Hilarious, and very good, as usual...

Rating: 8/10 (25 July 2016)

If you know Chaplin at all by now, and by that I mean you actually have seen his full films attentively, you know he rightfully deserves the legendary status he's so widely given. The man was a genius of his own craft, and besides being a film-maker/story writer and obviously very good actor/entertainer of many fields/music composer... as a mere comic, just as a mere comic he could be hilarious in many different ways: through his nervy mimics and tricks and facial/whole body gymnastics, his interaction with surrounding props, situational comedy, coming up with ridiculous visual ideas for a scene, ridiculous concepts for a character's name or attributes, with his own voice... he was the complete entertainer/performer, and this being said not nearly in the cold academic,'accomplished artist' sort of way, but truly a creator of on-screen magic, provoker of visceral and sincere laughter, and a man whose greatest quality were in fact none of these things, but the weight of his heart and the great warmth of his humanity. All of this finds truth and application in this film in particular as he's in full-blown Chaplin mode and displays his full effect here. The famous speech this film is notorious for deserves recognition as it is in essence good while of course utopic, and although it seems the film was made for that scene they did a good job really crafting a good motion picture in itself, as a whole.
Structurally the film isn't perfect, it's very good for the first 3/4s but then perhaps slows down in pace for a little while towards the end before lifting off again with that final speech. All in all, it's a great comedy. You'll find at least something funny somewhere in it, and as a film it's an entertaining, well made bit of cinema.