Greenes Please don't spend money on this.

Gutsycurene Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Lachlan Coulson This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

Ginger Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

rogerdozier I love this movie and I watch it all the time to cheer myself up so why the complaints.. take it for what it is, and for all you people that don't like it just remember Adam was able to make a production company from this and Happy Gilmore so hate all you want this is still a great comedy

adonis98-743-186503 In order to inherit his fed up father's hotel empire, an immature and lazy man must repeat grades 1-12 all over again. Billy Madison is one of those 90's comedies that has all the right calls for example the throwbacks, the cool music, the sexy Teacher and all of those stuff and although it does work on some levels and it's pretty damn stupid that it's actually good the movie has some running gags that just aren't that good for example the whole Penguin thing is pretty dumb and forgettable after a while, the Banana one even tho it does lead somewhere it's just a bit dumb or the Principal hitting on Billy and other stuff like that. It does have some funny moments but only a few, it's watchable and cute and the kids are also pretty cool and Bridgette Wilson is probably the only actual human being in the entire film that acts like human except Billy's dad of course. Overall Billy Madison is so stupid that it's actually entertaining but i can totally understand why some Critics hated it in the first place plus couldn't they have picked someone else to play Billy? Maybe the film would have taken better reviews just saying! (7.3/10)

Mike LeMar This one's a complete crack-up. However, the elementary school activities are pretty off. Collages without any direction/instruction, which are done in first grade in this movie, are pre-school crap. When I was in KINDERGARTEN, we made collages like in the movie but with verbal instruction on how they were to be done. It was supposed to get us to start using our listening skills to see how well followed instructions since we were past the brainlessness of pre-school. When I was in FIRST grade, we actually started LEARNING stuff, unlike in the movie which had all the kids conked out by the end of story time. There wasn't nap time because we were supposed to be growing our brains (and comprehending) and reporting to the teacher with our take/synopsis from a story like that. We started learning the PRESIDENTS and we learned NUMBERS. We worked through addition and subtraction worksheets. In second grade, we advanced to multiplication and division worksheets. In the movie, division isn't taught until third grade. Billy, in second grade, calls the little girl out in the spelling bee as soon as she says 'W' in 'couch' only to then struggle on that very letter himself even worse than she by guessing 'R' for crying out loud. If he's so sure that SHE screwed up, how would HE be CLUELESS?

Gino Cox "Billy Madison" delivers a reasonable number of laughs despite massive and potentially crippling problems with the script, characters and plot. About 80% of the jokes and gags either fell flat or were cringe-worthy from my perspective; however, there were many jokes that worked for me and others may find mirth in some of the jokes I failed to appreciate. It was sufficiently frustrating that I had to pause the movie several times; however, it had enough goofy comedy that I resumed play. Among the many faults with the movie: It fails to deliver what Blake Snyder calls the promise of the premise. Billy doesn't actually complete twelve grades. He simply survives two weeks of classes at each grade level. Very little of his classroom experiences could be described as academic. It's very repetitive, so much so that many of the grades are simply skipped in the narrative. His blow-out graduation parties at his father's mansion also become repetitive. It might have been a stronger film if he had simply returned to complete twelfth grade or first grade. In line with this, we meet many characters who are involved briefly then disappear and there's little logic to why some characters who return at later stages. The antagonist, the self-serving CEO, never really increases the stakes. He's largely passive and reactive, except for hatching one plot that is quickly subverted. The romantic subplot is not believable, although this could be said for many comedies in the category Snyder labels fool triumphant. It's not really a fool triumphant movie, as Billy rarely offers a perspective of the world from the eyes of an innocent. Billy doesn't have a credible or meaningful character arc. Initially, his character is a totally unsympathetic self-indulgent incompetent sybarite. He has some insights into human character, but isn't the typical idiot savant, like Gump, Clouseau or English. He doesn't learn much of anything beyond rote memorization of historical dates. He never develops any reasoning or problem-solving skills. At the conclusion, Billy makes a surprise announcement that isn't much of a surprise. Many of the issues and subplots are resolved not through the actions of the protagonist, but through either the failings of other characters (such as the Jeopardy game) or a deus ex machina outcome (the come-uppance of a bully). The relationship between Billy and his father needs more work. Billy doesn't really need to complete twelve grades. His need is to win back his father's respect. His father is indulgent to a fault. But he has not been able to build a huge empire with sixty thousand employees without understanding people. His inability to understand either Billy or the CEO seems implausible. As McKee wrote. Comedy is king. The plots of the Marx Brothers' movies were simply threadbare excuses for a lot of their shtick. But people don't watch a Marx Brothers movie to see an intricate plot unfold. They want the goofball comedy. BM could have been a much better film and it's frustrating that, like Billy, it never rose to its full potential. But it managed to provide sporadic laughs. Technical aspects were more than adequate. The film also benefits from the participation of talented actors and comedians in supporting roles.