Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

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Kylo W Apr 20, 2019 Aaah, why didn't I get this film? I wish I did, I really do, it's considered one of his best and one of the funniest films of all time but it didn't affect me in the same way it did most audiences. Most likely I am just not sophisticated enough to understand it's intelligent political satire and Kubrick is just working on another level. I will try to breakdown why and how I did not understand it and how I recognized points that I was meant to laugh at but just couldn't. The film concerns the fallout from General Jack D. Ripper, Sterling Hayden, choosing to launch a nuclear attack on Russia without warning his military superiors or the Government. The majority of the film is then spent with the President, Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, Dr. Strangelove, all Peter Sellers, and General Buck Turgidson, George C. Scott, as they attempt to stop those on the aircraft holding the nuclear weapons from deploying them. Onboard the aircraft Major T.J Kong struggles to make a decision with the mixed signals he is receiving leading to a supposedly darkly hilarious final shot. Firstly I have to admit that I have a problem with the film's star Peter Sellers. I have never found his slapstick style particularly funny in films like Only Two Can Play (1962) and his "I'm a comedic actor giving a dramatic performance" role in Being There (1979) just irked me. I think he is awful in the eponymous role of Dr. Strangelove, his German accent and failure to keep in his Nazi tendencies didn't elicit any laughter from me and it all seemed like something you would find on Whose Line Is It Anyway?. His American accent as the President slips to reveal that he is British, he is perfectly acceptable in this role but not particularly funny and after the shock of him playing multiple roles wears off we spend an awful lot of time with a performer that I feel no particular affection for. This is considered his signature film though and his portrayal of Dr. Strangelove with his reflective glasses is highly praised. George C. Scott is an actor whose performances I have enjoyed in Petulia (1968) and Jane Eyre (1970) but here he gives a performance reminiscent of Brad Pitt in Inglourious Basterds (2009), this film probably inspired Pitt, another performance that I think is just bad acting instead of being an entertaining pastiche. His relationship with his secretary could have created some interesting comedic material but it all felt like the same old tired jokes about unprofessionalism and two immature dummies being in a relationship. The character makes the crucial mistake that drives plot but he never feels like the center of the film as we spend so much of our time with an array of Peter Sellers characters and Slim Pickens, who is giving one of the few good performances in the film. Slapstick humor is meant to be the primary source of laughter throughout with Sellers' struggling to hold himself back from performing a Nazi salute and the various political figures in the war room having physical scraps over the conflict at hand. Maybe this killed at the time with this style of comedy being more popular with mainstream audiences but with my modern comedic sensibilities I found it very difficult to enjoy a style of comedy I saw as outdated and it failed to make me crack up the way it did my Father, who was alive and well in the 1960s and appreciates modern slapstick like Dumb and Dumber (1994). I would not recommend this film but it's part of the Kubrick filmography so it is considered a classic no matter what it's actual quality is. I know that this emotionally affected many audiences and is seen as intellectually brilliant by most critics. Maybe I will get it when I am older and all of the commentary about cold-war era politics will have me cracking up and terrified in equal measure because I will have better knowledge of the tense situation that it is commenting upon. Maybe in ten or fifteen years I will re-watch this this and realize I got this totally wrong but for now I will not be watching this film again. See more

Hagrid M Apr 15, 2019 If you don't know this movie, you do not know movies.

Rey R Apr 14, 2019 It started out interestingly, but the plot fell apart, with no place to go, before it was half over. I can't justify what anyone could see in this film because it is really boring. Why the plot just stops when the planes get in the air and there is no more action is anyone's guess at this point. This one will put you to sleep if you try watching the whole thing. It a clear demonstration of why television is a better medium than film because so many films are garbage, and you can always turn the garbage TV shows off. It was very difficult to find good films in the 1960s, something that could not be said about Hollywood's Golden Age of the 30s and 40s. See more

Leia L Apr 12, 2019 The major King Kong of black comedies!

Ron S Apr 7, 2019 Classic Stanley Kubrick Comedy! Peter Sellers shines in 3 roles. George C Scott is hilarious and Slim Pickens steals the show! Must watch for any fan of classic cinema. See more

Harry L Apr 5, 2019 Hilarious and very intelligent (also terrifying at the time it was made) Cold War black comedy that completely reveals insanity and absurdity of the Cold War paradigms. General gone mad decides on his own to start nuclear war, unaware that the Soviets made "The Doomsday Machine" - a bomb capable of producing enough radioactive fallout to destroy entire life on Earth, which is automatically activated by a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union⦠See more

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Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

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