User reviews

This movie makes an awkward attempt to stay faithful to the spirit of the cartoon. It has moments, but far too few of them.

The few things done right first: Jane Krakowski makes a wonderful Betty; why couldn't she have been in the first movie? She makes the silly dialog somehow sweet and fun. The dating sequence is cute and the Vegas arrival scene has some clever sight gags, but these were fleeting montages. Harvey Korman is wasted in a throw-away role with few lines; instead of voicing Gazoo (as he did in the original cartoon), and the guy they use for Gazoo sounds like slate grinding on bedrock.

Joan Collins is obnoxious enough on her own; this movie has her play a wrenching stereotypical loudmouth mother-in-law who you want to feed to the nearest T-Rex you can find. And the guy that plays Barney? What the heck is he doing? His entire performance looked like a rejected audition for a junior high school production of "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure in Jurassic Park." Fred? The guy had a voice almost as nasally as Joan Collins. Wilma is cast as a 7-foot-tall giraffe. Fred goes gambling: Gee, what's gonna happen there? Fred and Barney dress up as dancers: they even manage to ruin this classic comedy routine. A poorly done triangle story falls flat.

This petrified fossil of a film does little justice to the Modern Stone-Aged Family. Rent some of the original cartoons, instead.

This is garbage. I kinda of like it. Everything is bad. The plot starts 2/3 of the way into the movie. The writing is horrendous. The acting is god awful. Visually the movie is incredibly ugly. It has some of the worst sound design I have ever heard. Honestly, the best part of this movie (other than Dementia Dad) is the god damn CGI. Also, I still have no idea how old they're supposed to be in this thing, they look 40, they act 40, but they're just graduating college?

It's just a fun movie. Not all that big, once in a lifetime, classic type.

I found it fun - but not as good as the 1st one.

Like its predecessor, "The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas" tries to be likeable. However, this film is not quite up to par with the original. This version deals with the way the Flintstones came into existence. Young dino-crane operators Fred Flintstone (Mark Addy) and Barney Rubble (Stephen Baldwin) find true love in fast-food waitresses Wilma (Kristen Johnston) and Betty (Jane Krakowski). They take an expense-paid trip to Rock Vegas, but the evil Chip Rockefeller (Thomas Gibson) has a plan to get rid of Fred so he can have Wilma for himself. That is about it for the near invisible plot. Once again the production values are high, but that does not save this film from being a dud. The casting is impressive, but there is nothing for the cast to work with. Basically the first film with a different situation and different actors in the key roles. 2 out of 5 stars.

"The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas" is one of the poorest excuses for a family film I've seen in a long time.

The original remake with John Goodman was at least decent, but this flop has not only an awful cast, but awful dialogue, filming techniques, jokes...it's straight out of a made-for-TV sequel. Only one thing: It's even worse.

In this live-action prequel to the 1994 comedy hit, Fred Flintstone (Mark Addy) and wife Wilma (Kristen Johnston) go to Rock Vegas along with the Rubbles, Barney (Stephen Baldwin) and Betty (Jane Krakowski), where Wilma is pursued by playboy Chip Rockefeller (Thomas Gibson). This is the setup for a bunch of tiring gags that also have to do with a little green space alien coming to earth to see how humans mate, or something as such.

This has to be one of the worst comedies I've seen it a while. It was actually painful for me to watch. There really are no redeeming values whatsoever, and I don't think I'd like it even if I was a five-year-old. It treats the audience like dirt, and it obviously seeing if there's any juice left in the audience to pay for another "Flintstone" flick.

Instead of trying to improve upon the first film--which was a bit underrated--this film seems to go for the bare minimum in an effort only to draw money from the audience. I have to ask myself, if they knew the first was so critically-declaimed, why release another awful flick? Try to improve and get good reviews.

But nope, no luck here. Instead we are treated to a truly awful and hard-to-watch comedy with no redeeming values whatsoever.

Avoid at all costs.

0.5/5 stars--

John Ulmer

I cannot imagine in a million years how this thing got the go ahead. The first one bombed with major talent in it. So, why would you make a sequel to a bomb with lesser actors? I guess they thought kids would like it. Well, kids might be immature but they are not stupid. As foul as a dinasour terd, avoid at all costs.

The headline for my review is all you need to know. Thank you.

