The Little Rascals (1994)

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

The Little Rascals (1994) has a certain target audience. I kept that target audience in mind while watching. I also kept the source material in mind as i watched. When you take both those important factors in mind, the film is pretty well done and it fits. The child actors fit their characters very well and they did a good job. All the mannerisms and characteristics were upheld. I liked seeing the big star cameos, such as Lea Thompson, Whoopi Goldberg, Reba and more. The comedy was at the level of the target audience, full of children's humor. That's why i say that this film is well made for it's demographic. It is in the children and family genre and i think it's a good fit for that.A lot of older teens and adults most likely won't be interested, but I suggest this one as a pretty good pick. Might wanna skip the Donald Trump cameo though lol. 7/10.

I remembered watching this as a little kid and I still loved it ever since even when I'm still older. However, in my opinion, it isn't the greatest movie ever made due to it's flaws that I might point out.The story was too predictable for my taste, although it did have some nice moments with those adorable kids and the script, although decent, comes across as flat and contrived.With those flaws out of the way, there are a few saving graces. The children actors as the Rascals themselves did a good job with their roles with Bug Hall and Buckwheat (can't remember who the actor was) and Spanky stealing the show. The rich kid, Waldo, although underused, was still tolerable. I also saw some great cameos including John Goodman, Whoopi Goldberg, and Mel Brooks himself. The pacing is very brisk and helps develop our character quite well. The music's from William Ross was pretty decent, although it needs a much more elaborate depth.The best aspect is the humor. The jokes are a combination of hilarious and over-the-top at the same time (with the We Got A Dollar, The hate letter being revealed by Buckwheat and the beginning scene with Buckwheat and Porky fishing as my favorites).Overall, not the greatest movie I've seen, but still a hilarious comedy and is easily underrated. If you want to see a movie that has reminded you of your childhood life, check this one out and watch it again and again forever.

Films and television shows that are trying to be cute to gain laughs can be quite irritating. They often rely on the audience gaining some sort of emotional investment out of seeing an adorable baby character, or young toddler, that says lines that no young kid would say, and the usual reaction is "Aaawwww!" (Full House did this for years). These types of cinema have no reason for existence, and usually try to serve as cheap entertainment that families can enjoy together. This movie is chalk full of little children doing things children would never do, no doubt with the director feeding them lines that they don't understand because they can't read yet. But, where this film is different is it's set up. The universe that these "little rascals" live in isn't the one we live in. It's some kind of parallel universe where children own their own cars and have very elaborate clubhouses, and where very young children go on romantic dates. And never once is this particularly corny. What could be a by the numbers movie turns out to be a sort of charming little movie that is fun and funny in a surreal way.Little Alfalfa (Bug Hall) is in a group of girl-hating little boys, and they find out about his upcoming romantic date with Darla (Brittany Ashton Holmes), and they sabotage him. Meanwhile a new rich kid Waldo (Blake Ewing) has just moved in and Darla finds him quite appealing, so Alfalfa is down in the dumps. Hopefully the up-coming go-cart race is a chance for Alfalfa to get his lady back, in addition to beat Waldo, and bond with his child pal Spanky (Travis Tedford).This kids in this movie are actually all really good actors, and that's one thing that makes this movie work. Bug Hall is one of the better young actors out there, and all the ridiculous silly lines that the kids say (though kids clearly wouldn't say in real life) are said with enough conviction, yet with a clear wink from the director and writer(s). The kids say their lines well, but with a slightly over the top script, and the mixture comes off as pretty funny. The film runs at a brisk pace, with enough jokes to make up for it's overall lack of plot. The sets would have to be pretty cool looking to a child (at least they were to me!). The clubhouse that the kids built is designed to look like it was built by kids, but at the same time, it's so surreally elaborate. And this movie has plenty of surrealism and absurdest humor. Things will happen that make very little sense, but come off as hilarious because of how ridiculous the situation is. In one scene during the big race at the end, giant daggers come out of a kid's car and start stabbing another car. It's so ridiculous, but in the context of the movie, it comes off as normal in this universe, and jokes like this that might normally seem very over the top, play off quite well. If anything was unnecessary here, it was the numerous cameos that usually show up for no reason at all. A few of them were funny, but most of them seemed somewhat forced. Kids probably won't know who most of these people are anyways, so they won't understand that these are cameos.Overall, this is a very enjoyable family film, with good performances (from kids no less), and a lot of really silly jokes that hit the mark. In an average episode of Full House, I probably cringe about 10 times, but in this much longer film featuring even more kids including cameos by the Olsen Twins, there was not one moment of cringing. It's actually pretty fun.My rating: *** out of ****. 82 mins. PG for some rude humor.

A friend of mine has a son...who when he was little...looked exactly like Bug Hall..who plays "Alfalfa" in the film. She laughed herself silly watching it..and invited me over to see it as well. As someone who loved the old original "Our Gang" shorts...I was happy to go watch this. I thought it was funny, cute and very entertaining. Yes..it was silly as well..but it was about kids doing kid things. Granted..in a modern setting..kids doing these mischievous things would have been in major trouble with any adult that might have been passing by. Parents would have been notified...police called..well, you know the rest. However..there were very few parents in evidence anywhere during most of the scenes. Kids allowed to roam all over town alone? It just was not safe really...but in the "Our Gang" films it was O-Tay...bad guys simply did not exist as they do today. I imagine getting these little kids to do as the director wanted was not easy. Distractions would be everywhere on a movie set. I know in the originals they would say and do mean things to the kids to get them to cry on cue...that was long before there were rules and laws against it. In this..most of the kids looked like they were having fun. Hopefully, they were. Funny this is..none of this kids probably ever heard or saw any of the stuff the original kids did way back when until this film came into being. The casting was really good...especially "Spanky" and "Alfalfa"...they fit just right. Adding cameos with Donald Trump and Woopie Goldburg could have been left out...I wasn't quite sure why they were necessary here. It is a feel-good movie that I believe all kids will enjoy at least once..and when they have kids someday...they will like it too. I hope they do not do any re-makes of this film. It was kind of a homage to the old shorts...but now it has been done...so leave them alone. :)