I am late to this film. I just saw it tonight with my ten-year old. He was familiar with it. I wasn't. Of course, I do know the source material well, since I grew up in the sixties when the old "Our Gang" and "Little Rascal" comedies were used to fill TV time.My own opinion of this film now barely counts, because I've seen the surprisingly large number of user reviews showing a level of tenderness and emotion about this movie that I find touching. Plus, my ten-year old loves it. After watching this film, and considering my first reaction, then after reading the positive user reviews and my child's own love for this film, I say who cares what I think . . . a movie that is able to touch so many as this one did can't be all bad.

I remembered watching this as a little kid and I still loved it ever since even when I'm still older. However, in my opinion, it isn't the greatest movie ever made due to it's flaws that I might point out.The story was too predictable for my taste, although it did have some nice moments with those adorable kids and the script, although decent, comes across as flat and contrived.With those flaws out of the way, there are a few saving graces. The children actors as the Rascals themselves did a good job with their roles with Bug Hall and Buckwheat (can't remember who the actor was) and Spanky stealing the show. The rich kid, Waldo, although underused, was still tolerable. I also saw some great cameos including John Goodman, Whoopi Goldberg, and Mel Brooks himself. The pacing is very brisk and helps develop our character quite well. The music's from William Ross was pretty decent, although it needs a much more elaborate depth.The best aspect is the humor. The jokes are a combination of hilarious and over-the-top at the same time (with the We Got A Dollar, The hate letter being revealed by Buckwheat and the beginning scene with Buckwheat and Porky fishing as my favorites).Overall, not the greatest movie I've seen, but still a hilarious comedy and is easily underrated. If you want to see a movie that has reminded you of your childhood life, check this one out and watch it again and again forever.

Little Rascals is a movie that is filled with childlike grudges, wars, competition, camaraderie and reconciliation. Every great group has had to overcome obstacles in order to develop and maintain their strength. The He- Man Women Haters Club is filled with tension and animosity towards members between the group and the infamous Darla that snatched the heart of Alfalfa.Loyalty is very important to the members of the He-Man Woman Haters club. Although Alfalfa is tested and tried throughout the movie by his comrades and his childhood crush; he prevails. Spanky, the best friend of Alfalfa is infuriated by the discreet passions that his friend Alfalfa possesses for the young lady Darla. Throughout the movie, Darla and Alfalfa try to establish a bond, but they are always interrupted, whether it is by pranks of Women's Hater's Club, or rich guys such as Waldo that crept into Darla's life to take away the feelings that she had for Alfalfa.Often, in the movie the producer showed a great sense of the lack of knowledge or understanding that kids possess and how they often think without speaking. It was funny to see how the kids wanted to meet the race car driver at the end of the championship and to see how they were disgruntled because they expected to see a man. Surprisingly, the person that presented the prize to the Woman Haters Club, was the person that the gang had desired to meet along. The surprise just lied in the fact that the person was a woman and not a man. Not to mention, Spanky's disgust for women was challenged when he asked the female race car driver to give him a kiss on his cheek.Movies such as Little Rascals are rarities in 2011. Most of the films that we see today are filled with sex, violence, and theft. Even the kids are the ones committing the very acts in the movie, and it is saddening. One of my favorite movies of all time that has a similar prank-like feature assimilated into the film is "Home Alone". The movie Home Alone is filled with pranks and laughter for the entire family and if you enjoyed Little Rascals, you will probably enjoy. Home Alone.

Films and television shows that are trying to be cute to gain laughs can be quite irritating. They often rely on the audience gaining some sort of emotional investment out of seeing an adorable baby character, or young toddler, that says lines that no young kid would say, and the usual reaction is "Aaawwww!" (Full House did this for years). These types of cinema have no reason for existence, and usually try to serve as cheap entertainment that families can enjoy together. This movie is chalk full of little children doing things children would never do, no doubt with the director feeding them lines that they don't understand because they can't read yet. But, where this film is different is it's set up. The universe that these "little rascals" live in isn't the one we live in. It's some kind of parallel universe where children own their own cars and have very elaborate clubhouses, and where very young children go on romantic dates. And never once is this particularly corny. What could be a by the numbers movie turns out to be a sort of charming little movie that is fun and funny in a surreal way.Little Alfalfa (Bug Hall) is in a group of girl-hating little boys, and they find out about his upcoming romantic date with Darla (Brittany Ashton Holmes), and they sabotage him. Meanwhile a new rich kid Waldo (Blake Ewing) has just moved in and Darla finds him quite appealing, so Alfalfa is down in the dumps. Hopefully the up-coming go-cart race is a chance for Alfalfa to get his lady back, in addition to beat Waldo, and bond with his child pal Spanky (Travis Tedford).This kids in this movie are actually all really good actors, and that's one thing that makes this movie work. Bug Hall is one of the better young actors out there, and all the ridiculous silly lines that the kids say (though kids clearly wouldn't say in real life) are said with enough conviction, yet with a clear wink from the director and writer(s). The kids say their lines well, but with a slightly over the top script, and the mixture comes off as pretty funny. The film runs at a brisk pace, with enough jokes to make up for it's overall lack of plot. The sets would have to be pretty cool looking to a child (at least they were to me!). The clubhouse that the kids built is designed to look like it was built by kids, but at the same time, it's so surreally elaborate. And this movie has plenty of surrealism and absurdest humor. Things will happen that make very little sense, but come off as hilarious because of how ridiculous the situation is. In one scene during the big race at the end, giant daggers come out of a kid's car and start stabbing another car. It's so ridiculous, but in the context of the movie, it comes off as normal in this universe, and jokes like this that might normally seem very over the top, play off quite well. If anything was unnecessary here, it was the numerous cameos that usually show up for no reason at all. A few of them were funny, but most of them seemed somewhat forced. Kids probably won't know who most of these people are anyways, so they won't understand that these are cameos.Overall, this is a very enjoyable family film, with good performances (from kids no less), and a lot of really silly jokes that hit the mark. In an average episode of Full House, I probably cringe about 10 times, but in this much longer film featuring even more kids including cameos by the Olsen Twins, there was not one moment of cringing. It's actually pretty fun.My rating: *** out of ****. 82 mins. PG for some rude humor.