Avis Metacritic

The crass Scots jokes are irresistible; Alan Arkin's cameo as a mild-mannered police chief is sheer perfection; and the cultish references to Beat poetry should please slumming hipsters. Like an exploding haggis, funny but extremely messy.

So I Married an Axe Murderer may have to dodge some angry Scotsmen but otherwise should click with those looking for slightly upscale humor that’s not averse to a few well-placed cheap shots. It’s a delightful and unexpected surprise.

"Axe Murderer" resembles a dozen other films, yet it has its one charm - Myers himself, who sometimes borders on being adorable but is smart enough never to sink the viewer in gooey sweetness.

At the end of the day, the movie works. It's funny, it's charming, it's sweet – all elements that make it a more accessible comedy than Meyers' later work, which is generally aimed to a more specific audience. It's certainly worth rewatching and holds up well to retrospect, and while it might not be the laugh-a-minute spoof that was the original Austin Powers, it's an amusing – and at times hilarious – look back at the beginning of one comedian's superstar career.

So I Married an Axe Murderer is a mediocre movie with a good one trapped inside, wildly signaling to be set free. The good movie involves a droll and eccentric Scottish-American family whose household embraces more of the trappings of Scottishness than your average Glasgow souvenir shop. The bad movie is about a young man's romance with a woman he comes to suspect is an ax murderer.

After the success of Wayne's World, much was expected from Myers and this is a distinctly average comedy which failed to deliver. He is enjoyable as the neurotic Charlie as well as his father but the concept itself is just a little too unconvincing.

But the film overall is a jumble, a stitched-together bunch of scenes that, while often funny, don't hang together very well, you know, like a TV Christmas special or a middling episode of SNL. Free-form sketch comedy can work in a vehicle like Wayne's World, but it leaves a story like So I Married... so, so marred.

Although Myers is a brilliant comic, any potential he has as a romantic lead remains unfulfilled.

Myers pumps out a river of inventive shtick, but it doesn't cohere or connect; he seems less a character than a comedian doing couch time on a late-night talk show.

Credit writer Robbie Fox for the fertile comic premise of equating marriage and death in the male mind. But the story, involving Charlie’s cop buddy (Anthony LaPaglia) and Harriet’s artist sister (Amanda Plummer), is too convoluted. Juggling mirth, romance and murder requires a deft touch — think of Hitchcock’s Trouble With Harry. Axe is a blunt instrument.