The Money Pit

You can see it coming, but it still has the delicious anticipation of the slow burn. And it all gets much worse. Director Richard Benjamin has the rare gift of knowing just where the funnybone lies, a certain taste for Keaton-esque slapstick, and a very fine comic performer in Hanks. Read full review

It’s not high art or sophisticated humor, but there are just enough clever turns in its physical comedy and insight into relationships to give it a bit of cult status. Read full review

Director Richard Benjamin has found a quintessential comic premise for young adults in the eighties: a couple purchases a house. The Money Pit is elaborately physical, but in the manner of Buster Keaton pictures, with some scenes reminiscent of those charmed moments when an entire wall would collapse on the hapless Keaton, but our beloved "stoneface" happened to be standing just where the opening for a door was. [26 Mar 1986, p.C10]

Its situation and its sight gags are marvelous, recalling the best of Spielberg's 1941. But like that movie, The Money Pit is disconnected; pieces seem missing, and subplots seem to have been abandoned in a rush. [28 Mar 1986, p.D5]

If you can imagine a remake of Steven Spielberg's Poltergeist in which the spirits of the dead have been shoved aside by equally loud, unruly plumbers and carpenters, you'll have some idea of The Money Pit. Read full review

The Money Pit grows increasingly mechanical, both in its content and in the resolution of its plot, as the effects start overwhelming this essentially modest little romantic comedy. Read full review

The sub and the sub-sub plot, something to do with Hanks' dad in Rio, get in the way of the hijinks with the house and the tentatively developed relationship between the stars, who have a cute chemistry that's convincing enough for a good slapstick comedy. [28 Mar 1986, p.25]

The nimble Hanks again proves his delicious way with a double take; Long is nothing if not likable, and Godunov is a supremely silly narcissist. If the filmmakers had trusted these performers more, and stuck closer to reality, things might have turned out better. Instead of a real-estate fiasco anybody could roar at in recognition. The Money Pit has been inflated into a noisy destruction derby. [21 Apr 1986, p.82D]

The Money Pit is Richard Benjamin's attempt to make a '30s comedy through the lens of Steven Spielberg -- there are contraptions and "smart" dialogue and, unfortunately, nothing to hold them together. [28 Mar 1986, p.D2]

This has some very, very funny bits...interspersed with a very slight film. Read full review

While there is some imagination behind the destruction of the title abode, the film quickly grows into a tired repetition of one long joke. Read full review

A movie that contains one funny scene and 91 minutes of running time to kill. Read full review

The Money Pit, a miserable ripoff of the old Cary Grant comedy Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, has nothing to do with such nuances of the human experience. Instead, it is an action comedy that regularly throws its actors around and through pieces of plywood, into and out of windows. Read full review

The Money Pit is simply the pits. There is really very little else to be said about this gruesomely unfunny comedy. Unofficial remake of the 1948 Cary Grant-Myrna Loy starrer Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House begins unpromisingly and slides irrevocably downward from there.