
This time Zucker and Abrahams are spoofing, most notably, Elvis films and WWII spy movies. Val Kilmer stars as Nick Rivers, a handsome American 50s-style rock and roll singer. While performing in East Germany, he falls in love with a beautiful heroine and becomes involved with the French Resistance.... (Full plot summary below)
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This time Zucker and Abrahams are spoofing, most notably, Elvis films and WWII spy movies. Val Kilmer stars as Nick Rivers, a handsome American 50s-style rock and roll singer. While performing in East Germany, he falls in love with a beautiful heroine and becomes involved with the French Resistance.
Leave your thoughts about Top Secret!.
| Chicago ReaderJonathan RosenbaumThis is the least well-known of the madcap satirical comedies of Jim Abrahams and David and Jerry Zucker (Airplane!, The Naked Gun), and by all counts the weirdest. But the richness of its ideas makes it my favorite. The plot combines the rock musical with the spy thriller (not to mention assorted other genres), and the comic invention is fairly constant. |
| Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertThis movie will cheerfully go for a laugh wherever one is even remotely likely to be found. It has political jokes and boob jokes, dog poop jokes, and ballet jokes. It makes fun of two completely different Hollywood genres: the spy movie and the Elvis Presley musical. |
| Time OutGeoff AndrewSigns of desperation have begun to creep in some time before the end. |
| EmpireKim NewmanJokes so stupid as to seem almost surreal, an amazing range of cultural referents and a smattering of genuinely witty conceits. |
| The New York TimesVincent CanbyTop Secret! comes nowhere near ''Airplane!'' but in its own cheerful, low-pressure way, it's about as amiable an entertainment as you will find this summer. |
| The A.V. ClubNoel MurrayTop Secret! replaces the scattershot-parody approach with a more precise re-creation of the dopey simplicity of WWII romances and Elvis pictures. |
| Cinema WriterJay AntaniThe story has almost no momentum and runs out of gas, ending abruptly, but how can you knock a movie with so many gut-busting jokes? |
| Chicago TribuneGene SiskelI suppose it's also less than inspired to portray a ballet company where the codpieces of the male dancers bulge out so far that the ballerina can cover the width of the stage using them as steppingstones. Nevertheless, some dumb, obvious gags have a way of working by impudently flaunting their dumbness and obviousness, and this appears to be a textbook example. In fact, for the juvenile public that should supply its best audience, Top Secret! may serve as a veritable primer of irresistibly terrible wheezes. |
| Washington PostGary ArnoldThe trio of Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker approach movie comedy as a systematic exaggeration of genre cliche's designed to sustain 90 minutes of infectiously silly non sequiturs and sight gags. |
| Ozus' World Movie ReviewsDennis SchwartzI found its spirited irreverence to be refreshing. |