Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood

It only took four years for New Jack Cinema to devolve into the same old cliches of the 'hood, and only 86 minutes for the first family of def comedy to blow them away. [14 Jan 1996, p.2B]

For those who have seen the previous 'hood films, Don't Be a Menace isn't just funny. It's a relief. Things might be bad, the movie suggests, but they're not so bad you can't laugh. Read full review

The more familiar you are with Menace II Society, Poetic Justice, and Boyz N the Hood, the more you will enjoy this picture, which has a lot of big laughs. [19 Jan 1996, p.B]

A free-for-all comic spoof that brings the "hood" genre of Hollywood films full circle. Crude and chaotic, the movie stridently stands every serious theme and anguished emotion from those two groundbreaking films on its ear. [13 Jan 1996, p.21]

The trick is to make the already ridiculous completely outrageous. Sometimes the family succeeds, like in Keenen Ivory Wayans's 1988 spoof of '70s films I'm Gonna Git You Sucka. Sometimes they fail, like in the waning days of the Fox television series In Living Color. In this movie, they succeed, for the most part. Read full review

Poking fun at such hit films as Boyz N the Hood, Menace II Society and Poetic Justice, the Wayanses parody the neo-blaxploitation craze so savagely that no filmmaker will ever be able to make another film about the drugs, guns and ho's of South Central L.A. without figuring out how to work around the genre's well-worn conventions. Read full review

This savage parody of the many recent coming-of-age-in-the-ghetto melodramas is rude, crude and outrageous. It's as likely to elicit gasps from the politically correct as chuckles from the impossible-to-shock. [15 Jan 1996, p.4D]

While there are a couple of genuine laughs here, this AIRPLANE!-style collection of gags and blackouts is strangely sour and ultimately wearisome. Read full review

If you're in the proper frame of mind -- namely, forgiving -- there's some fun to be had here, but you'll respect Don't Be a Menace's daring more than you will its humor. [15 Jan 1996, p.8C]

Raggedy as it is, Don't Be a Menace offers at least a momentary comic antidote to the casual horrors that have become entirely too familiar to today's youngsters. [19 Jan 1996, p.L28]

The director is Paris Barclay, a graduate of Harvard, music videos and rewrite jobs on other studios' scripts. Unfortunately, his directing debut is little more than an idea for a movie. [13 Jan 1996, p.F7]

The latest product of the prolific Wayans family, Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood is much like its marquee-buster of a title: full of very obvious spoofery, and funnier in concept than in execution. Read full review

Unfortunately, not enough sequences work well enough to sustain interest. At its best, "Menace" is a searing parody of both stereotypical filmmaking and American race relations. [18 Jan 1996, p.7F]

If there is potential in a film that ridicules the John Singleton-styled black-men-are-doomed movies like Poetic Justice, Jungle Fever and Straight Out of Brooklyn, Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood squanders it on a series of repetitive gags and sexist jokes. [13 Jan 1996, p.28]

This empty parody of "coming of age in the 'hood" movies is short on storyline, originality and legitimate laughs. [15 Jan 1996, p.30]

Unlike great spoofs like Airplane or I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, this gagfest lacks both structure and momentum, and, also unlike those aforementioned classics, the folks behind Don't Be a Menace don't simply seem to be taking good-natured jabs at a genre they truly love. Read full review