. After thirty trying minutes, we left and watched another movie. The date drastically improved!Quick over run of the first 30 mins.: Robin is the star of the children's network tv. He does a show like Barney or something along those lines. He gets busted taking bribe money to get kids in the show. The parents pay a lot of money to get on (the more air time and the closer the more they pay I assume). He's in this restaurant, and he gets stung by the FBI via a sting operation. The news gets a hold of it. He gets kicked. They (this corporate board) tell the producer to get a squeaky clean guy. The have a hard time going down the list. The come up on Edward Norton. They scout him. He is singing to drug addicts, and is doing a good thing. This guy is too good and clean. He ends up annoying the regular people at his new work place but does the show perfectly without a hitch. He takes over the show, and the show goes on. The kids love it. Robin is without a job and money. He begs the producer (who meets him in secret) to give him some money for old time and sake and begs for his job, too. He recieves nothing and gets mad. Norton's character is good that he doesn't want to sell to all the toys and tie in junk they usually sell. He wants to send out a good message. Basically when we left. Norton was a good guy on top of the world, and he is getting on the nerves of his money grubbing co-workers and bosses. Robin William's character has hit rock bottom with no money or home. He has lost his golden ticket to the good life of women, money, and luxaries. He sets out to get back on top. Enough of the chit-chat. Wait to rent this movie and checkout some other movie at the theater. Beware of all the annoying barney sing-along .... Sorry, Robin Williams and Edward Norton. This is the first movie that I can recall that I didn't like or hold in high regard. I have to say it's not they're fault. It just the movie itself. Maybe, If they cut out all the annoying singing stuff then it would be better.
Rating: 
Summary: dismal attempt at satire
Review: There's a scene about halfway through "Death to Smoochy" in which Robin Williams and Ed Norton are cruising in a car through the streets of New York City. Judging by the fullness of the foliage and the ways in which the people are dressed, we can ascertain that the scene was shot sometime in the spring or summer. Yet, by the time the car has arrived at its destination, the setting is engulfed in a full-on blizzard, appropriately enough since the film does indeed take place in a wintertime Manhattan. This seemingly minor technical discrepancy is actually emblematic of the carelessness and cluelessness that have gone into the making of this black comedy misfire, written by Adam Resnik and directed by Danny De Vito. Pity the two unlucky stars who are stuck playing rival kiddie show hosts who find themselves involved in a battle from which only one can emerge victorious. Williams portrays Rainbow Randolph Smiley, on camera, a beaming, saccharine purveyor of upbeat lessons in morality and life, off camera, a foulmouthed, amoral moneygrubber who gets busted for taking payola from some undercover agents posing as parents desperate to get their child a coveted spot on Smiley's TV show. Norton plays Smoochy, a down-on-his-luck, wannabe star whose moral métier is the exact opposite of Smiley's. He is decent, kind and honest to a fault, a man who balks at all the corporate exploitation of children done in the name of entertainment and profit. When Smoochy is hired to be Smiley's replacement, the mentally unbalanced has-been launches a diabolical crusade to undercut the rising star's ascent to the top and to regain his own lost position of prominence in the hearts and minds of his adoring fans and the corporate execs and sponsors who happen to pay the bills. It's sort of hard to know what exactly those involved with this enterprise really thought they were doing. The corrupt world of so-called "children's entertainment"- where more money is spent trying to get the tykes and their parents to buy tie-in products than in trying to instill strong moral values into the intended audience - is certainly rife for some clear-eyed deconstruction. "Death to Smoochy," however, fails at every level - the prime problem being that there is not a single laugh to be found anywhere in the movie. Any attempt to bring pop-eyed gangsters, hired hit men and Nazi storm troopers into a satire about a kiddie show in crisis had better know what it is doing from the outset. "Death to Smoochy" never gets a sure footing. Smiley and Smoochy are too broadly drawn to be very interesting or effective as characters and the humor generally consists of people cussing at one another while an innocent, angelic Smoochy looks on in finger-wagging disapproval. The low point of the movie occurs when a deranged Smiley waves a giant cookie made in the shape of a penis right in the faces of a group of astonished children while he enumerates each and every one of the terms commonly associated with that object. This seems to be a new low even for Hollywood, which obviously no longer acknowledges the existence of any line separating what is appropriate for adults from what is appropriate for children. Typical for a mainstream film that presumes to dabble in the area of "dark" comedy, "Death to Smoochy" turns all soft, cuddly and righteous at the end. Yet, what a film of this sort needs is a hard edge, a willingness to go all the way into the realm of iconoclastic satire and not want the audience to pat it on the back as it leaves the theatre... "Death to Smoochy" is, ultimately, as treacly and bland as the target it is trying to attack.
