The reviews are close to unanimous: this is the weakest of the original five films. The complaints cluster on money. A cut budget shows in the make-up, the battle footage and the locations, and several critics call the result cheap and perfunctory. The script draws almost as much fire: too much talk, a knotted plot, continuity that does not hold, and a lighter tone that several feel drains the series of the satire that carried the earlier entries. What praise there is goes to Roddy McDowall, whose performance is singled out as solid amid the constraints.
The spread is narrow, with seven of eight negative. The one mixed notice, from Collider, credits Thompson’s atmospheric direction and the attempt at a hopeful ending, while finding the film fails to earn it. Roger Ebert goes furthest the other way, calling it incompetently made, with ragged transitions and inaudible dialogue. Radio Times concedes fans may still enjoy it.