Robin Hood: Men in Tights is a disappointment not because it is a bad movie, but because, after a surprise like Life Stinks, it seemed like Mel Brooks had more up his sleeve than another obvious spoof. But, if we have to settle for Brooks’ take on the Robin Hood legend, it helps that it’s a ton of fun.

Of all Brooks’ films, I’d say Robin Hood is the one most often quoted and referenced by people from my generation. I had a group of friends in high school who could perform the “Men in Tights” musical number from memory. Indeed, much of the film seems to be the filmmaker’s attempt to make himself relevant to a new generation of fans. This approach both helps the film and hurts it.

Like Spaceballs, Robin Hood is less interested in telling the classic story than it is in introducing us to some fun new twists on the characters we know using the original’s framework. Robin Hood (Cary Elwes, of Princess Bride fame), returns to England from the Crusades to find his family’s land under subjugation and heavy taxation by Prince John (a very funny Richard Lewis) and the Sheriff of Rottingham (Roger Rees). Robin hopes to overthrow the prince with the help of his friends, including Little John (Eric Allan Kramer), blind servant Blinkin (Mark Blankfield) and newcomer Ahchoo (a young Dave Chappelle). Along the way he hopes to win the heart of Maid Marion (Amy Yasbeck).

The film is indeed “hip,” if any Brooks film could be called that. I dig the casual, laid back style of the flick, from rapping black minstrels to the presence of the ever-popular (and every funny) Chappelle. As a black man in a white man’s world, Atchoo doesn’t come close to the likes of Sheriff Bart in Blazing Saddles, but Chappelle still rises far above his underwritten role.

Robin Hood: Men in Tights overcomes its tired jokes with great production design and spot-on performances.

The same could be said for the rest of the cast. These very funny performers try their best with the material, but the script is almost constantly done in by the obvious humor. People who haven’t seen another Brooks film may find the jokes funny, but a veteran like myself can’t help but roll my eyes at the plethora of recycled material. I’d say about 80 percent of the jokes here are lifted wholesale from one of the director’s other comedies. There’s the obvious penis humor, the fourth-wall camera gags and the villain who keeps saying the wrong thing, and some lines are straight up copied (“It’s good to be the king,” for example). When I’m hearing these jokes for the third or fourth time in a Brooks movie, I can’t help but be distracted by the laziness of it all.

Thankfully, the visual gags fare much better. A fight on a bridge involving sticks draws favorable comparisons to my favorite scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and a gag involving a sword with a, shall we say, mind of its own is my favorite moment in the whole movie. I also got a big kick out of Maid Marion’s chastity belt (“It’s an Everlast”).

The film gains major ground by being so amiably goofy and charming. It’s all very silly, but, unlike Spaceballs, the pacing doesn’t feel slack. Even in its more annoying moments, you can tell everyone making it was having a ton of fun. It’s kind of a musical, and the songs are all pretty memorable (one even gets a legitimate pop treatment during the end credits, a fact I found uproarious, though I’m not sure why).

It’s also, on the whole, a pretty good adaptation of its source material. Brooks didn’t skimp on the swashbuckling; there are some great sword fights here, and they’re a blast. The choreography of the musical numbers is also very good; I’m glad there was so much effort put into the production design, costume and makeup, because it really shows. The grotesque hag Latrine, played by Tracy Ullman, models this in one of the film’s funniest performances.

Although the supporting cast is great (I particularly like Richard Lewis’ Prince John), the film really does belong to Elwes’ Robin Hood. This is the kind of role he was born to play; he’s got just the right amount of cocksure swagger and charm, along with the fighting skills, to make the famous character come alive in a fresh way. It may be similar to his performance in Princess Bride, but that doesn’t make it any less excellent.

Robin Hood: Men in Tights is a good time. It’s nothing that spectacular, but I don’t think it’s supposed to be. The film’s lazier elements are balanced out by a charming tone and laid back pacing. If you’re watching TV’s Galavant and enjoying it, you’re sure to like the sublime silliness on display here.

Like with The 12 Chairs, I had no idea Life Stinks existed before I watched it for this retrospective. And, once again, my lack of expectation paid off. Unlike The 12 Chairs, this is no lost masterpiece; in fact, in some ways it isn’t even very good. But it does things no other Brooks film has even attempted, and is definitely worth a look for fans who may have never heard of it like me.

