Critical Reception
Amazon Women on the Moon has a rating of 64% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 11 reviews, indicating a mixed critical response.
The majority of critical opinion agreed that the quality was inconsistent throughout the film. Variety called it "irreverent, vulgar and silly... some hilarious moments and some real groaners too." Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times felt that the exercise was somewhat unnecessary: "Satirists are in trouble when their subjects are funnier than they are."
Janet Maslin of the New York Times, in a largely positive review, described the film as "an anarchic, often hilarious adventure in dial-spinning, a collection of brief skits and wacko parodies that are sometimes quite clever, though they're just as often happily sophomoric, too."
Certain portions of the film were singled out for praise. "The funniest episode probably is "Son of the Invisible Man," directed by Carl Gottlieb, in which Ed Begley, Jr. plays a man who thinks he is invisible but is not," wrote the Chicago Sun-Times. "The film's best sight gags come from Robert K. Weiss, who deserves kudos for the inspired idiocy of his Amazon Women segments," was the opinion of the New York Times.
In a retrospective article for Entertainment Weekly, Chris Nashawaty called this film "the beginning of the end of Landis' career." He cited the episodes featuring Monique Gabrielle, Archie Hahn, Ed Begley, Jr. and David Alan Grier as "inspired," but criticised others for their failure: "You'll never see Michelle Pfeiffer look as trapped as she does in her skit with thirtysomething's Peter Horton, or Joe Pantoliano and Arsenio Hall as unfunny as they are in their skits."
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