Warner Bros. Pictures presents a film directed by Danny DeVito. Written by Adam Resnick. Running time: 109 minutes. Rated R (for language and sexual references)
Recalling the baneful teenage chant, I hate you/You hate me/Let's get together and kill Barney, critics have ganged up on Death to Smoochy, in which Robin Williams plays a disgraced kid-show host. There are a few laughs, but I'm not sure that a comedy is supposed to make you recoil, which is what Smoochy does, writes Elvis Mitchell in the New York Times. Calling it a toxic bonbon, Ann Hornaday writes in the Washington Post: It's difficult, in a family newspaper, to convey just how profane, violent, mean-spirited and nasty Death to Smoochy is. Steven Rea in the Philadelphia Inquirer calls it a dark, ugly, expletive-strewn fable. To Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune, the film is a dark comedy that blows up like an exploding cigar, leaving nothing much behind but smoke, noise and a bad taste. And Loren King in the Boston Globe concludes, The film has not a trace of humanity or empathy. The film does have a few admirers. John Anderson of Newsday advises, Don't bring the kids. ... Death to Smoochy may be about children's television, but it will be most thoroughly enjoyed by parents who can only get through an episode of Barney by imagining there's a naked hermaphrodite inside the purple suit.