BitingMovieJunkie

What can we say? Apart from the obvious. And that's to say that "Duck Soup" is the most brilliant of all the Marx Brothers' films, their finest masterpiece, the zenith of their unmistakable delirious and exhilarating comedy. It's a movie so full of visionary inventions, laugh-out-loud moments, memorable one-liners that you simply can't help but it burst into laughter.

It's a movie so full of genius and so ahead of its time (it even anticipated Chaplin's "The Great Dictator") that even if back in the days, maybe because of this precise reason (and maybe because its cynicism may have not been the most well receivable sentiment in the midst of the Great Depression), it was kinda ignored or criticized or marginalized, it can still be seen today and it can still resonate and - let's say it again - make you laugh your guts out while, at the same time, make you reflect upon certain matters (for example about the sadly never-out-of-fashion warmongering craziness of the powers-that-be.)

The Four Brothers, their gagmen and screenwriters, and the director expertly and wonderfully mix together anti-militarist satire, physical comedy and - of course - the usual unforgettable Groucho's one-liners, producing a caustic, chaotic, grandiose, wild and fast-paced roller-coster of a movie, that never shies away from launching sarcastic gibes left and right, in so doing banning any pretense of political correctness (if we are to use an anachronistic definition.) That's a good thing: because, clearly, political correctness, moralism and prudery are the death of satire. And what we have here is the pinnacle of satire: to this day it's still quite impressive to see just how fine and refined and hard-hitting the satirical comments are in this 1933 movie.

Produced in a period when the most obnoxious and devastating tragedies of the 20th century were to some degree yet to come, "Duck Soup" is interwoven with slight allusions to the likes of chemical weapons, mass slaughters, future apocalyptic wars to be provoked by the hate and irrationality of delirious rulers (especially proto-fascist rulers...) and their cohort, exceptionalist, jingoistic and extreme rhetoric brought to their most awful ("Hail, Hail Freedonia", so much a land of "the brave and the free" to throw itself head and toes in a stupid and preventable war.) What we have said puts this movie on the same level as the Chaplin's one but also, for example, on the same level as Kubrick's unforgotten masterpiece "Doctor Strangelove".

The freshness and novelty, and the infallible pace, owe something to the ability of McCarey who - in contrast with previous and even subsequent Marx Brothers' movies - "decides to get rid of most of the standard and expected vaudevillian musical moments, to give more room to Harpo's pantomimes, to restrain Groucho's logorrhea, and to ultimately confer the story a surreal and zany style" (F. Di Giammatteo) devoid of any useless time wasting gibberish and packed with a never-ending string of comic inventions more often than not crazy and hilarious (two examples: the mirror scene, which echoes Max Linder's "Seven Years Bad Luck", and the absurd visual gag concerning a certain peculiar "presidential vehicle" that's able to "travel while never getting anywhere").

There's really not much there left to say: at this point I can only repeat myself. "Duck Soup" is the apotheosis of cinematic comedy, specifically of the Marx Brothers' peculiar blend of it. It's an all-around masterpiece of social-conscious satire and entertainment. It's a masterpiece, period. An unmissable milestone.

Duck Soup = Dope Soup, everyone!

In a post Italian unification Sicily that feels really much like the Far West, two different "Italies", two different worlds and two (but maybe more) different ways of life clash, run along, chase and when they meet even kill each other in this thrilling Italian-style "neo-western" which proudly eludes categorization ---and which "exudes" of the cinema of Leone and Tarantino.

The setting couldn't be more distant from the "typical", mythical, ferocious, brutal, unforgiving and death-ridden "Great American West" but the feeling you get is the one that only comes with those great genre flicks that just happen to fortunately pop up from time to time. What I'm talking about is that feeling of, let's say, "adventure" that - in this case - is coupled with the firm intention of not passing on on history and its violence and continuous bloodshed even while retaining a component of pure entertainment (just like in - say - "Django Unchained").

And the "ingredients" are all there standing in plain view in this amazing and majestic movie: you have the violence, the idea of a frontier, gunslingers, bandits, stagecoach attacks, bounty hunters... you have it all. This movie is an exercise in style that must be considered the most unusual venture coming from contemporary Italian cinema (other examples of recent Italian movies that shy away from the usual tropes are: "I Can Quit Whenever I Want", "Jeeg Robot", "Italian Race" and - of course - "The First King").

It's a welcome surprise: an adventurous, pulpy and chronologically non-linear film with great performances (especially from the likes of Truppo, Abela and Calcagno) and pretty good production values (even if it certainly didn't cost a lot, the costumes, special effects and period design in general are utterly convincing, while the warm and mellow cinematography expertly "underlines" the Sun-bathed settings and - metaphorically - the incendiary atmosphere).

Splatter and frantic, ironical and exaggerated, "My Body Will Bury You" - thanks to La Pàrola's good direction - presents a series of sometimes eye-watering actions scenes, it's a fun and exhilarating movie that manages to keep you hooked for the entire running time till the grand-guignol conclusion.

The narrative may not be the most unpredictable out there, but the film never gets boring or tiring, thanks in good part to the wonderful locations, to the razor-sharp one-liners, the almost-never-stopping action and the line-up of memorable characters (from "the Butcher" who looks pretty much like "the Hound" from "Game of Thrones" to the sadistic colonel who just can't help it but repeating "that's good, that's good" all the time).