"The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas" is actually slightly more bearable than the truly horrible 1994 movie, but that really isn't saying much. Where the previous one suffered from chronically bad casting for the Flintstones and the Rubbles (except for Elizabeth Perkins as Wilma), this benefits from Stephen Baldwin and Jane "Best reason to watch 'Ally McBeal' not called Lucy Liu" Krakowski making a far less annoying Barney and Betty than Rick Moranis and Rosie O'Donnell (the latter the only major cast member to return here, in voice mode only). The movie also has a few nice little touches like pictures of the cartoon Fred and Barney handed out to people, and the specially modified Universal logo with the Earth only showing one continent behind the word "Univershell" ("Did anyone else see those giant letters out there?").

Alan Cumming as the Great Gazoo (and a Mick Jagger-type rock star) is also one of the movie's pros... and indicative of its cons. Writers Deborah Kaplan & Harry Elfont ("Can't Hardly Wait," "Josie and the Pussycats") and the late Jim Cash & Jack Epps, Jr ("Top Gun," "Anaconda") go for too many cheap gags, have a wilful disregard for the show's mythology - Gazoo didn't arrive until Fred and Barney were both married with children, for starters (and as another poster rightly says, he crashlanded as opposed to being sent) - and don't really have much of a plot going for them. The movie's all as silly as that episode where the boys befriended "Ann-Margrock" without knowing who she was.

Speaking of which, Ann-Margret (who guested on the TV show) returns to Bedrock to sing "Viva Rock Vegas" in a montage and over the credits, but her take isn't a patch on the BC-52's version of the theme song in the first one, and indeed the overall feeling of going down a level is everywhere - not just in the plot of Wilma's mum wanting her daughter (a miscast Kristen Johnston) to marry an uppercrust type (Thomas Gibson from "Dharma & Greg"), but from the cast to the visual effects (Rhythm & Hues aren't quite up to Industrial Light & Magic's level) to the music (song-wise, that is; David Newman at least tries), the movie fits in all too well alongside the other losers directed by Brian Levant, he of "Problem Child" and "Jingle All The Way" infamy. And I still think James Belushi, not John Goodman or Mark Addy, IS Fred Flintstone.

At least the first one had Halle Berry and some puns in the credits (though this does have Jane Krakowski - hubba hubba). And no Joan Collins...

This film was bad. In the past these sequels have been delegated to video only.

The acting wasn't bad. Joan Collins was superb as Wilma's rich mother. A couple of jokes were great. But it was slow.

My 8 year old son loved the film. I would've walked out if I could. I think I would rather watch The Pokemon Movie again.

I had the VHS of the original live action Flintstones movie as a kid and watched it many times. But I never did see the sequel. By the time it came out years later, I was at that age where I was too old to want to see it.

Fast forward to 2016, currently I've been really into DC's great new Flintstones comics series (It's hilarious. I highly recommend it.), so since I was in the mood for all things Flintstones, I just rented this movie to watch it finally.

This movie was silly enough to keep me amused throughout. Yes, the story is dumb and all the characters are idiots, but they're lovable idiots - all the actors clearly had a good time - and it's all so bright and colorful and cheery that you can't hate it.

I laughed aloud at enough of the ridiculous scenes throughout the movie, such as Dino's big moment, or the prehistoric TV remote control, that I can't rate this movie any lower than a 10 out of 10. I enjoyed this silly movie.

Surprise cameo: Not exactly a "cameo," since he wasn't famous back then, but it was funny to see John Cho in an early tiny role as the valet who gets beat up by Fred and Barney.

When both Flintstone movies came out, my daughter wanted to see them, so we did. I was not especially impressed by the films...but I thought they weren't bad. Well, apparently I am not the typical viewer, as both films (especially "Viva Rock Vegas") have very low scores on IMDB...and "Viva Rock Vegas" now made the Bottom 100 list following the recent changes to this list (increasing the minimum number of votes greatly impacted the list....and about 2/3 of the films are new to the list). Because of this change, I decided to try seeing the film again....and perhaps I was mistaken the first time.

The first thing you'll notice is that although the look of the film is great (much like the first film), all the principal actors are different. Apparently, the studio had a hard time getting the old actors to commit to the film...so to try to get around this, the movie is supposed to be a prequel which occurred long before the Spielberg film.

