text: Roger Ebert said the film: "is made up of two parts that shouldn't fit, but somehow they do, making a slick entertainment out of the improbable, the impossible and Arnold Schwarzenegger" and awarded it three stars.
  On April Fool's Day 2012, as a prank, the film was announced to be selected for a release on DVD and Blu-ray Disc as part of the Criterion Collection, a video distribution company dedicated to the release of "important classic and contemporary films". It was said to be selected as important in part because of its genre revisionist use of both the policier and family comedy genres in the same film. It was officially released on Blu-ray, though not by Criterion, on July 1, 2014.
  Legacy
  For the video game Silent Hill, parts of Astoria Elementary School from the film were used as reference for the location Midwich Elementary School. Several of Schwarzenegger's memorable lines from the film were used in sound boards for prank phone calls that became popular in the early 2000s. During an April 2021 interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Schwarzenegger stated that the idea behind the making of Superhero Kindergarten came from his desire "to do a sequel to Kindergarten Cop".
  Sequel
  A standalone sequel starring Dolph Lundgren, Kindergarten Cop 2, was released direct to DVD in May 2016.