It’s just sight gag after sight gag. I kept waiting for it to get better, but it never did. It’s like a live-action Woody Woodpecker cartoon, which was fine when I was 7, but is shallow and boring now.
Why is everyone raving about it? What am I missing?
To each their own! Some people love dark humour, some people find it repellant. Some people love puns, others find them dull. Some people can’t stand Chaplin or Keaton, others revere them.
Personally, I dig some of the old time classic Buster Keaton stuff so it was fun to see a similar energy brought to the screen.
Spoilers below but:
Stuff like him trying to keep a fire going as the wind cheats and changes direction, then sleeping on the fire, waking up later on fire cracked me up.
Or him winding up to throw a snowball and having it go a foot just works.
Or his inept beaver attorney whose failures cut through language and was no match for J’ACCUSE!
Or just giving up on the trapper map, erasing it all and starting from scratch.
Or on the physical side, him trying to get in and out of the box as it slides down the mountain.
It’s comedy, everyone gets a kick out of different things. There’s no right or wrong answer! Personally, I have trouble thinking of a funnier moment in a movie in recent years than when the horse costume payoff came as the native fellow tried to jump onto his horse which just collapsed because, obviously, it’s two people in a horse costume.
Your highlights are my highlights as well, fwiw.
I liked the Buster Keaton stuff, too. They were at most 9 minutes long.
Oh, you should watch Keaton’s movies!
The General and Sherlock Jr are my (and I think most people’s) favourites.
Chaplin’s Modern Times is similarly wonderful.