When the story begins, Gazoo is being punished for some unknown mistakes. His punishment is to be banished to Earth to observe human mating rituals. Not surprisingly, he picks Fred and Barney to follow...as the boys have not yet met Betty and Wilma. Once they do, they all fall in love but it doesn't go THAT smoothly. First, Wilma comes from a rich and snooty family...and they have no interest in low-brow Fred. Second, Wilma's old boyfriend invites the four of them to Rock Vegas....and he obviously has some underhanded scheme in mind for them. Third, once in Rock Vegas, Betty mistakenly thinks Barney is chasing another woman and she ends up being one of Mick Jagged's entourage.

So was I wrong the first time? I don't think so. While the film isn't exactly brilliant, it is what it is supposed to be...a live action version of a cartoon...no more, no less. And, despite me not seeing it with my daughter this time, I had a fine time watching the film. Pleasant and adequate...and not at all deserving all the hate it's received. Believe me...there are many, many, many worse kids films, such as "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians", "Baby Geniuses" (1 and 2), "Son of the Mask" and most of the "Land Before Time" films (they made 14 of them!!!). Don't be afraid to buck conventional wisdom, as I think this film is enjoyable and a decent story to watch with your kids.

I saw the 1994 live action "Flintstones" movie on video for the second time in 2000, about 4 ½ years after I first saw it, and thought it was great during my second viewing. That was shortly after this prequel, featuring a different cast, came to the silver screen, and I remember hearing about this film around that time. Since I was not nearly as impressed during my last couple viewings of 1994's "The Flintstones" (both many years after my second), I was in no hurry to see "The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas", especially since I knew it had an even worse reputation than its predecessor. It's been over 2 ½ years since I last saw the first live action "Flintstones" effort, and I've finally seen this second one, which is unsurprisingly not good.

The Great Gazoo is an alien who is sent to Earth by his species to learn about human mating rituals. Back on Earth, in the prehistoric town of Bedrock, Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble are two best friends who are both in search of girlfriends. They are the first ones Gazoo sees after he lands on the planet, so he decides to follow them around, even though he annoys them. Meanwhile, a rich young woman named Wilma Slaghoople is fed up with the snobbish people around her, especially her mother, and runs away. She goes to a restaurant and meets a waitress named Betty O'Shale, and they quickly become friends. Fred and Barney go to this restaurant and meet the two women. Fred gets a date with Betty and Barney gets one with Wilma. When the four of them go out together, Fred and Barney end up swapping girlfriends, but both of them are successful with their romance. Both couples are invited by Chip Rockefeller, Wilma's rich and arrogant ex-boyfriend, to his resort in Rock Vegas, but what they don't realize is that this is just a cruel scheme for Chip to win Wilma back!

The main problem with the 1994 film is that it simply isn't funny, and that's most certainly a major issue with this prequel as well. The only part of this film I couldn't keep a straight face while watching was the "I'm ignoring you" part. There's one memorably lame moment with a farting dinosaur, and most of the other gags are just mediocre. I was also not impressed with many of the performances here. Mark Addy may not be bad as Fred, and I guess Stephen Baldwin isn't that bad as Barney, though I definitely preferred Rick Moranis' portrayal of the character in the first film. These performances certainly aren't great, however, and I certainly didn't care for Kristen Johnston and Jane Krakowski as Wilma and Betty respectively. Also, Alan Cumming plays two characters, which are Gazoo and Mick Jagged (obviously based on real-life Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger), and both his performances fail, especially the former, I would say. At the beginning, showing Gazoo with other members of his species on a spaceship before he is sent to Earth, it already looks like this is going to be a very unfunny comedy movie, and unfortunately, that beginning sequence doesn't lie.

The first live action film adaptation of "The Flintstones" was a critical failure but a box office success, whereas "The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas" was both a critical AND box office flop. After watching it, that doesn't surprise me. I can't really think of anything wrong with the 1994 release other than the absence of laughs, but I would say that REALLY brings it down if quality, since it is supposed to be a comedy. Just like its predecessor, this prequel failed to make me laugh even one time, but this second film of the two also has inferior cast performances, and maybe a slightly more boring plot as well (I'm not 100% sure about that, as it's been a while since I last watched the first film), which makes it even worse. I only found it a BIT worse than the 1994 film, and don't absolutely hate it like many others clearly do, but some could find it a LOT worse, including some of those who like the first film. If you don't like 1994's "The Flintstones", you probably wouldn't like this prequel. If you do like that movie, there's probably STILL a good chance you wouldn't like "Viva Rock Vegas".

I was surprised by this movie.

I hated the original, I suppose because none of the cast of the original (except Elizabeth Perkins) resembled the Cartoon cast.

