POP FILTER

VS.

SLEEPER

                When I started watching Sleeper I suddenly realized that I had never actually sat through a Woody Allen film.  It’s probably the only major gap in my film knowledge so I was glad to finally get this out of the way.  While I’m glad I finally watched something of his I’m interested to see how his later, more serious work is as this didn’t really do it for me.  It’s not that it’s a bad movie by any means, it’s just that so much of the comedy doesn’t really translate over to my sarcastic asshole humor.  Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself so on with the review.

Sleeper is about a dude named Miles Monroe who wakes up 200 years in the future after his sister cryogenically freezes him when he’s left in a coma.  After he comes to he’s told that in the future a great dictator has taken over and is about to crush the citizens revolting against him.  Miles is important because he has no identity and thus won’t be on their radar.  The cops find him almost immediately and brand him as an alien.  He gets away and joins the revolution and then some other stuff happens, the end.  It’s a pretty insane plot for what is essentially a slapstick comedy.  It works though because the future setting allows Allen to make comments about the state of society in general.  Even though there are some huge differences in the future, the fundamentals of our society remain the same.

I mentioned before how Allen’s comedy doesn’t really work for me.  That’s probably only half true.  His verbal comedy is pretty grating.  I mean I love neurotic Jew humor as much as the next guy but I’ll take Marc Maron over this any day.  On the other hand though, his slapstick, silent comedy style humor is AMAZING.  The scene where he is revived had me in stitches as did the entirety of the robot sequence.  Seriously, if you’re going to watch this movie, do it for the slapstick scenes.  Allen said in interviews he was influenced by Benny Hill and you can damn well see how much here.  In addition to the physical comedy, there are some lulz to be had with the rest of the cast as well.  Allen milks wacky future technology for all its worth and the results are usually pretty solid.  I especially liked the Orgasmatron, mainly because it made me think of the virtual reality sex in Demolition Man, and the whole idea of everything we think is unhealthy now is known to be the healthiest thing for you in the future is awesome.  Also the finale, which involves Woody holding a disembodied nose at gunpoint is pretty awesome.

The future world presented here is actually pretty good.  Despite a seemingly low budget and a lack of special effects (even something as seemingly costly as Allen’s unfreezing scene is portrayed by scientists peeling tin foil off of him), this is an excellently realized future world.  Instead of having flying cars and a utilitarian structure like so many dystopian sci-fi films we know, it goes for an infinitely more depressing aesthetic of modern art.  Just look at Luna’s house when Woody arrives.  It’s all curves and weird “modern” architecture choices.  I don’t know which would be more depressing, a utilitarian dystopia or a future where the only sane people left are modern art hipsters.  Allen has some great fun with that idea when he has Diane Keaton’s character recite a ridiculously amateur poem while all of her douchebag, airhead friends look on in awe.  I think my favorite part of the future aesthetic though is the technology.  Allen seems to have gone to extra effort to make it look like it’s been ripped straight out of a silent film.

Woody’s co-star in this is Diane Keaton, who would go on to be win the Academy Award for Annie Hall, which I still haven’t seen.   She’s really good here though and gives a ton of heart to the movie, which would otherwise just be awesome slapstick scenes mixed with Woody Allen going “Hey this [future thing] is worse than [thing that I don’t like in the 70s].”  That’s my major problem with the movie.  Woody’s neurotic Jew humor just doesn’t translate to my sarcastic asshole sensibilities.  Don’t get me wrong, I love me some neurotic humor but give me Marc Maron over this shit any day of the week.  Woody does have a couple great lines in this though, especially the last one in the movie “Sex and death – two things that come once in a lifetime… but at least after death, you’re not nauseous.”

If Sleeper had been filled to the brim with lines like that, I think I would have loved it.  As it is though, I only liked it.  I think that when it came out it was probably a great film but much of Allen’s shtick doesn’t hold up today.  Luckily, when he gets away from doing stand-up mid movie there’s a ton of good comedy writing to be found here.  I definitely recommend this but with the apprehension that you’ll be rolling your eyes as often as you’ll be busting a gut.

4 stars out of 5

-Alex Scott Webster