Incannerax What a waste of my time!!!

Thehibikiew Not even bad in a good way

Stoutor It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

Calum Hutton It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

brando647 Following he and Gene Wilder's cinematic love letter to James Whale's Frankenstein films, Mel Brooks wrote and directed a film hearkening back to an even earlier era with SILENT MOVIE. The film, for those who haven't seen it, is exactly what it claims to be: a silent comedy. Well, almost silent. There's a single spoken line in the entire movie and it's spoken by the one person whose delivery should guarantee a chuckle. The premise of SILENT MOVIE is, as I understand it, basically a comedic depiction of the trials and tribulations Brooks endured in trying to get the movie made in the first place. At the center of the film is our trio of filmmakers: Mel Funn (Brooks), Dom Bell (Dom DeLuise), and Marty Eggs (Marty Feldman). Mel Funn is a former Hollywood director whose career tanked when he fell into alcoholism. He has dreams of reviving his career with the first silent film in decades and his friends Dom and Marty are coming along to help him see it through. The studio is, obviously, more than a little hesitant at first but they've got the evil east coast conglomerate Engulf & Devour breathing down their necks in hopes of acquiring the company. When Mel promises to fill his picture with the biggest stars, the studio chief (Sid Caesar) gives him a shot. SILENT MOVIE is then a race against time for Mel to collect some of the biggest names the mid-70s has to offer and save the studio.SILENT MOVIE is slapstick fun in the vein of the classics like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. I'm a fan of Chaplin (and need to make time to watch some Keaton) and dig the goofball comedies of early cinema, and Brooks pulls from his love for the era to fill this movie to the brim with classic gags. There's loads of fun to be had here but it starts to drag after a while. Those early Chaplin films run about fifteen to twenty minutes apiece and, while some of them do run longer, they work best in those smaller, easily digested doses. I think the longest Chaplin film I've seen was about 70 minutes and, even then, it lost some of its fun by the end. SILENT MOVIE is just under ninety minutes and, regardless of how much fun the bits are, it runs a little long for me. I'm not adverse to silent film. I loved THE ARTIST, which brought the genre back again in 2011 to great success. But that had better storytelling and didn't have to rely on pratfalls and funny faces to fill out a feature-length runtime. I was thoroughly enjoying SILENT MOVIE up until around the halfway mark when my attention began to wander. A large section of the movie follows Funn as he tracks down Hollywood stars to convince him to join his movie, and it doesn't switch things up until the last twenty- five minutes or so when we head into the final act.Just as the characters in the film need to bolster interest in their silent film with the inclusion of big stars, so does SILENT MOVIE itself. Half of the movie is a string of cameos from the likes of Burt Reynolds, Liza Minnelli, James Caan, etc. If nothing else, it's fun to watch these big name stars get in on the cornier slapstick the movie brings to the table. I suppose my favorite cameo bit would be Caan's. It felt the most like a classic silent film comedy scenario with Caan inviting Funn and his buddies into his trailer for lunch to discuss their movie. Of course, the trailer has poor suspension so the four of them are teetering around inside as the trailer lurches from one side to the other with the slightest gesture. It was definitely one of the funnier scenes, as opposed to their courting of Liza Minnelli which involved arduous minutes of Funn and the gang toppling over each other in suits of medieval armor in the studio commissary. The bits are hit and miss, but I can at least say that most of them register on the positive end of the spectrum. At minimum, they'll elicit a smile. I can't be too harsh overall because I see what Brooks was aiming for and I appreciate the sentiment. Those early silent shorts get little to no attention anymore and Mel Brooks has done his part in shining the spotlight on them once again for newer generations.SILENT MOVIE probably isn't going to have you laughing your head off but, if nothing else, it's ninety minutes of harmless fun. There's nothing overtly racy in the film so it's a nice piece anyone of any age can enjoy. It's comedy fluff that I can't imagine will find itself atop many top comedy lists, or even top Brooks comedy lists, but it's good for some chuckles and people who know more about that early era of Chaplin and Keaton than I will probably find even more to appreciate.

