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Soon, Allen is on the run. He kidnaps lovely Diane Keaton, and both join an underground movement. While on an operation, Allen and Keaton are mistaken for doctors, and are compelled to clone the Leader's nose, which is all that is left of him after his house was bombed by rebels.
How others will see it. Woody Allen is the director, co-writer, and lead in this effort from relatively early in his career. It's all Woody, and it's mostly funny. But some will find it dated, since the likes of Chiang Kai-shek and Charles de Gaulle long ago faded from American attention, and magnetic tape was obsolete by 1993, much less 2173. And we all know you can't start a Volkwagon Beetle after it has been sitting in a cave for the past 200 years.
However, there are enough riotous scenes that most movie fans will enjoy this madcap romp, even those who regard his later films suspiciously. Sleeper hits it stride early when Allen disguises himself as a domestic robot. He fights a giant pudding, disintegrates his guest's jackets, gets high from a metal sphere, and runs from repairmen who want to remove his head with a giant pair of pliers.
How I felt about it. The film eventually lags a bit when Allen and Keaton finally spend quality time together, which consists largely of enjoyable bickering and whining. Allen is also jealous of the good-looking resistance leader, Erno (John Beck). As a romance, Sleeper is conformist. The film certainly works better as a screwball comedy, although the gags don't always fully succeed. For example, a giant chicken shows up, causing Allen to quip about getting pecked to death. That doesn't work, but it is funny when the Leader's precious nose is flatted by a steamroller.
Some filmmakers would use a futuristic setting as an allegory for today's problems, as occurred in "The Twilight Zone" or on selected episodes of the 1960s "Star Trek." Not Woody Allen. Sleeper is more of a Big Brother satire, especially since the government heavies are incompetent instead of intimidating. As in Bananas, Allen as a government rebel is less than heroic, although he does rescue Keaton from their clutches, and he does abscond with the Leader's nose.
Allen also manages to make fun of his religious heritage. Two Jewish robot tailors argue about business in front of Allen, their customer. A curious dinner scene features non-Jewish Beck and Keaton reading a stilted script laden with Jewish cultural references. As always, those from an ethnic minority are able to effectively parody it in ways that those outside of the ethnicity wouldn't dare to.
Despite the hit and miss nature of its gags and jokes, Sleeper has enough laughs to compensate for any of its shortcomings.