So I Married an Axe Murderer

The crass Scots jokes are irresistible; Alan Arkin's cameo as a mild-mannered police chief is sheer perfection; and the cultish references to Beat poetry should please slumming hipsters. Like an exploding haggis, funny but extremely messy. Read full review

As an evening’s rental, it provides an embarrassment of silly riches. Travis is unstoppably charming, and well-integrated comic cameos by Alan Arkin, Phil Hartman, and Steven Wright keep things chugging. Read full review

So I Married an Axe Murderer may have to dodge some angry Scotsmen but otherwise should click with those looking for slightly upscale humor that’s not averse to a few well-placed cheap shots. It’s a delightful and unexpected surprise. Read full review

Not everyone has realized this yet, but with Wayne's World and So I Married an Axe Murderer, Mike Myers has somehow become the first major movie star of the '90s. [30 July 1993]

The buzz was negative on So I Married an Axe Murderer, but the buzz was wrong. Mike Myers' new comedy isn't quite as fresh and bubbly and goofy as "Wayne's World," but it's hip, lively fun, with only a slight bit of sag. [30 July 1993, p.29]

Just when it seems like Axe Murderer is headed to the gas chamber reserved for bad comedies, something amazing happens: It gets funny. [30 July 1993, p.AE15]

Director Thomas Schlamme ("Miss Firecracker," "Crazy From the Heart") also does a better than average job of evoking the romance of his San Francisco locations; giving his mystery-comedy a Hitchcockian "feel"; and getting likable performances from Brenda Fricker as Charlie's mother, Anthony LaPaglia as his cop best-friend, and Nancy Travis as the maybe-murderess. [30 July 1993]

This is a comedy far funnier in its throwaway asides and extraneous bits. [30 July 1993, p.5D]

"Axe Murderer" resembles a dozen other films, yet it has its one charm - Myers himself, who sometimes borders on being adorable but is smart enough never to sink the viewer in gooey sweetness. Read full review

It comes as a welcome surprise that "So I Married an Axe Murderer," which might have been nothing more than a by-the-numbers star vehicle, surrounds Mr. Myers with amusing cameos and gives him a chance to do more than just coast. Read full review

At the end of the day, the movie works. It's funny, it's charming, it's sweet – all elements that make it a more accessible comedy than Meyers' later work, which is generally aimed to a more specific audience. It's certainly worth rewatching and holds up well to retrospect, and while it might not be the laugh-a-minute spoof that was the original Austin Powers, it's an amusing – and at times hilarious – look back at the beginning of one comedian's superstar career. Read full review

So I Married an Axe Murderer is a mediocre movie with a good one trapped inside, wildly signaling to be set free. The good movie involves a droll and eccentric Scottish-American family whose household embraces more of the trappings of Scottishness than your average Glasgow souvenir shop. The bad movie is about a young man's romance with a woman he comes to suspect is an ax murderer. Read full review

Dopey but rather sweet. [30 July 1993, p.C1]

If nothing else, this offbeat comedy delivers a handful of satisfying laughs and proves that four-year "Saturday Night Live" veteran Mike Myers can safely escape his "Wayne's World" alter ego. [30 July 1993, p.D12]

After the success of Wayne's World, much was expected from Myers and this is a distinctly average comedy which failed to deliver. He is enjoyable as the neurotic Charlie as well as his father but the concept itself is just a little too unconvincing. Read full review

"Axe" is not art by any means. It's often overly taken up with resolving itself. But Myers and others create an enjoyably loose, anti-slick feeling about the affair. Read full review

This offbeat comedy-horror flick about a young man with a terminal fear of commitment turns out to be a modestly funny affair. [30 July 1993, p.L27]

But the film overall is a jumble, a stitched-together bunch of scenes that, while often funny, don't hang together very well, you know, like a TV Christmas special or a middling episode of SNL. Free-form sketch comedy can work in a vehicle like Wayne's World, but it leaves a story like So I Married... so, so marred. Read full review

Although Myers is a brilliant comic, any potential he has as a romantic lead remains unfulfilled. Read full review

There's nothing in So I Married an Axe Murderer to recommend the film, even to die hard Saturday Night Live and Wayne's World fans. This uninspired, completely forgettable mystery satire is bursting with the brand of juvenile humor that only a select few seem to find funny. When it comes to guys named "Mike Myers", it's debatable who's less watchable: the ex-SNL actor or the mass murderer who keeps surfacing in the seemingly-endless series of Halloween films. Read full review

It doesn't help matters much that director Thomas Schlamme pays homage to great marital murder mysteries of the past, mostly because the attempts to borrow from the classics are so halfhearted. Read full review

It's a comedy about maniacs: a tasteful murder-comedy, which isn't that laudable a goal. Read full review

For the first 45 minutes, it's a listless and humourless comedy. But, after Mike Myers clobbers viewers over and over again with his open, eager-to-please style, the movie slowly lurches to life So I managed a few laughs. [3 Aug 1993]

There are two comic storylines here, and I liked only one of them...The relationship between Travis and Myers is boring; too bad the whole film wasn't about the Scottish family. They deserve their own picture. [30 July 1993, p.C2]

Myers pumps out a river of inventive shtick, but it doesn't cohere or connect; he seems less a character than a comedian doing couch time on a late-night talk show. Read full review

Credit writer Robbie Fox for the fertile comic premise of equating marriage and death in the male mind. But the story, involving Charlie’s cop buddy (Anthony LaPaglia) and Harriet’s artist sister (Amanda Plummer), is too convoluted. Juggling mirth, romance and murder requires a deft touch — think of Hitchcock’s Trouble With Harry. Axe is a blunt instrument. Read full review

So I Married an Axe Murderer - originally set for a March release - starts out briskly enough, with a nice, dark, off-stride feel, but, like many comedies, fizzles out after the first lap. [30 July 1993, p.C]

Even Wayne Campbell would blow chunks at "So I Married an Axe Murderer." Mike Myers' new vehicle suggests, with the "So" in the title, an off-handed, postmodern take on an overheated Roger Corman flick. But the film assumes anything but a wry, ironic tone -- it, and Myers in particular, try way too hard. The result is a sloppy, nearly two-hour riff on that tiredest of sitcom conceits -- the suspicion that a close comrade is hiding a dark secret. With generic characterizations and a far-too-easily solved mystery, the film will likely be passed over by audiences, who will wait to see Myers on the big screen again when he re-emerges from his Aurora, Ill., basement. [19 July 1993]

So I Married an Axe Murderer is a clumsy mishmash of Saturday Night Live sketches and a rambling comic-thriller plot that wastes the promise of twisted laughs presented by its '50s B-movie title. [30 July 1993, p.G7]

Mike Myers' first film excursion beyond Wayne's World feels like one of those boring, aimless Saturday Night Live sketches that typically ruin the final 10 minutes of each show. So I Married an Axe Murderer is a mess, from its cliched mistaken-identity premise to one-liners that sound "borrowed" from other comedians or school-yard jive sessions. Above all, this tedious comedy proves that, as a movie star, Myers should never be let out of that basement in Aurora, Ill., that he shares with Dana Carvey. [30 July 1993, p.11]