Pete Huntley I'm half way through this, and it's awful. What was Brooks thinking? The silent comics had grown up making slapstick on stage and on film. Laurel and Hardy were both in their thirties with dozens of two reelers each before they were teamed up. Buster Keaton had been doing slapstick since the age of 3. I can say this because I'm currently in the middle of watching a whole load of silents from L&H, Keaton, Charlie Chase, Harold Lloyd and so on. Those two reelers work because they only have 20 minutes to tell a full story. Scenes are either full on slapstick or 10 seconds long to move the story on. Moreover slapstick is the comedy of pain and embarrassment and to make it work you have to sell that - through overacting if need be.Brooks completely fails to understand this. About 15 minutes into the film, Dom Deluise has a door slammed on his foot. Although the joke is blatantly set up, at first I didn't even realise that the slam had occurred. Deluise barely reacts. All I can think about is how Oliver Hardy would have sold the same gag - as I've literally just watched him do it several times over. Compare the two. No contest.Mel Brooks has written a completely normal film and then simply taken all the sound out and replaced it with captions. The only reason to watch this is for the cameos. Paul Newman, James Caan, Burt Reynolds, Liza Minelli, Marcel Marceau and Anne Bancroft gamely send themselves up. Paul Newman in his racing wheelchair is clearly enjoying himself and gives the best scene of the movie. As for the rest, Marty Feldman acts everyone else off the screen - when he's actually given something to do that is - thanks to his British physical comedy training.

Bill Slocum Don't expect too much from this Mel Brooks send-up of silent comedy and, well, you'll probably still be disappointed. Just not as much.Mel Funn (Brooks) is an out-of-work movie director who has an idea for how to get back in the business: Make the first silent movie in over 40 years. To get the backing of Big Picture Studios, Mel and partners Marty Eggs (Marty Feldman) and Dom Bell (Dom DeLuise) set about signing Hollywood stars to the project. Can Mel stay off the sauce long enough to see it through?"Silent Movie" was Brooks' first film after owning 1974 with "Blazing Saddles" and "Young Frankenstein"; as a result he could do pretty much whatever he wanted. You want to do a silent movie, Mel? Sure, why not? Well, maybe because Brooks' type of comedy was more verbal than visual. "Silent Movie" too often plays like a movie whose maker thinks it's funnier than it really is.Take the cameo appearances of several big-name stars, another sign of Brooks' clout. Burt Reynolds has fun playing up his own ego, and so we do, too, while mime Marcel Marceau gets the funniest line in the picture (also the only line.) But the other stars brought in - Paul Newman, James Caan, Liza Minnelli, and Anne Bancroft - showcase their amiability more than their comedy potential.The physical comedy gets really labored and obvious at times, not what you got watching the silent clowns, or even "Blazing Saddles." When Mel and his two buddies try to recruit Liza, for example, they dress as knights in bulky suits of armor. Instead of engaging Minnelli in conversation while trying to look natural in their odd attire, the three just bumble around in a commissary, knocking down tables and chairs until Liza pulls a face, recognizes Mel, and asks to be in his movie. End scene.This strained gagginess extends to various sight gags. When we see a nurse in a hospital reading a smutty book, we can see patients on monitors behind her falling out of their beds, crying for help, etc. It's not much of a joke, but Brooks the director then pans over to put these monitors in close-up for a few seconds.The movie does have moments of genuine funniness, albeit in the same patchy way as the later Brooks' comedies "High Anxiety" and "History Of The World Part I." When we first see Mel driving down a street, a card tells us we are in "Hollywood, Film Capital of Greater Los Angeles." The plaque on the door of Big Pictures' boss (Sid Caesar) reads "Current Studio Chief."Caesar is pretty funny, too, as is Bernadette Peters as a sexy vamp who is sicced on Mel to take his mind off the movie. I love her big entrance, on stage inside a giant banana, from which she is peeled to deliver her silent catchphrase: "Ba-Ba-Loo!" Both Marty and Dom make for enjoyable company throughout, although they don't do much more than ogle ladies (Marty) or eat (Dom). In the technical department, John Morris's score and Paul Lohmann's cinematography are non-distractingly enjoyable.The big negative in this film, as with "High Anxiety," is Brooks. There is no funnier white person in living history, but he doesn't work as an actor, even in a farce. He's always smiling too much, pressing too hard to show us what a nice guy he is. Of course, it doesn't help that he's his own director here. (Brooks did better work as the lead in the 1983 remake of "To Be Or Not To Be," which he didn't direct.)"Silent Movie" is funny enough in spots and has enough of that old Brooks magic to make it pleasant if forgettable viewing. You can't help wanting more, but if you are like me, you're almost satisfied to get what you do.

SanteeFats You must pay attention to the subtitles in this movie. I usually will not watch a subtitled movie but this one is worth it. Mel Brooks, Marty Feldman, Dom DeLuise what more can one ask for in a comedy movie??? Harold Gould plays a campy studio head well. Sid Caesar, ahhh, what can one say about one of the funniest writers and directors ever? I love his movies. This one was a good one but, while I did not care for the subtitles, I did understand that they were necessary to the plot. The fact that Mel Brooks even thought of this kind of scenario just shows his comedic genius too me. I love all of his movies but of course there are some that are funnier than others. This one is one of his funnier ones even with the subtitles. '