I first heard of this movie from YMS, shoutout to him, and I'm glad I decided to go ahead and rent it as soon as it was available. The premise looked so interesting and a lot of people were saying it was the funniest film of the year. Now obviously humor is subjective but I personally found this one pretty funny. It's a well-made movie for everything it's got.
I feel like labeling this movie as a once-in-a-lifetime movie, along the same lines as the LOTR trilogy, Boyhood, and Everything Everywhere All At Once, for example. It must have been since Charlie Chaplin died that we've had a brilliant silent black-and-white movie like this one, and I'm not sure we'll see another. It's very rare to find something that can be both silly and hilarious, if that makes any sense. Just about every choice for this movie really does enhance the overall experience. The editing isn't smooth but I think that helps add to the silliness of the premise. You can tell it's just an actor running in place for example, and that's a good thing. The visual gags surprisingly never get old, combining all-too familiar visual gags with some brand new, more modern gags. It manages in a very good way of keeping a nostalgic and familiar feel while appealing to more modern audiences, and even the modern stuff I feel is going to take a very long time if at all to be outdated. There is character development and you cheer for the character to succeed, and there is spectacular setup and payoff for everything involved.
A couple things held it back from being a 10/10. I feel like the beginning wasn't executed as well as the ending in terms of comedic value, but I will say that does make the movie better and better as it goes along, which many movies are unable to accomplish. There were a couple of messy camera shots that really just left me confused (I'm thinking of the wolf attack) and had me just wondering what happened instead of the clarity of the story from the majority of the shots. A couple of the editing choices were questionable during the final action sequence but were otherwise very fitting and expertly crafted. These are honestly pretty minor things and I may change my rating to a 10 later on. My ratings not going down from here I can tell you that.
I have to say this movie is very impressive considering not many comedies these days can actually work at making you laugh. This is the highest rated comedy film that I can find on imdb after some Charlie Chaplin movies. And it has a reported budget of only $150,000???? That's insane. We're talking ONE THOUSAND TIMES LESS money than a typical Hollywood big blockbuster movie. Apparently they only had enough budget money to afford FIVE beaver suits to be used over and over again for this film. And it's still a better movie than 90% of Hollywood movies today. 100s of recommendations (see what I did there haha) for this movie; absolutely go check it out and support it.
I didn't see a parent guide for this film so I thought I'd add one so parents can decide if they want their children watching it. There is a tad bit of gore but it's black not red, and there is some impaling and other intense stuff, but those sections are very cartoony and not gory. There are also some sexual gags (objects shaped like breasts and a penis specifically; this stuff may go over some children's heads) and there is one sequence that lasts about 30 seconds of a woman pole dancing (she is clothed while doing it). Alcohol and tobacco references exist but I think that's about it; hope I gave a good overview for that.