The brigand's life is depicted while not concealing its most violent dealings, the backward and vane world of aristocratic latifundists is represented with the just share of outraged sarcasm and - in the end - the Savoy (the ones who carried out Italy's unification with help coming from the "One Thousand" men led by Garibaldi), or at least some of their representatives serving in the army in Sicily, don't quite stand out as saviors themselves. In a nutshell: there's nobody to be forgiven and nobody's innocent in this fast "Sicilian-style neo-western" that doesn't ever slow down.

It may very well be considered a movie of pure and easygoing entertainment, and that's true --but, oh boy, wouldn't we like to see more of this kind of entertainment? Fresh, fun, distinguishable and uncompromising? As I already said: we're in the presence here of a beautiful, little gem coming from contemporary Italian cinema that - just like any other kind of cinema - gives its best when it moves away from the usual stereotypes. Great!

Zack Snyder's Exhausted League.

"Same problems, longer outcomes". I'd say that - years from now - what's going to be remembered, well that would be the exaggerated movement which led to this movie's release rather than the movie itself that is, quite frankly, a bit trashy and ridiculous.

What this "Snyder's Cut" ultimately does is confirming to everybody who happens not to be a fanboy just how deep down Hollywood superhero blockbusters have sunk in the last few years. We went all the way from "The Dark Knight" to "WW84" and this new abomination. But there's something more: this movie is also so long and overblown that it gets boring pretty soon. Pretty, pretty soon. Snyder should maybe learn to "zack zack" (read: cut) more while in the editing room.

Now, the impression I got was that the real - gigantic - problem behind the 2017 theatrical cut wasn't actually (as a lot of those well-known loyal "followers" would like us to believe) the unbalanced combination of lighthearted (and somewhat stale) comedy and comically serious wannabe tragedy, but the very narrative, built upon the so-called "foundations" of a paper-thin script which was - and still remains - so poor that it produces in any case a never-ending string of implausibilities and silly moments that much embarrassing in places that you just have to look the other way not to notice them.

And there really is a whole lot of unintentionally ridiculous moments in this movie, trust me. That's most probably one of the reasons why it looks like we were fed a rough cut rather than a polished and refined movie. A 4-hour-long rough cut with so-to-speak "completed" CGI that got released only because of insistent fans pressure and because in this particular pandemic situation which obviously plagued the movie business Warner Bros. Needed something to stream on their Hbo Max service so as to lure some subscribers in.

So, now we have a movie full of what we can reasonably conceive as scenes that would've been cut for the most part in a normal post-production, 'cause they're useless or - as I already suggested - kinda ridiculous while desperately trying to be serious and profound (but c'mon how can you take that seriously a movie with a man who swims like he was a torpedo and a villain from another universe who looks like a giant shiny ram?). And - by the way - the least we talk about the pretentiousness of using the 4:3 format the better (I even read somebody comparing the B/W version to a Kurosawa movie... Which arouses the question: have you ever actually seen a Kurosawa movie?).

Anyway, thanks to the aforementioned "screenplay" we're doomed to repeatedly hear and watch actors trying to deliver without laughing cringey lines that sends literal shivers down the spine owing to their banality (one example: in a fighting scene Steppen the Ram - sorry, Steppenwolf - says something like "This one will be mine" while on the verge of attacking, and Wonder Woman answers: "I belong to no one"... Now, how would anybody come up with something like that in such a situation? Again: c'mon!).

That's not the end of it: the screenwriters also felt the need while writing to continuously explain every small thing like if this "ZSJL" was one unpredictable whodunit full of plot twists and turns. And not just another trite superhero blockbuster.

So it went that being introduced to the wondrous world of "Magical Intergalactic Boxes", Darkseid who mysteriously appear to belong to the Dark Side (who would've guessed that, huh?), "Silver Rams" in techno-suits who keep on making service calls with the management, "Parademons" (the hell?) that look very much like giant intoxicated flies I really couldn't help it but burst into laughter, and that in spite of the absurd seriousness by which this and other baloney is presented.

On top of that other things to be noticed are:

• The excessive amount of slow-mo sequences;
• The dark and gloomy cinematography thanks to which sometimes you can't see a thing during the action scenes (and to add to the confusion we have the most "curious" editing choices that produce situations in which one movement is repeated between cuts);
• The abominable soundtrack (just look at the Flash-saving-the-girl sequence: sloppy song and - to further the ridiculousness - flying hot dogs... OK...);
• The sometimes badly rendered computer graphic;
• The unconvincing performances (Cavill, Gadot, Affleck and Momoa are most probably the worst on this regard).

In one sentence: blood, noise, CGI and thinly written plots. Here you go: what passes for "great entertainment" nowadays.

In conclusion I only have one more thing to say, to all the fans out there praising this motion picture and wanting the "Snyderverse to be restored" and so on: "ZSJL" is not by any chance a masterpiece (it's amazing that I really need to point it out) and you giving 10-starred reviews here on Imdb is not going to change that.

This movie is not going to be remembered and it's most certainly not going to be regarded as one of the greatest entertainment blockbusters of all time. Go take another look at "The Dark Knight" and then you'll hopefully finally realize that, while also realizing at the same time how in fact an outstanding entertainment movie is made even while having to deal with majors, marketing and big money and pressure.

Oh, boy. Let's really hope we're done for good with the Snyderverse this time.