Review of The Rink (1916) by I Don't Know W — 15 Nov 2011

Booklover11's Mini Reviews: I decided to get caught up on some Charlie Chaplin shorts, as I'm a huge fan of his feature length movies, and this didn't disappoint. Sure, the editing makes it seem like several scenes were missing, and the story is vague, but I found myself laughing all the way.

For a 20 minute short, Chaplin really shown his comedic values in this one, even though the plot is really, really difficult to figure out, as the clumsy editing and little dialogue from the characters really makes it hard to understand, but once you get to the rink, plot doesn't matter, as you'll be to busy laughing like crazy at Chaplin's antics, trying to escape the more uptight people from catching him.

It's good old slapstick, with clumsy actions, but not entirely painful or life threatening, like in the Pixar animated short "Presto", where the acts of slapstick were unique, but embarrassing to the human character and not at all funny.

Doesn't anybody these days get slapstick right? Back to the review, Charlie Chaplin was as likable as ever, and his leading lady, Edna Purviance, did well too. Fun little fact, Purviance actually did many films with Chaplin, most famously 1921's "The Kid", where she played the mother that was in the very beginning of the film.

So yeah, I really enjoyed this film, but like always, we got to talk about the Best and Worst of this film. The best is, no doubt, Chaplin, and why shouldn't it be him? He's a great actor, squeezing laughs out of me every minute he's on screen.

The worst thing has to be lack of plot, just barely worse then the horrible editing. The lack of plot sort of makes the film a little less fun to watch, and it turned this movie from 4 1/2 Stars to just 4, but it's kinda easy to ignore, so don't go into this movie for a good plot, go into it for the fun time you'll have, and at only 20 minutes, it's worth your time.

Recommended for all Chaplin fans and fans of visual comedy. 4 Stars.