Beverly Hills Ninja - Reception

Reception

Beverly Hills Ninja was well received by audiences, but received generally negative reviews. It holds a 14% "rotten" rating at review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, and holds a 27/100 score at Metacritic.

James Berardinelli of ReelViews wrote: "Beverly Hills Ninja is essentially a one-joke film. That joke has to do with Chris Farley, who plays one of the clumsiest men on Earth, crashing into objects or having things fall on his head. There's a reason why cartoons, which often rely on similar tactics, are only a few minutes long. The first few times Farley gets hammered, there is some amusement value, but, soon after, it grows repetitious, then tedious. It's rather amazing to see how agile Farley is in certain situations (he performed some of his own stunts), but his unexpected athleticism doesn't make up for the film's lack of entertaining material. Farley might want to be like John Candy, but, while Candy knew how to make an audience laugh, Farley keeps missing the mark. His brand of humor, which doesn't vary significantly from film-to-film, isn't just juvenile, it's lackluster and unfunny. And, because Beverly Hills Ninja relies so heavily on the comic's limited talent, the movie sinks like a rock. No one, not even Jackie Chan with all of his enthralling derring-do, could have saved Beverly Hills Ninja from its ignominious fate."

Bruce Fretts of Entertainment Weekly wrote: "For the first few minutes of Beverly Hills Ninja, it looks as if Chris Farley may have finally found a movie to match the size of his talents. As an orphan raised in Japan by martial-arts masters, Farley displays a hippo-ballet grace while bonking himself on the head with various instruments of death. This chop-shtick generates a few belly-laugh-inducing quips . But as soon as the action switches to L.A., a yawner plot about Farley busting up a yen-counterfeiting ring kicks in — and slowly starts to squeeze the life out of the movie. Ninja casts about for whale-out-of-water humor as Farley's long-sheltered Haru grapples with such newfangled inventions as metal detectors and seat belts. But when the writers run out of ideas, they simply have Farley walk into a lamppost, or cop from old SNL skits Director Dennis Dugan has done fine TV work (NYPD Blue, Chicago Hope), but with 1996's Adam Sandler stinker Happy Gilmore and this sad affair, he seems stuck in a lamebrained SNL rut."

A favorable review came from Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle who wrote: "This weekend moviegoers who want to laugh will sit in stone- cold silence through the new Woody Allen film. Meanwhile, there's a better option, Beverly Hills Ninja -- not the kind of picture that gets respect from New York critics, but it's funny. This is a movie in which the audience knows half the gags in advance, but thanks to director Dennis Dugan's timing and Farley's execution, the audience doesn't just laugh anyway, but laughs harder. Knowing in advance is part of the fun. Beverly Hills Ninja is a silly movie, with silly jokes and a silly story. But the talents at work in it are not silly. The picture has, at worst, a 10-minute sag in the middle. But the rest of it is a pleasure. Perhaps it's too early to start taking Farley really seriously. But he's too good, too funny and too in control of his out-of-controlness to be a mere buffoon."