“John Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China is, in a lot of ways, a comedy, and its central joke — its only joke, really — was that Burton thinks he’s a swaggering hero, when in reality, he’s a sidekick at best and a well-meaning liability at worst. His friend Wang Chi is the movie’s real hero, and everyone but Burton seems to realize it. Burton slips, pratfalls, opens the wrong doors, drives into blind alleys, hits on Kim Cattrall at the worst possible moments…He’s a total boob.”
At Deadspin, Tom Breihan praises the “lunkheaded genius” of John Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China. “The main reason the whole thing works is Russell, who gamely mugs his way through it…his idiocy is the engine that powers the whole thing.”
