Dennis the Menace

Writer-producer-director John Hughes these days comes dangerously close to promoting child abuse. What started for him as a one-man cottage industry of fresh adolescent portraits (Sixteen Candles, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club) has, over the years, become a downward descent into garish yarns of kiddie tyranny (Uncle Buck, Curly Sue, both Home Alones). With these latter portraits, and now culminating with Dennis the Menace, which he wrote and produced, Hughes is establishing new ground in the arena of making America hate its children. Not outright, mind you. Ostensibly, these kids are cute but indomitable. A huge talent search was conducted to find the new Dennis, making Mason Gamble a one-in-twenty-thousand kid. Some have hailed him as the cutest thing since Shirley Temple. If that prospect makes you shudder, then you have some sense of what I'm driving at when I talk about John Hughes causing us to hate our children. Based more on the TV series than on the comic strip, this Dennis the Menace is Warner Bros.' summer bid for family entertainment. Broad, illogical, physical gags abound, much of it out of the catastrophic-crotch-mishaps school of humor. There's a kind of cartoon logic fueling the events in this movie but, unfortunately, Dennis the Menace is grounded enough in reality that you can't help but wonder things like why, if Mr. Wilson doesn't want Dennis to barge into his house, shouldn't he try locking his doors. Though at times the action feels padded with space-filling sequences, most of the movie is smartly constructed -- beginning with the opening sequence in which Mr. Wilson (Matthau) reacts to the mere sound of Dennis' bicycle approaching from the distance as a soldier might to the rumble of an incoming bomber. Matthau does make an ideal Mr. Wilson, mixing up the curmudgeonly fuss-budget with the set-upon retiree. Lloyd is also enjoyable in the newly created character of a thieving vagrant which he plays with unsavory comic flair. But the real trouper in all this is Plowright, whose Mrs. Wilson uncovers an engaging three-dimensional character imbued with heart, history, disappointments and pleasures. She is a joy to watch. Jerry Goldsmith's musical score may also be one of the best in a movie this year. Still, there's no getting away from the cloyingly cute, well-intentioned little monster at the heart of this story. The movie is also notably, and unnecessarily, unkind to doll-playing little girls and grown women who work outside the home. A movie that makes you leave the theatre with thoughts of having yourself, and your neighbors, spayed is not a good thing.