Synopsis
Paul Reubens stars as Pee-wee Herman in his second full-length film about a farmer who joins the circus after a storm drops a big tent in his front yard. Pee-wee, along with an outlandish cast of animals and circus performers, puts on the best show ever.
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Cast
- Paul ReubensPee-wee Herman
- Penelope Ann MillerWinnie
- Kris KristoffersonMace Montana
- Valeria GolinoGina Piccolapupula
- Benicio del ToroDuke the Dog-Faced Boy
- Wayne WhiteVance the Pig (voice)
- Susan TyrrellMidge Montana
- Albert HendersonMr. Ryan
- Jack MurdockOtis
- David ByrdDeke
Recommendations
- 60
Time Out
Isn't in the same class as Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, but still provides plenty of prize pickings for kids, kooks and academics. - 60
Variety
Very little of this is interesting or amusing on paper, which must have been a real challenge to director Randal Kleiser, who ably keeps all the surrounding players in tune to whatever it is that Herman’s up to at any given moment. - 50
Chicago Sun-Times
Big Top Pee-wee is as guileless and cheerful as Pee-wee’s first movie, Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, but it’s not as magical. It has too much plot, somehow, and not enough wide-eyed discovery in which everything is new to Pee-wee every moment of his life. He seems almost from Earth in this movie. - 50
Chicago Reader
While the level of imagination here is scaled to the bite-size dimensions of TV, the sense of an alternate universe felt in Herman's TV show is woefully lacking. But fans and undemanding kids may still be amused. - 50
TV Guide Magazine
Director Kleiser fails to bring the kind of loopy energy that Pee-Wee's Big Adventure director Burton brought to the first film. - 50
Christian Science Monitor
Endearingly silly, but nowhere near as original or amusing as Pee-wee's Big Adventure a couple of years ago. [22 Jul 1988, p.19] - 40
Washington Post
Kleiser has no feel for comedy, and there's no affinity between him and his star. He shoots the material as if he didn't quite get it, and the gags dribble out weakly, without any emphasis or piquancy, as if the camera itself were perplexed by the scene unfolding in front of it. - 37
Washington Post
In Big Adventure, Pee-wee's gadgety bike was stolen, and the dramatic interest rode on finding it. Big Top contains three rings' worth of people and livestock, but the interest is no-show. You'd be better off going to the circus. Or the zoo.