Rating: 
Summary: completely whacked
Review: If the image of gaudily dressed dwarves carrying flags with swastikas furiously skating after a bloated purple-blue rhinoceros on ice unleashes a chuckle in some far corner of your being, you just may be the small percentage of the population whose utterly wacked-out sense of humor will think _Death To Smoochy_ a comic classic. Don't ask me to explain that image, either; only a trip into the bowels of this strange, strange film will even begin to explain such a radical motif. A black comedy with an unremitting consciousness of its own bleakness, under Danny Devito's direction the quirky script and its half-mundane jokes becomes a harbinger of humanity's moral rancidity as well as a gem of galactically weird humor. How the two are ever balanced is a total mystery, and that may be part of the fun of watching such a festival of mordancy. The tone of the film is unlike anything I've ever seen: bizarre, caustic, inflammatory, even deranged. On one level the film is a send-up of children's television; on another level, it possesses a bitterness and and danger that is clearly adulthood at its most disturbing. I am not sure to what extent the criminal proceedings and the dark underworld of corporate executives that is portrayed in the film are genuine-- certainly some of this stuff must go on, but who can say to what extent? Yet as the film weaves its way through its gloomy portrayals of deceit, disloyalty and dishonor in the entertainment industry, it becomes readily obvious that _Smoochy_ is the edgiest and most extreme big-budget comedy in years, decades... or ever. Nothing is sacred here. Certainly not Robin Williams' hilarious "Rainbow Randolph," a character whose depravity of personality is all the more shocking when you take into consideration this is the esteemed actor who has been cramming a New Age feel-goodism down our gullets for the last two dozen of his films. The subtext of his ethical honor goes up in smoke in the first 5 minutes here. You will either be glad or you will grumble uncomfortably. This is just the beginning, however. Not even the film's star, Norton's "Smoochy," gets away scot-free: as he munches on an all-organic veggie dog smothered in almond butter in an early scene, one is not sure there is any character that isn't lampooned viciously. Catherine Keener's "Nora" is the worst of all: cold and soulless in the film's first half, her ruthlessness establishes an almost austere bitchiness; she is unfunny by the accident that she is more disturbing. If there is anything or anyone that is not skewered directly by the lamp glare of _Smoochy_ it is the kids themselves, who are somehow benignly outside this wretched grown up world of lies. _Smoochy_ is not without its flaws, among which are the imbalances within its characters' performances, which reach schizoid dimensions of love/hate and like/dislike. However, if you have the ability to suspend disbelief and (perhaps more importantly) possess a sick, twisted frame of mind, _Smoochy_ is a film you must see to simply look into the abyss and then, hopefully, 88 minutes later, return from it-- laughing.
Rating: 
Summary: First time I walked out on a movie
Review: This Robin Williams movie was full of bad language and senseless violence. Terrible experience. Walked out after an hour and got my money refunded.
Rating:
Summary: Smart, offbeat and totally funny
Review: I have to admit, the movie gets off to a really awkward start. But it gets great! One pet peeve, why are all the hosts men? (I grew up with Romper Room, Paula & Carol, and Maria on Sesame Street so I thought that was a little weird.) This movie (despite what Leonard Maltin says) is really laugh out loud funny. A lot of so-called dark comedies just don't make me laugh. This one did. I found there was an interesting mix of people in the theater, and they were all laughing, albeit at different things. Warning, if you're like me and you're 1) hippy dippy and 2) madly in love with Edward Norton since Fight Club, this movie will cause you to fantasize about a man in a purple rhino suit, but oh well. The end and the love interest are predictable but satisfying nonetheless. Robin Williams is really at his best here, too. There is some truly daring cinematography in the movie, which surprised me, and some great zany songwriting. All in all, it's funny and thought provoking (both as a film and as social commentary).
Rating:
Summary: A disappointment
Review: This has to be one of the worst movies that I have seen in a long time. I was really looking forward to this film, too. Danny DeVito is a very talented man who makes very sophisticated and funny films, such as "The War of the Roses", "Throw Momma from the Train", and "Matilda". Why he chose this film as his latest project is a mystery. It was only sporadically funny, but it was mostly crude. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a good dark comedy every now and then...GOOD being the key word here. This was a long and drawn out, boring experience. It went on and on and on and went nowhere. Edward Norton does the best he can with the material that he has been given. I love Robin Williams, but he can do much better! Danny Devito can also do much, much better! A major disappointment. DO NOT BRING CHILDREN TO THIS FILM. SKIP IT.
Rating:
Summary: If you haven't seen it already--- what are you waiting for?
Review: The movie is absolutely awesome. The spoof is perfect, and the characters are great. Whether you are just the average joe or a film buff--- you will appreciate this movie. It's dark comedy at its best. Let it ride.
Rating:
Summary: Sequins, swearing and silliness
Review: Barney meets the Godfather. Lots of violence and cussing but nothing interesting. It's a kids' show with the Irish Mafia (huh?) thrown in. But don't take your kids -- it's very violent. Obviously, I don't recommend it!
Rating:
Summary: Death to Smoochy, Spring's Comedy!
Review: Death to Smoochy. Funny film. Don't bring your parents though.
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