Bird on a Wire

In Bird on a Wire, director John Badham doesn't pay the dues before he brings in the exotic locations. We don't believe the characters, and so the elaborate chases and escapes and stunts and special effects are all affectations. Read full review

Bird on a Wire is pedal-to-the-metal moviemaking by the numbers. What it's got going for it is that Goldie Hawn is cute and Mel Gibson is cuter as they struggle to mate screwball comedy to a chase thriller. The pleasant surprise is that Gibson has a flair for light comedy and the timing to bring off double-takes. It's a relief, too, because little else in Bird on a Wire is fresh. [18 May 1990, p.77p]

Despite the extended running time jam packed with action scene after after scene it still feels a little short on content. Read full review

Screwball romance, action picture. Summer movie. Read full review

Badham, a consummate craftsman, certainly knows how to stage his action sequences competently, but they lack spontaneity and thrills. The movie careens from one concocted obstacle to the next and ends with the most ridiculous and overlong sequence of all. [18 May 1990, p.G5]

Even as a showcase for the actors, Bird on a Wire is disappointing. More than anything else it's an action movie, and not a very good one, with wall-to-wall chase scenes from start to finish. [18 May 1990, p.E1]

Moves along quite entertainingly for a while and then begins to get swallowed up by its own high (and high-tech) concepts. By the end, what had been a rather amusing, zany chase comedy starring Mel Gibson and Goldie Hawn has turned into a bizarre and totally ridiculous free-for-all in a zoo, with crocodiles slithering and tigers roaring and piranhas chewing up people. [18 May 1990, p.3F]

Bird on a Wire lords its star power over us; it thinks the sheer cumulative adorableness of the principals will win us over and make up for its multitude of sins. It should think again. There is nothing to this John Badham movie except the spectacle of determined stars turning the brilliance of their personalities on us. That and chases -- car chases, motorcycle chases, airplane and helicopter chases. Read full review

Within the first half-hour, we've met the baddies (led by a taciturn Carradine), heard Rick and Marianne's teasing banter, and experienced the thrills of a shootout and car chase. As for what follows, this drearily repetitious film offers more of the same with variations in backdrop, all directed in perfunctory fashion by Badham. It does have a nice '60s soundtrack; shame about the rest. Read full review

Both frenetic and witless--a bad combination. It's the sort of action-comedy vehicle that stands a chance of succeeding only if the star chemistry is strong enough to compensate for all the uninspired calisthenic derring-do. Read full review

Action director John Badham has made the ultimate smash-and-crash chase movie. It's practically brain dead. It uses a hackneyed premise to string together as many stunts as possible, all the while borrowing from Badham's, Gibson's and Hawn's movies. [18 May 1990, p.7]

Cynical, over-hyped and enthusiastically brainless, Bird on a Wire demonstrates the programmed, soul-less bankruptcy of the Hollywood hit-making system in the early 1990s. [18 May 1990, p.28]

Obviously a great respecter of rules, John Badham directs with a metronome, here some glossy action, there some witless banter, dispensing the two like different colored Smarties popped from the box. The bird in Bird On A Wire is a turkey. [19 May 1990]

Nominally a romantic action-comedy, this Goldie Hawn-Mel Gibson picture is actually a mind-numbingly raucous exploitation flick with occasional bad jokes and mild sex scenes. [18 May 1990, p.21]

The strenuously improbable finale in an indoor zoo -- incorporating every available lethal animal Hollywood could rent -- will have you on the edge of your seat . . . straining for the exit. Movies don't get much more impersonal than this. [28 May 1990, p.72]

Big, dull, and noisy, this comedy-romance has chases galore, but its comedy is flat and its romance is grating and graceless. Read full review

Bird on a Wire is far from inept-every one of those car chases is masterfully staged. Still, for most of two hours you’re pummeled with formula; it would be hard to name another movie at once so proficient and so dull. When a director as talented as Badham reaches this state of empty craftsmanship, who can say whether he’s working out of boredom or cynicism? At this point, there may be very little difference. Read full review

Crass, shoddy and crudely exploitative of the public's worst instincts, John Badham's Bird on a Wire reflects just about everything that's wrong with American movies right now. Read full review

Except for some climactic gunplay in a zoo that looks suspiciously like a set, every plot thread is a retread - 500 layers deep. [18 May 1990, p.4D]