Sleeper is the story of Miles Monroe, a mild mannered health food store owner frozen by mistake after a minor medical procedure. He's thawed out two hundred years later to find that everyone he knows is dead, and that he's wanted as an alien fugitive.
Sleeper is the first of the early Woody Allen films I've seen. It's sci-fi slapstick at its best, as a much younger Woody gives the Three Stooges a run for their money in the physical humour stakes. Like most Allen films, there is a lot of emphasis on satire and good old fashioned neurosis.
The futuristic society in Sleeper is uncomfortably close to our own. Every citizen has been fingerprinted, dna tested, and basically catalogued. The flaky artist played by Diane Keaton can't understand why the revolutionaries are so pissed off at their government, because she thinks that everyone is living as affluently as her.
But it's not all about social commentary. There's also a heap of sight gags. Everything from prop-driven flying backpacks, to giant genetically modified sticks of celery. Put simply, this film has something for everyone. It's packed with great lines like 'This tastes terrible... I could have made a fortune selling this in my health store'. It has also dated surprisingly little. Most of the sets & special effects although crude, are leaps and bounds above anything in the new Star Wars movies (though that's not hard). There's so much to tell about this movie that to try and do so would be an injustice to it. Well worth looking for. |