Review of Sleeper (2012) by Chris W — 08 Jun 2011

This early 70s Woody Allen offering blends together a heavy dose of slapstick, silent movies, neuroses, Jewishness, and sci-fi with the result being one of the most silly, absurd, and funniest satirical films I've watched in a while.

This is the story of a man who, after a routine medical procedure gone wrong, finds himself waking up 200 years into the future into a bizarre dystopia where men are impotent, women are frigid, and all is far from being right with the world.

Like I said, this is some really absurd and silly stuff, so that may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I found a lot of this to be quite hilarious at best, and super witty/chuckle enducing at worst. The set design and production values have a wonderful cheesiness and endearing quality to them, the music is just dynamite (Woody rocks his clarinet on a lot of it), and the performances, oh the performances, those are just tremendously awesome and fun to watch.

I'm not a big fan of slapstick, but visual gags, silly faces, and performances where body language dominates (ie Belushi in Animal House) work for me, so I found a lot to enjoy here. I did like the slapstick though, because it didn't seem too overbearing, and wasn't the only method of generating laughs.

This is pretty much the Woody show, but Keaton puts in a hilarious performances as well. One scene in particular, where some of the future people try to help Allen's character remember his past had me doubled over in stitches and nearly crying. There's also lots of great Easter eggs and references to other great sci works such as 2001.

Give this one a shot. It's ridiculous, a little dated, and incredibly silly, but it's pretty damn hard not to like, or at least get a little something out of.