I'll probably get stoned alive for saying this, but I didn't like John Goodman's Fred Flintstone. I think he played him awkwardly as though, he didn't really want to be in the movie.

But Mark Addy was a lot lot better. OK, he didn't have the voice down to a tee, but he resembles Fred, when made up, a whole lot more than Mr. Goodman.

I just wish they would have asked Elizabeth Perkins to re-create her role as Wilma. She did a great job in the original, and resembled and sounded like the cartoon character, where Kristen Johnston, didn't quite do it for me in the role. She looked far too mature to be playing Wilma, and didn't have the voice either.

But full marks to Stephen Baldwin and Jane Krakowski as Barney and Betty. They were also a lot better than Rick Moranis and Rosie O'Donnell from the original film. Mostly because, again, they sounded like the cartoon characters and Krakowski resembled Betty. (Baldwin in no way looked like Barney though - oh, well, can't be perfect, but he makes up for it with the voice and laugh).

Joan Collins is also hilarious in the film, as the Filthy Rich Mother of Wilma, and again, does a better job that Elizabeth Taylor from the original.

Also watch out for Alan Cumming. He almost steals the film with his "Mike Jagged" from the Stones, while also playing an alien in a dual role.

With great creatures (Jim Henson workshop), good gadgets and an all-round enjoyable film, I give this an 8 out of 10.

I always liked the "Flintstones" cartoon and I was able to appreciate some aspects of the 1994 live-action movie. However, this movie was a disgrace in every details. Running as a prequel to the first film and the cartoon itself, it shows how the four main characters (Flintstones and Rubbles) met and married, after a trip to the city of Rock Vegas (the equivalent, in the movie and Flintstones world, to the city of Las Vegas, of course). But the thing that really make me mad in this movie, personally, was that silly, green character, that seems to have come out of the "Jetsons" (another Hanna-Barbera cartoon). He was permanently out of context, his existence has been poorly explained by the plot and he only served to try to make totally empty jokes. I wanted to drown that alien several times while watching the movie.

If the 1994 movie had already revealed several fragilities, beginning with an all-too-adult plot for a children-oriented film, this movie completely misses any attempt to improve these faults. The plot is miserably poor, which is probably the result of poor scriptwriting choices and the subliminal, lousy, intention of extorting some more box office money (we cannot forget the huge box-office success that the first film was). A bad choice: the public wisely didn't pay to watch this piece of trash. Dried jokes, a bad plot, poor acting, bad construction of characters, far-fetched props and sets, a tiring cinematography and a cast that did an absolutely painstaking job. For all this, this is one of the worst family movies I've ever seen.

Since the 60's/70's, Flintstones has always been one of the top cartoons. I mean all the kids love it, it's on Cartoon Network all the time and it's a true classic. It's great.

The trouble with a franchise like this is that there will be some companies that exploit a craze such as this and find ways to sneak you out of your money and rip you off. One such example is Flintstones Viva Rock Vegas.

It's released in the summer of 2000, and it's a terrible film. It's tacky, lacking in plot, miscast & just truly awful. Now I know that bad films like this are released all the time and that's nothing new. However what's so special about the Flintstones VRR more than anything else is that upon it's release over here, it cost £20.

That's right folks. Us punters in the UK had to fork out 20 notes for this prehistoric guff. Now here's the worrying part. A lot of Flintstones fans just looked at the box and said "Wow! Flintstones movie!" And they bought it and obviously they regretted it soon enough. So I now am going to show you how to have an infinitely better Flintstones experience.

1) The Flintstones series on video: If you are a Flintstones fan you probably already own one, but if you want to give it a rent now, it is priced about £1:50 tops.

2) Fred Costume: You can pick these up in just about any car boot sale for about less than a fiver.

3) Action Figures: There's plenty of them about, and they cost not even £3:50 in Toys R Us store.

So what does that bring us up to? £10 max. For £10, you have all of these three things, and you're having a great Flintstones time. But for £20, you're having an awful time with VRR.

I think I've made my point clear enough.

Don't Watch This Film.

This is a prequel to the first live action Flintstones movie, which I didn't think was that good. This tells how the Flintstones and the Rubbles first got together, and they changed it from the original cartoon, and I really don't understand why they did that, other than it makes it more dramatic, or something along those lines.