The jokes in Life Stinks are, on the whole, pretty mediocre, but this is the one time in Brooks’ filmography where that is not a deal breaker, because I don’t really see this as a comedy. It’s more of a dramedy, a film that flirts with comedic elements but, on the whole, has something more serious and important than laughter on its mind.

Brooks casts himself as Goddard Bolt, a filthy rich business mogul and unlikable cad who dreams of turning a well-known L.A. slum into a shopping complex. But Bolt’s business rival Vance Craswell (Jeffrey Tambor), who matches Bolt in both wealth and complete disregard for human life, wants to build his own complex on the same land. So the two make a gentleman’s bet: if Bolt can survive 30 days on the streets without his money or his power, Craswell will concede the land. But, if Bolt gives up, the land is Craswell’s.

Will Bolt survive 30 days on the streets when he hasn’t worked a day in his life? Will he learn valuable lessons about the dignity of his fellow man? If you’re breathing air, you already know the answer. Everything here has been done before; from the rich man’s bet (hello Trading Places) to the unlikable guy who finds the heart he never knew he had (too many 80’s movies to count).

Bolt wanders the streets as he attempts to learn and master the art of being homeless, everything from perusing soup kitchens to performing for money to finding a place to sleep. Along the way he befriends a colorful cast of characters, including Sailor (Howard Morris), Fumes (Teddy Wilson) and the fiery Molly (Lesley Ann Warren). The first half of the film is filled with a lot of jokes that fall rather flat, but when tragedy strikes, it’s pretty emotional. Brooks has never handled true drama very well, but here it works better than the comedy. The film balances the light moments with the heavy reality of homelessness brilliantly.

Life Stinks is a charming and well-acted addition to the Brooks canon.

Despite the movie’s familiar concepts, it still feels refreshing because for once Brooks made a straightforward movie, with a plot and complete character arcs, rather than a spoof. In concept and theme, it feels very much influenced by the films of John Landis and Harold Ramis. But rather than riffing on those directors’ styles, it’s more of a loving homage. It’s also the rare Brooks films with a socially conscious message; the filmmaker has something valuable (though pretty obvious) to say about the human condition.

But the real reason to check Life Stinks out is the acting. Everyone here is a home run. Tambor, currently making waves with his head-turning role in the Amazon show Transparent, is really funny as the goofy-yet-vindictive Craswell. His comedic timing is impeccable. Brooks gives what is perhaps his best-ever performance, balancing the funny and the tragic elements of his character with ease. There’s a sequence near the end set in a hospital wing that had me rolling, but then I felt guilty, because Bolt is actually in a lot of pain and at his lowest moment, and other characters are taking advantage of that for a laugh. I’ve never seen Brooks straddle the line of the tragicomic so well, as a director or as an actor.

The real star, however, is Warren as Molly. She starts out goofy and more than a little crazy, but once we learn her backstory we begin to understand why she is so bitter at the world, and how she tries to hide her pain by looking tough and brushing aside her real emotions with off-color jokes. It’s an incredibly affecting performance, and I can’t say enough about how much nuance and energy she brings to the entire film.

While the movie features some interesting left turns for Brooks as a director, there’s still some reliably entertaining Brooks moments, including a sweet musical number and some good ol’ slapstick. But the directorial trait that shines through the most here is heart. This is a passionate, tough little film that you can tell everyone involved poured their hearts and souls into. The result is so infectious, you can’t help but smile.

Life Stinks is a charming and delightfully old-fashioned slice-of-life story. Some might find its clichés and predictable story beats distracting, but the movie has more than enough heart and stellar performances to make up for it. It’s a true gem for Brooks fans looking for something a little different.

The facts of Louie Zamperini’s life are extraordinary, but what truly makes his story one-of-a-kind are the emotions involved. Fear, pain, courage and faith—the kind of all-encompassing dedication that only the strongest survivors possess—these feelings often coexisted in what must be one of the most extraordinary lives ever lived. No wonder Hollywood has been trying to make a movie about his life since the 1950’s.

Director Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken, based upon Laura Hillenbrand’s bestseller, does a fine job with the facts of Zamperini’s life, but struggles in making us feel the deep emotion and empathy a story like his  should evoke.

The film chronicles Louie’s almost unbelievable story of survival: after the WWII bomber’s plane crashed over the Pacific, he was stranded at sea for 43 days before being captured by the Japanese and hustled around to several POW camps, each with increasingly brutal conditions. He survived relentless torture, beatings and immense starvation, as well as the kind of psychological damage it takes a lifetime of recovery to overcome.

