Rotten Tomatoes score: 23%
The Flintstones may not be a work of art, but surely it deserves better than the ice-cold reception it got from critics.
...I can do better than that. Let me start over.
The Flintstones is a brilliant work of art, like Michelangelo’s David, Beethoven’s ninth symphony, or Megaman 2. There are so many layers to it: It's live action imitating animation, the 1990s imitating the 1960s, the 20th century imitating the stone age, and John Goodman imitating a cartoon character imitating Jackie Gleason.
I'm amazed at how many prehistory-themed jokes they manage to wring out of this thing. Not just the obvious ones, like using a "number-two chisel" to take an exam, but things like Dann Florek's line, "I can't endorse this modernization if it means laying off all these workers. Some of them have been here since the beginning of time!" Or Fred's boss's use of the expression "until the poles freeze over." Or Fred's comment that he doesn't need a friend like Barney because "There's four thousand other people in this world!"
Who would think of making a joke about the size of the human population during the stone age? Did they have jokes like that in the cartoon?
There's even an offhand reference to human sacrifice that kind of shocked me in a PG movie, but maybe they figured that would be over kids' heads.
The casting is pitch-perfect, even though Rick Moranis doesn't have tiny black dots for eyes, and John Goodman wanders in and out of Fred's New York accent. (Or I guess that's a Bedrock accent. I don't know.) I had never heard of Elizabeth Perkins, but she looks and sounds exactly like Wilma Flintstone. Halle Berry appears as a made-up character called Sharon Stone, which is weird, but I guess the real Sharon Stone wasn't available. Or else they just couldn't think of a rock-related name that sounded like Halle Berry.
Harvey Korman plays a bird.
The plot is of decidedly secondary importance. Barney wants to repay Fred for having loaned him the money he needed to adopt Bamm Bamm, so he helps Fred cheat on an IQ test that determines which low-level quarry employee will be promoted to an executive job. (Since when is Barney smart enough to help Fred cheat on an IQ test?) But it turns out that the promotion is part of a scam by Sharon Stone and her lover to loot the company. That’s about it.
Oh, and the bad guy gets encased in concrete at the end and is clearly dead, though no one says so. That came as a surprise. They don't usually kill nonviolent villains in these movies.
Critics complained that the plot was too adult-oriented—meaning that it will alienate kids, not that it’s X-rated—and that’s certainly true. Embezzlement and office politics are not major concerns of child moviegoers. But we can’t forget that the cartoon was always intended to appeal to adults as well as kids. Just be grateful John Goodman didn’t do any cigarette tie-ins.
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