Most critics like it, and the warmth has grown with time. The praise gathers around Sean Penn’s Spicoli, the spaced-out surfer nearly every review names as the thing worth watching, and around Amy Heckerling’s direction, which the reviews describe as open, generous and fond of its characters. Cameron Crowe’s script gets credit for being quotable, and later critics argue the film treats early sexual fumbling with a tenderness the genre rarely manages, without villains and without humiliation.
The spread is wide. The first-run reviews are milder than the later ones: The New York Times finds it jumbled if appealing, and Variety thinks it never grips. Time Out files it as a witty exploitation picture that lacks the energy of its rivals. The sharp dissent is Roger Ebert, who calls it a failure of taste and nerve and objects to young performers being put in humiliating situations, though he too praises Penn and Jennifer Jason Leigh.