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Problem Child

Problem Child

Comedy · Family · 1990

Ben Healy and his social climbing wife Flo adopt fun-loving seven year old Junior. But they soon discover he's a little monster as he turns a camping trip, a birthday party and even a baseball game into comic nightmares.

Movie details

Problem Child

“Attila the Hun. Ivan the Terrible. Al Capone. They were all seven once.”

1990 Comedy · Family 1h 21m

Critical arithmetic

The consensus, allegedly.

IMDb

5.5 / 10

35.3K votes

Rotten Tomatoes

3 %

Tomatometer

Metacritic

27 / 100

Metascore

TMDB

6.2 / 10

Community rating

External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.

Ben Healy and his social climbing wife Flo adopt fun-loving seven year old Junior. But they soon discover he's a little monster as he turns a camping trip, a birthday party and even a baseball game into comic nightmares.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over Problem Child?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

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Where it lives

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Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Dennis Dugan

Written by

Larry Karaszewski · Scott Alexander

John Ritter

John Ritter

Ben

Jack Warden

Jack Warden

Big Ben

Michael J. Oliver

Michael J. Oliver

Junior

Gilbert Gottfried

Gilbert Gottfried

Mr. Peabody

Amy Yasbeck

Amy Yasbeck

Flo

Michael Richards

Michael Richards

Martin Beck

Peter Jurasik

Peter Jurasik

Roy

Court is in session

Put Problem Child on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Popcorn Loyalist

“Sincerity is not manipulation.”

The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.

The prosecution The Big-Idea Head

“The strings are showing.”

Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.