I saw this movie when it first was released in theaters. I was about 12 years old. The theater was packed, and the audience had a ball. One of those films where a funny scene would come up and EVERYONE in the theater would start cracking up. Well, I guess as you get older this humor doesn't appeal as effectively.
Sure, I now know the outcome of the gags. I've watched the film about 10 or 15 times. But even if I were to first view it today (I am now 19 years old) I don't think I would've laughed as much as I did when I was in grammar school. There's tons of crude humor, tons of profanity, tons of explicit sexual references and even some mock drug use. Everything you would expect to come out the pen of a Wayans brother. Don't get me wrong, they are talented guys and I enjoy watching their (Shawn and Marlon) show from time to time, but they're not exactly the African-American Woody Allens. However, I do have to give it up for their (sometimes witty) jabs at those "Growin' Up in Da Hood" dramas. I didn't see many of the films--from which the spoofs are based on--before seeing "Don't Be A Menace." After I saw "Menace 2 Society" I noticed that 50-percent of the gags were taken off that critically acclaimed urban youth drama. There are also some jabs at "Boyz N the Hood."
There are some genuinely funny moments that I will always cherish: Bernie Mac's cameo as the black cop who hates anything and anybody black, Suli McCullough as the wheelchair bound Crazy Legs doing his MC Hammer "U Can't Touch This" number, the "Hurry Up and Buy!" scene at the convenience store, Loc Dog (Marlon Wayans) applying for a job at the DMV. There are more very funny gags worth a barrel of laughs, but there are also moments where they simply push the crudeness envelope and deliver a lot more groans than laughs. There's one scene where Ashtray (Shawn Wayans) and Dashiki (Tracey Cherelle Jones) are having foreplay. She pours Kool-Aid on his stomach and sucks it off, sprinkles hot government cheese on his chest and it concludes with him sucking hot sauce off her crusty toes. All this stuff may be funny to a five-year-old. Not me.
Marlon's character is obnoxious at times. He's another comic actor who sometimes tries too hard to be funny and simply hams it up. Helen Martin ("227") steals the show as the pot-smoking grandmother.
You can, maybe, consider this a hit-or-miss comedy. But there are a good enough amount of hits to overshadow the misses. If you're not in grammar school, you might find some of this stuff utterly juvenile and distasteful; but it's still worth watching. It definitely has its memorable moments.
My score: 7 (out of 10)
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