Every one of the seven reviews is positive, and the praise gathers in one place: the storm. Critics agree that the cyclone finale is the film’s high point, with the collapsing house front named again and again as the gag that shows what Keaton could do with his own body and a great deal of timber. Most also single out the smaller sight gags, the hospital bed swept down the street among them, and Keaton’s still, unhurried face, which several find as funny as the stunts.
The spread is narrow. Nobody has a serious complaint about the film itself; the reservations that exist are about how it has been packaged. Slant Magazine’s lower mark is for a Keaton collection, whose extras it finds thin, rather than for this film, whose cyclone it admires as much as anyone. The New Yorker is the coolest on the comedy, though warm on Keaton’s discipline and the way the storms answer his hero’s wishes.