CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Billie Morin This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Lidia Draper Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

BA_Harrison Trouble brews in a small Baltimore town when pretty 'square' Alison (Amy Locane) falls for bad-boy 'drape' Cry-Baby (Johnny Depp), so called because of the single tear he sheds every time he does something rotten.Following the success of Hairspray (1988), cult director John Waters continues to flirt with mainstream movie-making with this trailer-trash musical, a gloriously campy effort inspired by '50s rock 'n' roll movies that boasts an extremely colourful cast, including rocker Iggy Pop, ex-porn-star Traci Lords, Waters regular Mink Stole, notorious kidnap victim Patricia Hearst, Warhol acolyte Joe Dallesandro, future chat-show host Ricki Lake, and '50s heart-throb Troy Donahue, plus a small but memorable role for Willem Dafoe.It kinda goes without saying that the film is just as kooky as its collection of off-beat performers suggests, with lots of crazy comedy, a touching love story, and plenty of well-executed musical numbers (Depp and Locane lip-synch—probably not a bad thing—but the songs are great). It's good natured, family friendly fun, that at the same time somehow remains unmistakably 'Waters' (don't worry, though… no-one tucks into a freshly laid dog turd in this film).6.5 out of 10, rounded up to 7 for the laughing rat and the scared cow.

Alan Smithee Esq. This is not the first movie by John Waters that I was exposed to, that honor goes to "Serial Mom" but it's my favorite. It contains many of his signature trademarks as a director but is not as crude? Yes I guess crude works. It's a great musical for someone who doesn't like musicals and is consistently over shadowed by it's sister movie(s)/musical "Hairspray". It's also one of Johnny Depp's earliest roles and he delivers like he usually does.

preppy-3 In 1954 Baltimore bad boy Cry Baby (Johnny Depp) falls for sweet and innocent Allison Vernon-Williams (Amy Locane). She also falls for him to the horror of her mother (Polly Bergen perfectly cast) and her boyfriend who will do anything to get her back.This movie was obviously made to recreate the success of John Waters' earlier film "Hairspray" which was a huge hit. It didn't even come close and it's easy to see why. It's not a bad movie at all. It has a great soundtrack and the song and dance numbers are incredible (especially the ones in the prison). The cast is all good. Depp is fun in his first movie; Locane is very sexy; Ricki Lake is having a great time; Traci Lords wisely kids her porn star image. The problem is the script. It's very scattershot and rambles all over the place. It moves around so much I was lost at a few points. The movie never pulls itself together. There are tons of great moment's but it never works as a whole. So--it's worth seeing just for the music numbers alone but it's no "Hairspray".

Steve Pulaski When I see a film like John Waters' Cry-Baby it almost whispers to me that there should be no such thing as a "parody movie." There should only be homages to clichés, genres, and eras. Cry-Baby is an homage to the era of the fifties where greasy hair, tight jeans, leather jackets, and rock 'n' roll was the norm. While not being alive in the fifties but knowing a lot about the lifestyle, culture, and politics of the era, I can say that from my own knowledge it seems like it knows what it's doing.John Waters is a provocative film director, which makes him the perfect, yet unexpected director for a film of this magnitude. It's an odd, yet delightful film that would be misunderstood by a mainstream audience, but a scrumptious bowl of delight to his cult following. For that reason is why it most likely didn't do well at the box office. Like all of Waters' films, it developed a cult following years later, but has always been unfairly compared to his more successful musical Hairspray.Cry-Baby and Hairspray are two different films. Hairspray follows a chubby teenage girl who wants to become a dancer in a town divided by racial segregation. It wasn't trying to pay homage to anything, but was trying to be a fun and energetic musical with a message. Cry-Baby is the exact opposite. It's a film that follows the rebellious rocker Wade "Cry-Baby" Walker, played fantastically by Johnny Depp, who occupies a strange ability to cry one single tear from his left eye.This ability woos all the girls, including Alison Vernon-Williams (Locane), a good girl who finally wants to cut loose and shy away from her cutesy image. She wants to join Cry-Baby and his gang of Drapes (a pun on the name "greaser)." She herself is a square, taken in by her grandparents after her parents' death. The problem is that she can't totally rely on Cry-Baby because his rebellious lifestyle tends to get him in a lot of trouble.Like a lot of good campy films, there is no real plot. Just very interesting characters. What Cry-Baby is too is a delightful social commentary on new generation trends and the old ones' response on them. Every decade comes with trends; the sixties for their peace, the seventies for their rebellion, the eighties for their wackiness, and the nineties for their laid back style. Each trend receives shocked looks from adults and natural ones from the teens involved in them. Cry-Baby shows how different lifestyles are taken by each generation and then bashed by people who went through that same rebellious state when they were younger. It's hypocritical, sure, but it's natural. After all, we all want the best for our youngins. So we want them to stay away from the rebellious lifestyles. But we also want them to be unique. What a paradox.I'm making the film sound too serious, when in fact, it's subtle in its commentary. It's a high-energy film all around. The musical numbers are catchy and addicting, and the actors do a great job with the material that has been handed to them. Especially Depp who basically tells us "whatever I act in you'll have to accept." Cry-Baby floats in a sea of innocence and isn't at all cocky with its material like some films are in the same genre. It simply wants to show us the paradox of generations, a well done character study on multiple different people, a mixture of Elvis films, Grease, and others of the leather jacket-generation, and just a fun musical as well. Its campy style will be disliked by some, questioned by many, but loved by the true cult-cravers.Starring: Johnny Depp, Amy Locane, Susan Tyrrell, Polly Bergen, Iggy Pop, Ricki Lake, Traci Lords, Kim McGuire, Darren E. Burrows, Stephen Mailer, Troy Donahue, Patricia Hearst, and Joey Heatherton. Directed by: John Waters.