Review of Dr. Plonk (2007) by Jeremy S — 31 Dec 2007
As someone who has fallen into a deep romance with silent films this year, this sounded like the perfect festival pick: a modern silent film about an oddball scientist in 1907 who predicts the end of the world and builds a time machine to travel to 2007 to stop it.
The resulting film is a ton of fun, particularly for fans of old movies, building great silent comedy set-pieces and delivering really clever twists on silent conventions. The performances are nimble and almost perfect.
The design of the time-machine (and labratories) are spot-on. If I could quibble (and I have to quibble), it would be that only two elements seem a little off: the run-time of the film (at 2 hours, it feels too long to be a traditional silent and should have been closer to 75 minutes like an old Keaton or Chaplin film); and the "new"-ness of the print itself which should have been weathered and aged to give the jumpy flavour of an old film - this one felt like new stock filmed in a new camera and processed with state-of-the-art equipment.
As a result, something of the old silents was lost in the translation.
This review of Dr. Plonk (2007) was written by Jeremy S on 31 Dec 2007.
Dr. Plonk has generally received positive reviews.
Was this review helpful?
