It’s just sight gag after sight gag. I kept waiting for it to get better, but it never did. It’s like a live-action Woody Woodpecker cartoon, which was fine when I was 7, but is shallow and boring now.
Why is everyone raving about it? What am I missing?
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You might be, it wasn’t the best movie I’ve ever seen but it was a refreshing light-hearted and well executed vision from what was obviously a small team of passionate creators. A lot of stars were born in slapstick, it’s a staple of cinema even if it’s fallen out of style. You should check out some Charlie Chaplin, Marx Brothers and Three Stooges to maybe get a better sense of what they were trying to be like.
For me, it’s not that it’s fallen out of style. I truly don’t understand how adults can watch that genre. It was never meant to be funny – it was meant to appeal to the same thing in your brain that’s engaged by car crashes, but as a child. Back in the before-times, we also had engaging media, and things like Woody Woodpecker appealed to people in the same way TikTok shorts do today.
I liked it when I was the age it was aiming for, but it wasn’t ‘art’ by anyone’s stretch of the imagination. Neither was H R Puff n Stuff or Blues Clues. Maybe I’m just too old to appreciate it?
e: I appreciate most things, though, so I don’t think it’s that. Seeing all the 10/10 reviews, I feel like everyone is in on some joke.
You’re not alone. I dig the classic slapstick and physical comedy that it tries to emulate, but this was the most formulaic, repetative, one note joke, boomer ass, cringe shit ever. Couldn’t even finish it.
To each their own! Some people love dark humour, some people find it repellant. Some people love puns, others find them dull. Some people can’t stand Chaplin or Keaton, others revere them.
Personally, I dig some of the old time classic Buster Keaton stuff so it was fun to see a similar energy brought to the screen.
Spoilers below but:
Stuff like him trying to keep a fire going as the wind cheats and changes direction, then sleeping on the fire, waking up later on fire cracked me up.
Or him winding up to throw a snowball and having it go a foot just works.
Or his inept beaver attorney whose failures cut through language and was no match for J’ACCUSE!
Or just giving up on the trapper map, erasing it all and starting from scratch.
Or on the physical side, him trying to get in and out of the box as it slides down the mountain.
It’s comedy, everyone gets a kick out of different things. There’s no right or wrong answer! Personally, I have trouble thinking of a funnier moment in a movie in recent years than when the horse costume payoff came as the native fellow tried to jump onto his horse which just collapsed because, obviously, it’s two people in a horse costume.
Your highlights are my highlights as well, fwiw.
I liked the Buster Keaton stuff, too. They were at most 9 minutes long.
Oh, you should watch Keaton’s movies!
The General and Sherlock Jr are my (and I think most people’s) favourites.
Chaplin’s Modern Times is similarly wonderful.
