Review of Pee-wee's Big Holiday (2016) by Allan C — 26 Apr 2016

63-year old Paul Reubens can surprisingly still pull off Pee-wee Herman and does so with flying colors in this Netflix original film. Netflix reportedly had a lot of people watching "Pee-wee's Playhouse" and "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" and approached Reubens about making a new film.

Pee-wee's new adventure starts off when Joe Manganiello, playing a hilariously exaggerated macho version of himself, rides into town on a motorcycle and immediately hits it off with Pee-wee over their shared love of Root Beer Barrels.

Joe invited Pee-wee to leave Fairville and come to New York City to for his birthday party, which sends Pee-wee on a very funny episodic road trip adventure that includes mountain men, shotgun marriages, flying cars, Amish villages and "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" inspired female bank robbers.

Just like "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" and "Pee-wee's Playhouse," this film works brilliantly on both a kid (my own kids loved it) and adult level, while still managing to remain family friendly (which "Big Top Pee-wee" seemed to cross).

Sadly there is no Danny Elfman score, but Devo frontman Mark Mothersbaugh provides the film an excellent comedy score. Judd Apatow produced this film and gets credit for reinvigorating a character that had essentially disappeared and I though would never come back.

Compared to his first film, this film manages to have the same kind of idilic 1950s sense of whimsey and innocence that worked so well, but I've always found it fascinating how much of a mark Tim Burton left on that first film, making it unmistakably a Burton film and leaving his visual mark in a way that was never captured for any of Herman's subsequent films or TV shows.

Overall, if you like Pee-wee Herman, you'll love this film.