Movie Notes: Sleeper

June 18th, 2009

= 5 stars

Starring Woody Allen, Diane Keaton
Directed by Woody Allen

Synopsis

Miles Monroe (Woody Allen) wakes up 200 years in the future and finds a bizarre, unfamiliar world populated by robots, a supreme leader, and revolutionaries. Hilarity ensues.

The Good

• I have a weakness for sci-fi movies and Allen’s spoof on the entire genre is personally very interesting, and hilariously exploited. The biggest running joke is the difference between the future and the present. The future world has found today’s healthy food to be dangerous, tobacco good for you, and there’s wacky, nearly pointless technology like the orgasmatron, dumb robots, and cloning an entire person from a nose. The dystopian vision is in that early seventies Clockwork Orange / Logan’s Run type design with bubbly, white appliances and completely non-functional chairs.
• Lots of physical humor mixed with sight gags, much of it set to jazz band music. Most of this stuff is ridiculously stupid I couldn’t help but laugh, showing that even in the future, retro physical comedy thankfully exists.
• A few classic “must see” sequences — the party scene where Allen pretends to be a robot and gets mixed up in the orb entertainment, the giant-food theft sequence, and the entire nasal operation overseen by a gigantic, Hal-like computer.
• The secret weapon of Diane Keaton. Although their on-screen relationship is a bit rough around the edges at this early stage, Allen has finally landed a comic partner with whom to make many more movies with.

The Bad

• Rather abrupt and unsatisfying ending.
• Despite the overarching theme, the movie still feels like a bunch of nutball skits strung together. It lacks the unifying coherence and serious ruminations of his later work to balance the humor.

Conclusion

While some might find the retarded plot and reliance on improvised slapstick offputting, I think there’s enough here to recommend to almost anybody. I mean, Sleeper has a freaking orgasmatron and Keaton doing Brando. Highly recommended.

Next Woody Allen Movie: Love And Death
Previous Woody Allen Movie: Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex

IMDB: Sleeper
Wikipedia: Sleeper
Rotten Tomatoes: Sleeper