Load of rubbish!!

best movie i've ever seen.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

Brenda Starr is a wonky, wacky, campy good time at the movies. Based on the classic comic strip, this movie captures all of the fun and innocence that saturated the childhoods of the seventies. Brenda Starr, brilliantly portrayed by the effervescent Brooke Shields, is a reporter who goes that extra mile for a good story, and when she gets fed up with the artist who draws her, he jumps into her comic strip world of instant outfit changes and convenient plot segues and helps her on her newest search for a scoop.This movie blends real story with caricature quirk and you will not be able to stop smiling from start to finish. The movie is aware of how ridiculous some of the misadventures are and instead of looking the other way it playfully points it out. Brenda Starr is a hidden gem that should be viewed by children and adults everywhere. It is reminiscent of The Goonies and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Both silly and over the top and completely lovable. 8.5/10

I searched for this for years, sniffing after it's bad reputation. Surprize-it's not that bad. The scenes with the comic strip artist are painful but brief. Most of the action is period 40's and the costumes are fun (Bob Mackie?). Brooke is just gorgeous, of course, and makes a plucky Brenda. Diana Scarwid is her nasty rival and Timothy Dalton her sexy love interest. If this had been done for TV (which it looks like) I think the critics would have been far kinder. If I recall, no one crucified Jill St. John for the 1976 version. This movie is strictly for comic book buffs or Brooke Sheilds fans.CC

Witless adaptation of a comic-strip revolving around the titular female crime reporter (which had previously been the source of a 1976 TV movie with Jill St. John); Brooke Shields looks good throughout but seems undecided whether to approach the role straight, or else play it for laughs! Indeed, this dilemma afflicts the entire production to its ultimate detriment – with the result that the film was shelved for some three years (it was, in fact, shot in 1986 i.e. prior to co-star Timothy Dalton's brief stint as James Bond)! At least, the latter seems to have had a good time making it for he subsequently tackled the part of the villain in another comic-strip adaptation with, again, some powerful gizmo as the object of contention between various factions (and nationalities) – namely ROCKETEER (1991; which I watched a day previously and found to be vastly superior)! Dalton's character here is actually enigmatic – dashing in spite of an eye-patch, he always turns up at unexpected moments to save, guide or otherwise romance the heroine.The chief villains are a gang of incompetent Russian agents (including a bald-headed goofball and the pint-sized cigar-smoking female leader), though also hindering Shields is the ambitious and vaguely vampish rival reporter played by Diana Scarwid. Incidentally, the plot involves a fantasy framework in which animator Tony Peck inhabits the world of his subject (they keep quarrelling about how he isn't fit to design Brenda's exploits because he continually looks down on her, something of which the film-makers themselves are guilty!) – this doesn't really work and is actually rather pointless.I was surprised to learn that renowned veteran cinematographer Freddie Francis (a beloved minor genre director in his own right) was behind this one in the former capacity; his craftsmanship at least renders the silly and positively dreary goings-on (which relocates to Brazil during the second half) pleasing to the eye. A number of guest appearances (including Eddie Albert as the Police Commissioner, Charles Durning as Starr's flamboyant boss, Henry Gibson as the obligatory eccentric scientist and Ed Nelson as the piano-playing American President) add nothing of substance to the film.

I am one of perhaps a couple thousand people to actually view this film in a theater and not on video-tape. I attended the premiere in the Florida Theater in Jacksonville, Florida. From the cast and crew, only the director, Robert Ellis Miller, managed to attend, introducing his film that was made in the Jacksonville area a few years before. Overall, it's a fairly good film. The tongue-in-cheek acting is right on, with Brooke Shields and a pre-007 Timothy Dalton having a lot of fun with the material. Unfortunately, a couple of scenes were really hard to believe... especially when our heroine Brenda Starr waterskis on the backs of a pair of alligators!!!The other effects in the film were nicely handled, including the animation and the scene showing an older New York City behind the historic Ritz Theater which played host to a scene early in the picture.It's not a great film, but deserving of a viewing if you'd like an adventure flick without much seriousness. 7 out of 10 stars.