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Avg. Critic Score: 16 out of 100 Overwhelming dislike Metascore® based on all critic reviews
Information for Parents:
15 Iffy for 15+
Read Common Sense Media review

Critic scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.

  • 50
    New York Daily News | Jami Bernard

    Reefer mildness. Read full review

  • 33
    Entertainment Weekly |

    Sitting on your couch watching these morons sit on their couch and get wasted is like being the only straight guest at a pot party. Everyone else is laughing, and you're left wondering why. Read full review

  • 30
    Variety |

    A couple of hash brownies short of a satisfying cinematic picnic, with far too few comic highs during the bigscreen reefer party. Read full review

  • 30
    The Onion A.V. Club | Nathan Rabin

    The main problem, however, is Tamra Davis' leaden direction, which prevents Half-Baked from developing comic momentum. There are a few scattered laughs. Read full review

  • 25
    San Francisco Chronicle |

    But their comic talents are completely wasted by an inane script whose idea of humor is to make jokes about lung cancer and the notorious Tuskegee experiment on black men with syphilis. [20 Jan 1998] Read full review

  • 20
    Austin Chronicle | Russell Smith

    The humor in this movie is basically anthropological notes on doper culture and behavior: junk-food frenzies, smoking rituals and hardware, non sequitur conversation, and short-term memory loss. In other words, stuff that passed into the realm of cliché back in the time of the Johnson administration. Read full review

  • 10
    L.A. Weekly | Ernest Hardy

    The film's deadly lulls outweigh its infrequent highs. Read full review

  • 10
    The New York Times | Lawrence Van Gelder

    Not very funny, intellignet or grippingly plotted, it is likely to appeal only to those who think that anything to do with marijuana - smoking, sharing, stealing or selling - constitutes the Everest of rip-roaring hilarity. [17 Jan 1998] Read full review

  • 0
    Washington Post | Desson Thomson

    Someone definitely inhaled too much before making this one. Read full review

  • 0
    Los Angeles Times |

    A limp, predictable less-than-sitcom of a movie. It's a bomb, man, not the bomb. Read full review

View more reviews for Half Baked on Metacritic

Information for Parents
Common Sense Media says Iffy for 15+ Goofy marijuana movie with weak plot.
What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that this movie reeks of marijuana. The main characters smoke an excessive amount of pot and make it look pretty fun, like when they discover a special kind of weed that makes them fly through the air like superheroes. Several celebrities make cameos -- Snoop Dogg, Willie Nelson, Janeane Garafalo, Jon Stewart -- which would seem to condone drug use by these potential role models. One brief scene of young teens smoking a joint appears. Characters do have to deal with some consequences for their drug use, and in the end the main character gives up pot for romance. Gay jokes pepper the film, though they stick to stereotypes ("Don't drop the soap!") rather than hostile hate words.
  • Families can talk about drug use. The movie seems to say that pot isn't as big a deal as other drugs -- what do you think?
  • What does this movie teach about the experience of using marijuana? How realistic do you think the movie's depiction of pot use is?
  • Do you know anyone who smokes pot or uses other drugs? What's the allure of using drugs?
The good stuff
  • message true0 Positive messages: Smoking pot looks a little too fun in this movie, and the consequences that the friends encounter are so comic that they hardly count. That said, the drug-using characters are low-achievers and negative aspects of pot use are mentioned, like mood swings, lack of motivation, low sperm count.
  • rolemodels true0 Positive role models: Mostly bad role models, not unexpectedly. Thurgood has a moral compass, however skewed. He insists that his foray into drug selling is not "dealing" but "fund-raising." And in the end, he quits pot because he recognizes that love (or is it sex?) is more important.
What to watch for
  • violence false2 Violence: Lots of highly comic mock violence, including a standoff between the friends and a drug dealer with machine guns. No blood, nothing scary.
  • sex false3 Sex: Thurgood has sex with his girlfriend, depicted in comically-posed still shots of the couple in underwear. He brags "Got some booty!" In one scene a woman's breast comes out of her shirt and everyone laughs and points. Some gay jokes.
  • language false4 Language: Everything you can think of -- all in a humorous, if casual, way. Includes "f--k," "p-ssy," "bitch," "ass." Also one scene at a drug rehab meeting, one character says he "suck[ed] d--k for coke."
  • drugsalcoholtobacco false5 Drinking, drugs and smoking: All pot, all the time. The movie features bongs, pipes, joints, hookahs, and every other smoking device imaginable. Several references to other drugs, like coke and heroin, but they are considered "bad" drugs in the movie.
An independent nonprofit dedicated to providing families the information they need to help kids thrive in a world of media and technology. © Common Sense Media Inc. 2010. All rights reserved.

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