Metacritic reviews

There's hardly a moment in Three Amigos that isn't silly--make that incredibly, outrageously and breathtakingly silly. Maybe that's why this tale of a trio of inept silent-movie stars turned real-life heroes is such a goofy delight. It's like a cross between a big-budget Three Stooges movie and a Hope-Crosby road picture, with dozens of old cowpoke gags thrown in to spice up the brew.

Martin’s script—co-written with SNL producer Lorne Michaels and songwriter Randy Newman—is full of inspired bits of comic business, such as Martin making a “lookuphere!” bird call to get his chums’ attention, Chase pouring water all over his face while his mates’ canteens are dry, and the Amigos summoning an invisible swordsman whom Chase accidentally shoots.

The characterisation is paper thin, and Landis' timing as sloppy as ever; but if you enjoy brainless slapstick that allows space for irrelvant absurdities like a singing bush and an invisible swordsman, it's entertaining enough.

Though Three Amigos is the kind of skin-deep contemporary comedy that assembles its stars and then just coasts, it's friendlier than most. And it contains a few elements that are destined for immortality.

Three Amigos will never get any prizes for excitement or originality, but if there were an award for friendliness, this movie would at least be in the running.

On the whole there's not a lot of flesh on these cynically haphazard bones.

Martin is joyful; Chase seems depressed, and Short comes off as merely happy to be in his first movie.

The script of Three Amigos (Martin's collaborators were producer Lorne Michaels and singer Randy Newman) plays like it was slapped together by a few friends with a tape recorder enjoying a charming weekend at the beach. You can't tell one amigo from another, the gags are silly (a "singing bush") and far between, the dialogue full of inane wordplay. Sample: "We could take a walk and you could kiss me on the veranda." "The lips would be fine."

All great farces need a certain insane focus, an intensity that declares how important they are to themselves. This movie is too confident, too relaxed, too clever to be really funny. And yet, when the cowboys sit around their campfire singing a sad lament and then their horses join in, you see where the movie could have gone.

Prodded by Landis' slam-bang direction, the effect isn't so much a comedy as it is an exercise in excess. Somewhere in the planning stage one all-important factor was left out: humor. The concept is a funny one, yet no one seems to have the faintest idea of what to do with it. Between Landis' direction and the initially lame screenplay, Three Amigos never really stands a chance.