The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

I may have an unpopular opinion on this, but this is quite possibly the worst film I have ever seen in my life. I'm not criticising you for enjoying this film, as humour is subjective and some people like Woody Allen's style. But for me this film is bland both comedicly, Narrativley and Visually. I feel like I need to talk about how much of a disaster this film was.Although the sped up fight scenes are a decent homage to the Chaplin Era comedy; I found the scenes overly long, Pointless and annoying. These scenes did not create humour and stuck out like a sore thumb. They seemed to incorrectly Juxtapose the other styles In this film.The humour only managed to make me laugh a few times, as a few rare jokes were quite clever. Other jokes were delivered incredibly poorly by the actors, or the jokes were terrible, so the lines had no comedic effect at all. The delivery and presentation of the humour mostly failed.The visual style is bland and boring. It's not terrible, it's just mediocre and not very inventive. It follows the boring shot, reverse shot format. However, there is one scene with an interesting style (The Cinema scene).The story is very unspecial, it's basically just your average dystopian future (with only a few interesting ideas). Also several parts of this film are completely pointless; and if they were to be removed, nothing would have changed. There is a whole ten minute section where the main character is brain washed, only for it to be reversed minutes later. Thre is also a part when the main Character climbs out a window for no reason at all, only just to go back around into the room he climed into. The main plot only begins to happen in the final act, meaning that the first tow acts were entirely pointless filler. The pacing in this film is also terrible throughout the whole film.Overall this film is a complete waste of time. It is boring and unfunny. I feel like it failed in everthing it attemted. Some people may like this, but in my opinion, don't even waste your time watching it.

My history with Woody Allen is an interesting one. For years the rhetoric has been something like "Woody Allen's early films are great--the funny ones". Well, I wasn't introduced to Woody Allen as a "funny" filmmaker, so that has always taken me aback. My first exposure to Woody Allen was either Annie Hall or Midnight in Paris, and while both of those films have their comedic moments, I didn't think of either one as a comedy. There were human struggles and deep stories in both films and their comedy added to them, no doubt, but I just didn't think of Woody Allen films as comedies. After seeing several of Allen's earlier films, I understand the notion of him as a comedy director, however, I disagree that the tonal shift to the more dramatic serious films of his later career diminished his capabilities as a filmmaker. I am just as pleased with a largely serious film, Midnight in Paris, as I am with his 1973 installment Sleeper. Starring Allen as a health foods store owner in Greenwich Village who is cryogenically frozen and brought back 200 years into the future and forced to pass as a robot in the home of Diane Keaton in order to keep his life, Sleeper is a hilarious take on a sci-fi film and a standout in Allen's filmography. Miles Monroe (Woody Allen) owns and operates a health food store in Greenwich Village. Miles is an awkward man who used to enjoy spending his time playing the clarinet before being cryogenically frozen and brought back 200 years in the future. The year he finds himself in is 2173 and wakes up after being put to sleep for a surgery shocked to find out he is in a completely different world, a totalitarian police state. The doctors unfreezing him have broken the law in hopes that he will join the group of revolutionaries in an attempt to overthrow the government and save the conformist citizenry. Miles has awoken to a world in which no one does anything without consent from the "leader". In theory, Miles will be able to provide nothing to the government if captured since to them he doesn't exist. The only minor problem Miles faces is how to survive in a world he doesn't know when everyone around him is on the hunt for an "alien" believed to be near them.There is an early homage to a famous bit Buster Keaton achieved in the silent era that illustrates exactly what kind of comedy Sleeper is going to be. Woody Allen proves himself as a physical comedian whether it be his constant shuffling as a mode of transportation throughout the film or the gag of running to get his jetpack to work, Allen is physically acting in a brilliant way all throughout the film. Sleeper is a film in which almost every joke lands which is rare in comedy anyway, but especially so in a comedy with so many self-contained gags. Something I wasn't aware of before embarking on the Woody Allen retrospect project I'm currently enjoying is just how much he must have adored silent cinema. In many of his early films in both subtle and more overt ways, Allen includes many nods to silent cinema that are a true joy to witness. Learning about the obvious influences of one of my favorite directors is an unexpected joy of this project.

Sleeper belongs to the initial phase of Woody Allen's filmography when his films were more skewed towards slapstick and farcical humour instead of narrative cohesion. But I didn't need narrative coherence as much, to be honest when the lines being spoken are so funny. One liners galore and Allen's sharp and sarcastic humour is really the star attraction of the film. Also Allen was clearly paying a tribute to the slapstick-comedy films of the silent era. The slapstick montages in the film accompanied by uptempo jazz music are very reminiscent to similar scenes of films starring Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton,etc. Along with being immensely witty, this film shows that Woody Allen also used to be an exponent of physical comedy.But underneath the craziness on the surface, there is social commentary taking place through satire. Through the narrative structure of a man from 1973 being sent to the future, Allen was satirizing and poking fun at the contemporary American society of 1970s. There is a bit of similarity between 'Sleeper' and Yorgos Lanthimos' 'The Lobster'. Both these films critique the totalitarian establishment and the pretentious bourgeois culture in the first half, but the second half to some extent undercuts the message of the first half by critiquing the organised rebellion. This is why I think just like 'The Lobster', 'Sleeper' is a film that upholds the concept of individualism and the need to retain your own, unique identity in an ideologically segmented society when you don't completely identify with either side of the ideological divide.Visually the film looks very much like the sci-fi films of the era. The sets and props look very similar to the ones that you find in something like 'The Andromeda Strain' or 'THX 1138'. The camera doesn't do anything remarkable, but the film moves forward at a breakneck speed. The chemistry between Allen and Diane Keaton is brilliant. Their banter makes the film so much more colourful. The film lacks narrative balance at times as we rush from one scene to the next. But 'Sleeper' is a genuinely witty and sharply humorous film that anyone can find rewarding.

I have watched Sleeper dozens of times and use in my English class as contrast to Brave New World and 1984. Still holds up after 40 years.Cloning is now a possibility and the condemnation of health food beliefs is classic.There are too many outstanding scenes to count,but the computerized robotic confessional and forgiveness of sins resonates with all Roman Catholics. This is a film I would like to see on TCM or other classic movie channel. I believe Woody Allen is a modern Charlie Chaplin-I don't appreciate his contemporary films,but this one is a hoot. I would like to see it recognized as a comedy classic.