Louie’s dramatic struggles during the war are intermingled with stories of his childhood and teenage years; a young Italian-American drifter with no direction, he was convinced by his brother, Pete, to take up running and eventually became a star, breaking records during the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

The cuts between the intense scenes of war and the quiet backstory are sometimes jarring, but set a nice pace until the war scenes take over. The first half of the film is pretty extraordinary; the stranded-at-sea segment, in particular, is absolutely riveting. But once Louie is imprisoned and becomes a merciless target for the brutal camp commander Watanabe, also known as The Bird (Takamasa Ishihara, rather miscast), the movie settles into a workmanlike pacing that really drags the film down. Scenes of quiet power, whispered conversations between POWs as they find ways to steal food and listen in on news about the war effort, are juxtaposed with scenes of increasingly brutal—and numbing—physical and emotional abuse.

Even if you haven’t read Hillenbrand’s book, it’s easy to guess that Jolie and a slew of writers (the Coen Brothers, Richard LaGravenese and Willaim Nicholson) are giving us the Spark Notes version; easily digestible, pretty and rather dull. The plot is missing some crucial links. Louie’s Olympic runner backstory is pretty interesting, until it’s abandoned. How did Louie end up as a soldier, exactly? We’re told Louie misses his family terribly, but we only get one brief scene of them coping with his potential loss during his two-year absence. There are many scenes where the audience is expected to extrapolate emotions that the movie doesn’t deliver on, which leads to a lot of tonal confusion.

Unbroken is a serviceable but hardly gripping biopic.

How are we supposed to feel, for example, when The Bird begins to relentlessly beat Louie with his belt? Are we angry at The Bird? Sure, but there is more to his character than the movie is willing to reveal. Why does he pick on Louie so much? What is his endgame? Is he simply a sadist, or does he feel he is doing what is right for his country? The central relationship in the film is between these two men with unbreakable spirits, yet we can’t get a bead on exactly what their relationship is, other than tormentor vs. captor.

Then there’s the ending, which may leave many cold. The film ends on a nice note, but then come the credits, with more than a few “explainers” letting us know what happened to the characters next. Might we have seen, for example, Louie’s battle with nightmares and alcoholism following the war? His trouble marriage? Or his ultimate redemption, brought about by his conversion to Christianity and his desire to make peace with his wartime captors? There is a powerful story of redemption here, but why did the filmmakers feel the need to bury it? Many war epics are three hours, but this one clocks in closer to two. I’m usually a fan of brevity, but in this case an extra hour could have given us a fuller picture on the scope of Louie’s life.

Despite the film’s myriad flaws, there is brilliance here, and that mainly comes in the form of Jack O’Connell, who does an outstanding job as Louie. O’Connell conveys emotions that would take pages to explain in a book through a simple glare, a laugh or an off-color joke. Where the writing falters in portraying the indomitable spirit of this man, O’Connell fills in the gaps. It’s one of the most physically grueling, effortless performances in ages.

As usual, I have to praise Roger Deakins’ cinematography as well. This is just a gorgeous-looking film, from the translucent blues of the ocean to the black soot of a coal mine, this is as polished-looking a movie as you’re likely to find this year.

Jolie is no slouch behind the camera, either. She makes good use of tracking shots and long takes, letting the movie’s best scenes play out without rushing us along too quickly.

The filmmakers have testified to how difficult making Unbroken was, and the struggle shows in almost every frame. From the writing to the staging to the editing, the film is like a pie with too many fingers in it. Making movies is hard work, but it should never look this hard. I think Louie’s story would actually be much better suited to a TV miniseries, a medium that would allow the emotions of his journey to really sink in. We may get a great filmed version of the life of Louie Zamperini someday. But, while Unbroken is passionate and occasionally stirring filmmaking, we’ll have to keep on waiting.

Whatever criticisms you may level at the first two films of Peter Jackson’s ambitious trilogy of Hobbit films (and there are many), one thing is certain: they did not lack heart. Amidst Jackson’s increasingly bothersome dependence on over-indulgent CGI and a few too-many side plots and characters, the story, conflict and emotions at the center have remained very engaging.

I feared that The Battle of the Five Armies, the third film in the trilogy (not a word I ever thought I’d use to describe a Hobbit adaptation), would buck the trend, focusing entirely too much on the battle the title emphasizes and foregoing a satisfying conclusion to the journey of Bilbo and the dwarves in their effort to reclaim their homeland.

