“Dennis The Menace” is based on the U.S. comic strip and cartoon as opposed to the British comic strip (both comic strips were created the same year). “Dennis The Menace” should be a harmless children’s film filled with some laughs but sadly all the characters seem very mean-spirited and it’s because of that it isn’t as funny as it should be.

Meet Dennis Mitchell (Mason Gamble), who keeps terrorising his next door neighbour Mr. Wilson (Walter Matthau “Charade”). When Dennis’ parents leave town the young menace finds himself in the company of Mr. Wilson where things go from bad to worse. Can Dennis mend his relationship with Mr. Wilson?

Dennis should be a loveable kind of menace but unfortunately for the majority of the film he just seems plain bad like Junior in the awful “Problem Child”. Towards the end he does have a loveable side to him as he foils the bad guy. The bad guy is Switchblade Sam played amusingly by Christopher Lloyd (“Back To The Future”). Every character from Dennis to the other kids even to Mr. Wilson has a scene where they are unnecessarily mean, which just ruined the film for me. I did feel very sorry for Mr. Wilson though as I think he gets more bad things happen to him than the bad guy. My advice to the characters would be for Dennis’ parents to seriously discipline their boy and for Mr. Wilson to get a restraining order.

“Dennis The Menace” is spoilt by the fact all the characters have times where they are just nasty and some of the things Dennis does are really dangerous but could potentially be done by a child so yet another reason to try to steer clear of this film. It’s a charming film to look at and the physical comedy is decent for a young children’s film but it’s the characters that prove to be the downfall.