Cry-Baby Reviews (original) (raw)
Summary In 1950s Baltimore, a bad boy with a heart of gold wins the love of a good girl, whose boyfriend sets out for revenge.
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Summary In 1950s Baltimore, a bad boy with a heart of gold wins the love of a good girl, whose boyfriend sets out for revenge.
Replete with a thumpingly good soundtrack mixing old standards with modern pastiches, this is Waters' finest film to date, a worthy successor to Hairspray which exudes teen angst and young lust from every pore...Seriously sexy stuff.
Peppered with fun-to-spot cameos (can you spot Williem Dafoe?), the parody-satire script works well with Depp's adept handling of the titular bad boy. A delinquent joy-ride, though without the Hard-core distaste of previous Waters flicks, which may or may not be a bad thing.
Underneath the numerous entertaining cameos, not much is going on, and it shows. The film's terrific first half-hour can't sustain itself. Depp is nice to look at, but too diminutive to bring much force to his sexy biker. Locane is well, okay, but she's eclipsed at every turn by the marvelously vulgar Lords, who embraces the genre with the energy and anarchy of the much-missed Divine.
Cry-Baby is more polished than Waters' Hairspray, but the script's lack of focus makes it a lesser film. And though some of the numbers are inspired, their non-stop frequency is as exhausting as the rest. [6 Apr 1990, p.4D]
Basically the filmmaker reminds us of his affection for social misfits, but without much conviction. He's simply too hip to commit himself to his beliefs, and a relentless frivolity prevails. Still Cry-Baby is not without its spit-curled charms, its amusing lines and its funky famous-name cameos.
Cry-Baby doesn`t have a subject, but only a format-a rickety framework erected to suport a few broad gags and a few indifferently filmed production numbers.
Watching it is a bit like checking out a grade-school talent show on parents’ night. The eagerness of the performers, their flat-out verve and innocence, wins you over. For a while at least...Finally, the film wears you down.
The best words to describe this film are corny, comedic, and classic. This is a John Waters film through and through, from the music selections, to the costumes, to the characters themselves. The movie itself isn't very long, and has what seems to be a basic plot. A girl falls in love with a guy that she is "forbidden" to be with due to their different social upbringings. The thing that really shines about Cry-Baby is what the director chooses to include. Whether it be the beginning scene where we first meet the two protagonists while they're receiving a vaccine in their school gym, or the decision to show rowdy and unruly teens and adults being taken to jail and divided by the police by their race, you become fully aware of the Baltimore that once existed for John Waters. I would recommend this film to anyone familiar with the director, or anyone who loves campy movies that don't take themselves too seriously.
Cry-Baby comedy musical with a young Johnny Depp. And almost the entire audience of the film are people who want to see one of Depp's first independent roles. Cry-Baby is a typical youth film about the era of the 50s in the United States. The plot in general in Cry-Baby does not play any role, it is secondary and will be pushed into the background. Almost all the events of the film border on the level of absurdity. But the music scenes and soundtrack in the film are excellent. Cry-Baby can't be taken seriously as a musical. It's a parody of all Fifties musical youth comedies. Cry-Baby can be watched by any viewer, initially I expected to see a secondary low-budget film and received a fun youth parody of musicals.
Production Company Universal Pictures, Imagine Entertainment
Release Date Apr 6, 1990
Duration 1 h 25 m
Rating TV-14
Tagline Too young to be square... Too tough to be shocked... Too late to be saved