I’m very glad to say I was wrong. While the film does indeed feature a handful of entirely spectacular battle sequences, it’s the quiet moments of the film I’ll remember the most, the kind of intimate conversations and interactions that elevated Jackson’s previous Lord of the Rings trilogy into legend.

The story picks up immediately after the last film left off, with the menacing dragon Smaug (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch) set to destroy the city of Lake town and its inhabitants. That threat is dispensed of rather quickly (and anticlimactically) when warrior Bard (Luke Evans) fells the beast with a spear. But even bigger troubles are brewing.

After reclaiming the mountain of Erebor from Smaug, the dwarves hole themselves up in the mountain as leader Thorin (Richard Armitage) attempts to locate a magic stone that belonged to his father. But the others fear his increasing isolation and jealous nature may be the result of “dragon sickness;” an obsession with gold. Things get worse when Thorin refuses to allow the displaced people of Lake town asylum in the mountain as he had originally promised. And others have a stake in the mountain too: the Elves, led by Thranduil (Lee Pace), have jewels in the mountain that belong to them. And the menacing orc Azog the Defiler is amassing his own orc army to storm the mountain, which could act as sort of a strategic military stronghold for the Necromancer, who is on his way to reclaiming his former title of Lord Sauron. These varying conflicts set the stage for a massive battle that could determine the future of Middle Earth.

A big problem with this setup is the lack of a very particular character: a Hobbit. The title refers to Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), who has accompanied the dwarves on their journey to reclaim their homeland. J.R.R. Tolkien’s original story focused on the perspective of this little Hobbit as he comes to terms with the mighty challenges around him. In this film, there’s so much politics to focus on and so many characters, Bilbo gets a bit lost in the equation. And that’s a shame, because Freeman is a very fine Bilbo, once again striking that fine balance between heroism and helplessness that made Frodo Baggins and Sam Gamgee such classic characters in the original trilogy.

Despite some missteps, the final Hobbit movie wraps up the tale in a grand and satisfying fashion.

But Bilbo still plays an important part in the story, acting as sort of the clear-headed mediator between the various warring parties. And his relationship to Thorin grows even stronger and more affecting than before. Freeman and Armitage are world-class actors, and seeing them playing off each other in-between the movie’s many frenetic moments is a real pleasure.

Other characters receive a far less noble sendoff. I ultimately appreciate the direction the filmmakers took new Elvish character Tauriel (Evangeline Lily) and her complicated relationship with Kili the dwarf (Aidan Turner). But Legolas (Orlando Bloom) fails to justify his appearance in the movie besides getting to be in some badass action scenes.

A parallel storyline concerning the fate of Gandalf (Ian McKellan) and his struggle against the Necromancer’s forces also falls flat. We get token re-appearances from Galadriel (Cate Blanchett), Elrond (Hugo Weaving) and Saruman (Christopher Lee), but after the extensive buildup these characters got in the previous films, their sendoff seems pretty unceremonious and anti-climactic. Their roles are essentially reduced to cameos.

I expect the main draw of the movie will be the titular battle (or rather, series of battles), and they deliver big-time. Although never matching the scope or scale of the Lord of the Rings films (how could they?), the battles are nonetheless mighty impressive. Despite a large middle section that consists of little more than action, it’s amazing how Jackson and company were able to keep things interesting. Part of this is the changing perspectives as we jump back and forth between characters, but another part is the variety of battles on display. We leave a massive, clashing army for a smaller skirmish or one of several one-on-one fights, and it’s all so thrilling to watch. I saw it in 3-D, and I highly recommend it. The action, much of it set against a gorgeous snowy backdrop, really pops off the screen, and it speaks to what Jackson has been able to do with 10 years of advanced technology since we left the original trilogy.

But I was most grateful for how the film handles the book’s big moments in its latter half. There are a lot of deaths in the book, and I dreaded the moments they arrived on screen. It really speaks to how the filmmakers have allowed us to connect with these characters in a way that even the brief book could never really get around to. Without spoiling anything, I was really pleased with the way these events were handled onscreen (despite one notable exception).

