[7.1/10] Mel Brooks films like this one are hard to review, because they’re basically just joke after joke. That’s not a criticism necessarily, but it means that analyzing what works and what doesn’t quickly devolves into listing the gags and dissecting a series of frogs. It’s harder to take the 30,000 foot view of the project like you can for more narratively-driven works.

That said, while a perfectly enjoyable dose of zany humor, *Men in Tights* showed some of the tread coming off of Brooks’s tires. There’s scenes that run too long, material that was already out of date or vaguely offensive by 1993, and times that Brooks and company returned to wells they’d all but tapped dry by that point.

Still, the performers here are having lots of fun chewing scenery. Brooks and his collaborators still have a gift for utter, free associative absurdity in their humor. There’s tons of fourth-wall breaking bits, with characters winking at the audience in fun ways. The songs, while a little iffy, are still catchy. And the reference humor largely works (though, amusingly enough, *Men in Tights* left a bigger cultural footprint than *Prince of Thieves*, the main film it’s ostensibly parodying).

Cary Elwes is rightfully the star of the show, playing it straight enough to channel the convincing swashbuckling leading man (shades of his role in *The Princess Bride*), while also knowing how to exaggerate his bits just enough to lean into the movie’s loony humor. The other performers acquit themselves well, with Brooks himself hamming it up a delightful way as usual.

There’s just not much more to say about this one. By 1993, you knew what you were getting with Brooks’s spoofs. The movie is a tub of frosting, not terribly substantial and not exactly healthy, but still so cheap and tasty that it’s hard to put down the spoon.