Clifford (1994)

This is the absolute funniest movie Martin Short has ever made (to date)! Hilarious from beginning to end! (BTW, Martin Short plays the funniest priest in the history of film besides the funniest child character ever!) Charles Grodin is perfect as Clifford's poor frustrated uncle! Dabney Coleman as Charles Groden's boss is ever-so creepy and plays the part to the hilt! And this is our fave movie with Mary Steenbergen - she is sweet, as always, but allowed to be funny, too. The writing, directing, editing, clever photography (to make Clifford/Martin Short look small) is 100% pure genius! We've watched this movie over and over and over through the years and cannot rate it high enough! The dialog is more-than hilarious and we quote lines from this film all the time. If you have a sense of humor and like to laugh, this movie is a MUST SEE! 100% GENIUS!! Martin Short is a comic genius!!!

Fmovies: While this wasn't quite the disaster that I was expecting, it is still a weak comedy, and also a rather annoying film. It was a competent film, and I can even admit that I laughed on occasion, but the negatives far outweigh the positives. Martin Short was staggeringly hateful in this movie, and even though I suppose that was the whole point, it really is hard to be entertained when the main character is SO irritating. Personally, I would have loved to see his character get decapitated at the end, for it would have turned the film into a feel-good movie. Or better yet, he could have been killed off in the beginning.

Lots of funny scenes about a very self-centered boy who drives adults crazy.

I am sure a lot of adults can see some familiar behavior in their kids and themselves.

Some the funny things they show Clifford doing remind me of myself when I was a boy; eating lots of sugar, watching videos of naked African women; drooling over the chance to go to a theme park, trying to fool adults and not getting away with it.

Martin Daniels is especially funny as a middle-aged bachelor who is trying to convince his fiancé who wants children, that he appreciates children, so he has Clifford at his place to prove that point to his finance, in the meantime, Clifford ruins Martin's career, his house, and causes the breakup of the marriage engagement.

Clifford is truly an evil menace, the bane of every adult, much worse than Dennis the Menace.

Clifford fmovies. This movie, which I cannot even bring myself to name, is the single greatest crime against humanity, that has ever been committed. I saw this movie in the theaters, and to this day I still wake up in cold sweats from the nightmare of that night. Make no mistake about it, this is the WORST thing ever put on film. Martin short is sooo annoying you want to see his character destroyed in the most painful way possible, and the rest of the characters are beyond one dimensional. There are no laughs to be found in this movie, it is an insult to all your senses, and you die a little inside from watching it. The fact that some people actually like this abomination of a movie, only tells me that they must have grown up under power lines, or that they like to hurt them selves. This movie must be avoided at all costs, it is the single worst event in my life, please run away if you see it any where, anyone defending this movie, must be brought in for psychological treatment, there is no defending this garbage.

This work falls in there with movies like Howard the Duck, Oliver Stone's Alexander, Cherry 2000, and Taylor's Cleopatra in that tons of money was spent in the making, only to have the audiences reject the work.

None of the works named stunk, indeed, there are endearing moments and qualities to every ONE of those works, but as far as average audiences were concerned, they were dismal disappointments, for one reason or another. Clifford is generally considered to have fallen into that category.

Martin Short portrays a 90 year old priest, and a 10 year old holy terror of a child who will do anything he can (and what he can do is formidable) to get to Dinosaur World to fulfill his dream.

I found this work amusing. I was highly entertained by Clifford's constant, non-stop, one track obsession and his total lack of that little voice which tells most people that their inappropriate actions are a BAD idea! It makes me thankful I'm not raising children at this point in my life; that part of my life is done, so I can appreciate the humor herein.

I do not understand why this work is generally despised, other than Clifford IS a holy terror. He is the epitome of the Demon Seed. But the work is endearingly quirky, amusing, and entertaining.

I liked it and own it. It rates a 7.8/10 from...

the Fiend :.

The thin line between insanity and brilliance often amazes me. On one hand we have films like "Clifford," the 1994 box office disaster starring Charles Grodin and Martin Short, that everyone claimed was one of the worst films of all time. Then we have the "Being John Malkovich"es, that are so strange and weird, yet everyone calls them masterpieces. What's the difference? One is a comedy people went into expecting something straight-forward, and the other is a piece of art? Puh-lease.

The tagline for "Clifford" reads, "What's the difference between Clifford and a pit bull? One will tear your heart out, scare your friends and wreck your house. The other one is a dog." If you found that tagline funny, "Clifford" is for you. If not, then it is not for you. Personal taste comes into play here very much.

I personally enjoy "Clifford." Call me a horrible filmgoer, I don't care. It's just with all the crap I've seen in my days, "Clifford" is not only a pretty good movie when compared to others, but also a refreshingly naughty comedy. It unfortunately falls apart in the last ten minutes, really getting crazy. But then again, so did "Malkovich."

The film opens up in the year 2050. A young troublemaker is trying to escape from a futuristic private school. He is stopped, however, by Father Clifford (Martin), who looks like Dick Clark's lovechild with...well...Martin Short. Anyway, Clifford sits the boy down and teaches him a lesson. He tells him a story from when he was younger, and when he was a practical joker. More like a homicidal maniac.

Clifford's story begins in present day. Clifford is now a small boy, but he is still played by Martin Short, oddly enough. At first he appears a normal enough child, happy and bright and just a bit overly creepy. Clifford and his parents are on a flight to Hawaii for business purposes. Clifford wants to land in LA to visit "Dinosaur World," a theme park that I would have loved to visit when I was a dinosaur-crazy kid myself.

Through Clifford's evil, creepy and manipulative ways, he gets into the cockpit and almost crashlands the plane. The pilot decides to land in LA to make sure the aircraft is unharmed.

In LA, Clifford's parents drop him off with his Uncle Martin (Charles Grodin), an aspiring architect, busy with his fiancee (Mary Steenburgen) and plans for a new Los Angeles subway route. His pesky boss (Dabney Coleman) is always on Uncle Martin's case, so he has barely enough time to devote to Clifford. Clifford's parents leave, they fly back to Hawaii, and Clifford gets anxious. He wants - or needs - to visit Dinosaur World as soon as possible, and Uncle Martin just keeps blowing him off. This makes Clifford mad.

You may be wondering what happens when Clifford gets mad. In all truth, it's best not to spoil it. He doesn't turn green, he doesn't grow extremely large and bear muscles - he just unleashes ultimate havoc upon those opposing him. Take, for example, the scene where Clifford, mad at his Uncle Martin for going back on his word (he said he'd take Clifford to Dino World and didn't), puts hot sauce in Uncle Martin's bloody mary, so that when Uncle Martin goes to propose a toast his throat gets a bit hoarse. Or when Clifford pieces together recordings of his uncle to make it sound as if he has a bomb planted under City Hall.

Clifford is the ultimate pest, a spawn of S