The casting wasn't all that great, either, in my opinion. Mark Addy and Kristen Johnson were only okay as Fred and Wilma, but Stephen Baldwin made Barney look like an idiot, and I found Jane Krakowski's Betty to be a bit annoying. Then, there's the Great Gazoo, who originally came into the picture in the cartoon in the last season. Here, Fred and Barney meet him before they even meet the girls. It would have been much better if they did a CGI Gazoo that looked more like the original character, and got his original voice, Harvey Korman (who did appear in this movie as Wilma's father, actually) to do the voice. Alan Cumming's head on a CGI body was kind of off-putting, and maybe it would have been better if the body was a bit more proportionate to the head.

I think the only thing I liked about this movie was Harvey Korman as Wilma's slightly senile father, and Dino as a baby dinosaur (so cute!), as well as using archived vocal effects from the late, great Mel Blanc (Dino's original voice actor).

The first Flintstone film was enough of a hit to warrant a second attempt and oddly the powers that be opted for a prequel rather than a sequel.

The big problem that this then creates is that there is little or no drama to be had in this film because we all know perfectly well that Fred and Wilma will end up together.

Quite where the martian coming to earth to learn about courting came from I don't know, but it adds very little to the film.

All that remains then is a film that feels like a straight to DVD attempt and although Mark Addy and especially Kirsten Johnston do their best, this film is pretty pointless.

Words fail me. I do not possess the proper powers of verbiage to fully communicate just how terrible this tripe is. If there are any saving attributes, they are masked by the thoroughly inane entirety of this mess.

There is little, if anything, that has the humor of the original cartoon. The casting of Fred and Barney is, at best, awful. I suppose the actors portraying Betty and Wilma are somewhat grace-saving and Dino, well, what can you say about Dino that hasn't been said before.

Thankfully, Pebbles and Bam-Bam were not yet around to have to endure this.

The previous movie on which this prequel was based was just a blatant attempt to milk the success of the original Flinstones cartoon. It was bad all around and should never have been made. Then for some unknown reason they have decided to make this prequel, about which there is nothing good to say, which is even worse.

I know a lot of people hate this movie and it's rated ridiculously low but it has always been a favourite of mine.

Bright colours and goofy pre-historic puns make it easy for the whole family to watch, and if you have to get up to do something, you won't miss any crucial plot points.

There may be some casting that you didn't like but Jane Krakowski is perfect as Betty and Alan Cumming is always perfect, he plays great as Great Gazoo AND Mick Jagged ("snag m. Even Joan Collins was outrageous as mother Slaghoople, but who else could bring glam to a time without modern techniques?? And, as reminder, she was a prequel version of Liz Taylor from the original. Special mention to Thomas Gibson as the handsome villain.

I'm no movie producer or whatever but the sets looked mostly real, unlike most movies now filmed almost exclusively in warehouses, and the effects they do use are better than some I see now, 17 years later. Sure, if you look closely, the lighting is off or poor depth perspective on some of the fast-moving effects, but this was the show based on a cartoon style that repeated it's backgrounds while eyes and mouths basically had two positions, open and closed.

The music is rompy and fun, classic style meet-cute and Vegas tunes. And who doesn't love an origin story? And I can't resist a Vegas movie. Hello? Ann Margrock seeing a stone-age Elvis cover? EPIC!

Flintstones (this one and it's predecessor) are among the first of the live-action cartoon revivals, I cash cow that Disney is now suckling to.

I haven't noticed any of the older reviews on here point out specific issues, so I would argue they weren't open to liking the movie in the first place.

Jeez, it ain't THAT bad! 3.8? Maybe the original, MAYBE, but this is a substantial improvement over that, and the original has like a 4+ rating. I don't really give this a 10, I give it more like a 7.5, but I gave it a 10 because I found the ratings to be well, WAY OFF. This one had decent performances, really excellent art direction, and some really cool FX. I especially liked the Bronto-bridge and the Great Gazzoo. Unlike the first Flintstones, this prequel is smart, fun, and the actors truly become the characters they play. The story? LAME. The first 60% or so of the film DOES CLICK. But the rest, when they arrive in Rock Vegas, is pure dreck appealing to the lowest common denominator. But the film is so fun to look at, you really don't care. There are a lot of films to love to hate but this one really is NOT it. It's an adult Flintstones, if you can imagine that, and it's a small but cute treasure to behold.

No, this movie isn't great. But movies that you can take the whole family to see are getting fewer and fewer. This is an entertaining, fun, family movie. Give the kids an appreciation for the funny cartoon characters so many of us grew up with. I think this one is better than the first live-action Flinstones movie.