I know it's 20 years old, but I rented Little Shop because I'm going to be co-directing it at an area high school, and I wanted to get some ideas. I had never seen this movie version all the way through, so I thought, what the hell? I'll give it a look.
I'm not going to talk much about it in my usual critical terms other than to say what I liked and disliked. If you don't know the musical or the movie, essentially nerdy flower shop employee Seymour (Rick Moranis) buys a strange plant from a Chinese dealer after an eclipse. He then uses this plant to attract business to the failing store: except there's one small problem. The plant, named Audrey II after the sweet but vacant Audrey, Seymour's co-worker and pine-for love interest, is only interested in eating human flesh and blood. The plant promises Seymour big things if he can deliver supper, so Seymour gives into this temptation.
The Broadway play is quirky all by itself really, but this film version takes the quirkyness to some even odder places thanks to director Frank Oz. The ending is totally rewritten to be happy, which is lame and undermines the play's original intent, and many of the songs don't make it, which is a shame, because that means the Doo Wop girls are underused. The best part was Steve Martin as dentist Orin and a cameo by Bill Murray as a dental patient who gets off on pain (not in the original musical) and the scene they share together.
Otherwise, it just seemed like an overly campy big budget mistake. The scenes were really choppy, and the acting wasn't all that great. There were too many additions and subtractions for my taste, too. I never bothered to watch this all the way through until now and apparently for good reason. It did give me some ideas though.
All in all, I would recommend the stage version to anyone over this movie version. (If I were to rate this movie, btw, it would be a 5 or "mediocre").