It's undeniable that Waters dialed down his audacity in the 90s. That's not an inherently bad thing, and this shift in tone works for films like Cry-Baby and Pecker which, for all their Waters weirdness, are unabashedly wholesome films. But it doesn't work for Cecil B. Demented, where the premise demands a more acerbic approach.
I'm not normally one to quote Peter Bradshaw, but he sums up my issues with the film succinctly: "Nothing in this film comes close to…