I was hoping that Five Armies’ relatively brief running time (compared to the first two anyway) would mean we could avoid being subjected to Jackson’s hackneyed attempts to directly tie the events of The Hobbit into The Lord of the Rings, even though their events are set decades apart. Alas, this just means these pointless diversions were truncated, rather than excised entirely. I already mentioned the disappointing wrap up to the Necromancer story arc, but what’s even worse is the nudge-nudge-wink-wink references to other LOTR characters the writers couldn’t find a way to squeeze in here. There’s also the wrap-around story introduced at the beginning of the first movie, which I found irritating to begin with. It comes full circle here, in a haphazard, almost slapdash fashion. It’s pretty groan-worthy.

Thankfully, the movie has it where it counts. Despite its many diversions, the story wraps up the intimate tale of its source material perfectly. In its best moments, it matches both the intimacy and the grandeur of Jackson’s magnificent original trilogy. This is the closest a Hobbit movie has come to matching it. I have to question some of the director’s more iffy creative decisions, but on the whole I was satisfied with the grand finale of this Middle Earth tale. If you’ve enjoyed this take on the Hobbit tale thus far, Five Armies will not disappoint.

As a big Star Wars fan, I’m always down for a good spoof of George Lucas’ seminal sci-fi saga. But, let’s face it, Mel Brooks’ Spaceballs is really dumb. It’s less Blue Harvest and more Thumb Wars.

It’s strange to compare Mel Brooks’ comedy to any other Star Wars spoof because Spaceballs, refreshingly, is not intent to re-hash the story every movie fan knows so well. It’s more of an original story that uses comedic archetypes of Star Wars’ major characters. But the movie’s biggest sin is that, no matter how badly I want it to be, it’s just not very funny. The gags are pretty tired and the puns are mostly groan-worthy. But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth seeing.

The story opens with Princess Vespa (Daphne Zuniga) of the planet Druidia and her arranged marriage to a narcoleptic cad of a prince whom she doesn’t love. She runs away with her robot assistant Dot Matrix (voiced by Joan Rivers) but is soon captured by the (initially) menacing Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis). Under the orders of President Skroob (Mel Brooks), he plans to save the planet Spaceball, running low on air, by stealing Druidia’s oxygen supply.

Spaceballs is a rather sluggish but occasionally funny sci-fi spoof.

The Druidian king (Dick Van Patten) hires mercenary duo Lone Starr and Barf (Bill Pullman and John Candy) to save the princess and ultimately the planet from destruction. Along the way, Lone Starr learns of a mysterious presence called “the Schwartz” as he attempts to unravel his own troubled backstory.

I admire the way Brooks and crew managed to create original, unique characters while still playing off of the major Star Wars players. The memorable characters are more thanks to the acting than the writing. Joan Rivers’ C-3PO knock-off falls pretty flat, but John Candy and Rick Moranis easily steal the show. Moranis is a perfect Dark Helmet, making the dichotomy between his menacing reputation and his stunted, dweeby appearance all the more funny. He gets the film’s best (and really only) physical comedy, which I found to be pretty brilliant. Candy, as Chewbacca substitute Barf, manages to add weight as well as humor to an underwritten role.

The production design is also pretty excellent, from the sometimes imaginative sets (a flying Winnebago rather than the Millennium Falcon) to the music (John Morris’ score is a pretty suitable substitute for John Williams’ famous tunes) to the spot-on costumes. Even in the world of a spoof, Brooks manages to create a universe all his own.

Thank goodness the acting and visuals are generally good, because the writing is not. This is Brooks’ cheesiest dialogue by a mile, and his ever-famous puns are pretty eye-rolling. The pacing of the film is painfully slow, even at an hour and a half, and the stretches that go without a joke that hits can feel interminable. Many of the references to franchises like Star Trek and Indiana Jones feel phoned in for name recognition, like they’re not even trying to get a laugh.

But there are very funny moments here. Consider Pizza the Hut, a marvelously disgusting creation, who melts and oozes cheese and pepperoni while trying to sound menacing (he only gets one scene, but it’s great). It’s incredibly absurd, but so odd that it somehow works (it probably helps that he’s voiced by Dom DeLuise). A great meta-joke involving VHS tapes gets big laughs and also doubles as a Mel Brooks film history lesson. And a clever running gag is a great commentary on the commercialization and rampant merchandising of big-budget Hollywood blockbusters.

Sadly, these great jokes are few and far in-between. The majority of Spaceballs is a bit of a slog. It’s a charming little film, and one of Brooks’ most visually appealing, but this is light years away from the acerbic, groundbreaking wit of something like The Producers. It’s worth seeing, but there’s not much here worth re-visiting a second time.