This movie is really a first. The first film adaptation for Paul Reuben's famous character Pee-Wee Herman, it was Danny Elfman's first time as music composer, and it was Tim Burton's first film. Let's review.
Plot:
Pee-Wee Herman is basically a five year old kid stuck in a 40 year old body. He doesn't have a job, he barely has an excuse of a love interest, and he loves his bike, one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. One day he is out riding his bike and stops at a mini mall and picks up a new horn for his bike. When he comes back it has been stolen.
He goes to the police and they tell him to retrace his steps. The first person Pee-Wee thinks of as a suspect is Francis, the son of a rich guy who wants to buy his bike. He invades his home and beats him up while he's taking his bath in a huge pool. And yes, he does have swim trunks on, this is PG.
We learn that Francis actually paid to have the bike stolen by some guy so he could get it, but after his run-in with Pee-Wee, he decides to have it taken elsewhere. Pee-Wee's next decision is to hold a meeting with everybody in town for the most part and has them try to help him, but they all leave and he decides to go get his bike on his own.
His first stop is at a fortune teller's place where she tells him, foolishly, that it is in the basement of the Alamo. Pee-Wee hitches a ride with an escaped convict named Mickey. No, not Mickey Mouse, a real guy. After a few escapades, Mickey kicks him out and leaves him in the middle of nowhere in the desert.
He is picked up by a trucking lady named Large Marge. She tells him a creepy ghost story and, well, you'll just have to watch the movie, but after she drops him off, he says that she dropped him off and they say that she died on this day a few years ago. He eats but can't pay for his dinner. He meets a waitress named Simone who tells him that she wants to go to Paris but her boyfriend won't let her. She and Pee-Wee watch the sunrise, but her boyfriend is waiting for him.
After a chase, Pee-Wee leaps aboard a train and meets John, a hobo who lives on the train and they sing a few songs. But Pee-Wee gets tired of it and leaps back off. It just so turns out that he is right in Austin, Texas, home of the Alamo. He goes on a tourist trip and finds out that the Alamo doesn't have a basement.
He decides he'll never get his bike back and decides to catch a bus back home. He reacquaints with Simone, who is actually off to Paris, but her boyfriend, Andy, is trying to stop her. He runs into Pee-Wee and puts up another chase. Pee-Wee desguises himself as a bull rider and ends up breaking the record. He is thrown off the bull, who goes after Andy because of his red shirt, and Pee-Wee ends up going to a bar to call Dotty, his supposed girlfriend.
Pee-Wee doesn't fit in and decides to leave, but he knocks over all the biker's bikes and they threaten him. He asks for a last request, gets one, and does a dance to the popular song Tequila. The bikers now praise him and they give him a bike and jacket. He wrecks it seconds after getting it and in the hospital sees on the TV that his bike is at Warner Bros. Studios, which just so happened to be the studio that made this movie.
He gets there, infiltrates the set the bike is on, steals it, and is chased by security. After getting away after a great chase, he comes across a pet store that has caught fire, and saves all the pets inside. The police and firemen show up, one calling him a hero, the other claiming he's under arrest.
Pee-Wee visits the head of Warner Bros. Studios who wants him arrested, but after seeing the footage the cameras got, since Pee-Wee was chased through several sets, he decides to let him off on the charges and decides to make a movie about Pee-Wee's adventure. Ha ha. Anyway, so at the premire, all Pee-Wee;s friends show up and he watches as an actual action hero stars as him and a model plays his girlfriend. Pee-Wee cameos as a bellhop in a hilarious moment.
As he reaches Dotty he wants to go home, and she protests: "We're going to miss the movie." Pee Wee answers, "I don't need to see the movie. I've lived it." The final shot is of Pee-Wee and Dotty's silhoutes going across the movie screen.
So now for the grades:
Acting: 7 out of 10. Good performance by Paul Reubens. Everyone else is ok.
Entertainment: 10 out of 10. Excellent entertainment value.
Screenplay: 9 out of 10. Great work.
Directing: 8 out of 10. Tim Burton does well for his first time.
Technical Credits: 5 out of 10. Standard.
Genre Fit: 9 out of 10. Always a comedy, but it does stray a bit.
MPAA Rating: 10 out of 10. It does have a few scary moments here and there that make it a PG but it is a family movie.
Stupid Scenes: 10 out of 10. None.
Deeper Message: 4 out of 10. Nothing really. Maybe follow your dreams, never give up, but mostly for entertainment.
Beginning: 28 out of 30. Great start.
Middle: 22 out of 30. A little slow.
Ending: 30 out of 30. A great ending.
Final Score: 148/180 or 82%. An A-, which means its great.
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