The Flintstones

It blows my mind that this movie is a 4.9. This is a fantastic live action adaptation of this classic cartoon

Live-action adaptation of Hanna-Barbera's TV cartoon brings prehistoric blue-collar family man Fred Flintstone to life with the help of John Goodman, exceptional in the role. The world of Bedrock is excitingly captured, all the surrounding details look right, but unfortunately the script is a pale, shapeless mess. Also, who cast Rosie O'Donnell as neighbor Betty Rubble, the Snow White of the Sabertooth set? O'Donnell is far too brash and distracting as Betty, who was mostly around in the TV show as a foil for Fred's wife Wilma (adequately played by Elizabeth Perkins). O'Donnell should have instead played Fred's mother-in-law, although Elizabeth Taylor is game for this loudmouthed harridan. There are some laughs here--although not big ones--while the "plot" is weaker than any of those written for television. ** from ****

A 10 out of 10 for making an exact real live copy of a cartoon. At first I was thinking, why bother? It's like a life action version of the Simpsons. But there were enough good jokes and cheeky little winks to make it acceptable. Kudos for the actors and director to make me forget I was not watching the cartoon.

Making a live-action, feature film out of a cartoon show is definitely not an easy task, but the creators of this film pulled it off. THE FLINTSTONES is one of the most entertaining family films to come along in a good while. The great cast has a ball, particularly Elizabeth Taylor as Fred Flintstone's mother-in-law. Highly recommended!

1st watched 1/12/2003 - 7 out of 10(Dir-Brian Levant): Well-made live action imitation of the popular Hanna-Barbera cartoon series. Maybe it's because Hanna & Barbera were involved and were two of the executive producers of the movie as well as having small roles in the production. Besides this, this classic tale of life in the stone age had tremendous casting in the way of John Goodman(Fred Flintstone), Rick Moranis(Barney Rubbel) and the entire group for that matter. The movie starts with the Rubbel family adding a new member in the adopted Bam-Bam and then the rest of the movie matches pretty much the way the two families lived their lives & worked together as neighbors in the prehistoric town of Bedrock. Of course there is evil-a-foot within a demented man in a higher position in the stone quarry who tries to frame Fred and the rest of the movie is a culmination of all this. What is great about the movie & the series the Flintstones is that no matter what trouble they got in, the families always patched it up in the end showing us what true friends our made of. And besides all this the movie was funny & visually appealing too !!