Reception
The film received generally negative reviews. It currently has 35% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 20 reviews (7 positive; 13 negative). Roger Ebert greeted the film with two stars and also rated it (along with colleague Gene Siskel) thumbs down on their television program, stating that Pee-wee entered the real world, and, comparing it to Pee-wee's Playhouse, dubbed by the duo as "the television show" and Pee-wee's Big Adventure (by claiming that the characters in those have absolutely no connection with reality whatsoever). The negative reviews reflected the action at the box office; where it grossed $15,122,000, suffering from competition with Who Framed Roger Rabbit, A Fish Called Wanda, Bambi (of which was being reissued at the time), among other summer movies.
Read more about this topic: Big Top Pee-wee
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“I gave a speech in Omaha. After the speech I went to a reception elsewhere in town. A sweet old lady came up to me, put her gloved hand in mine, and said, “I hear you spoke here tonight.” “Oh, it was nothing,” I replied modestly. “Yes,” the little old lady nodded, “that’s what I heard.””
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)