Metacritic reviews

Manically imaginative and very funny.

If there’s anything tying together the detours and roadblocks that comprise Big Holiday, it’s the film’s big, bold, screaming celebration of human difference.

Like the Muppets and the Simpsons, Pee-wee Herman seems not to age. But in his new Netflix movie, Pee-wee’s Big Holiday, he does take things down a notch; he’s less frenetic and more reactive.

Big Holiday’s episodic road-trip script is a good fit for the film’s sketch-based humor.

A lot of us have really missed Pee-wee, and seeing him go through his fun-house morning regimen at the outset of the film is a giddy treat. It’s like catching up with an old friend. But nostalgia gets you only so far.

The results are mostly pleasing and occasionally very funny (particularly whenever Manganiello pops up and Pee-wee tries to pronounce his name). But they also feel very familiar, something that flies in the face of the movie’s key theme about reinvention.

Despite a few delights — chiefly an adorably self-aware Joe Manganiello as the object of Pee-wee's man-crush — the new movie has an unsure tone and the barest thread of a story.

Pee-wee Herman may still look good in his ill-fitting suit, but more than 30 years after first hitting the big screen, his antics haven’t aged well.

The result, while featuring some superbly non-sequitur moments and gags, feels forced into a road trip package caught between self-awareness and naivety.

The biggest surprise, frankly, might be that the funniest person here is frequently Manganiello. Indeed, the mere visual juxtaposition of the towering “Magic Mike” star and Reubens in the same frame together is practically a special effect in itself.