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

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I have long been torn between this and 2001: A Space Odyssey as vying for the title of Kubrick's best movie. Having watched the former again, I would have to call it a draw.

Dr Strangelove brilliantly dissects the insanity of "Mutually Assured Destruction" , the Cold War policy that led to the ability to wipe out the human race many times over. Sadly, nothing has been learnt from it. Nuclear arsenals remain. Perhaps this film should be mandatory viewing for political leaders who have control of such things.

Peter Sellars gives some of the best film performances of his career as an RAF officer, then deranged Nazi scientific adviser to his portrayal of a US president.

The film looks very good in this 1080p version.

OK, don't bother to watch Dr. Strangelove until you watch Fail-Safe, preferably back-to-back. Why? Well, first, Dr. Strangelove will serve as comic relief after watching the stark, horrifying concepts and paranoia over a nuclear holocaust proffered by Fail-Safe and second, Fail-Safe will give you a proper frame of the reference Strangelove so giddily lampoons.
The movie itself, while dated in it's concepts, is a tour-de-force (or perhaps a tour-de-farce?) From the multiple characters played by Peter Sellers through the stellar acting by some of Hollywood's greatest! And, perhaps with the exception of Slim Pickens' over-the-top B-52 commander, all done with a sublime straight face.

Una gran sátira entre sátiras; una cinta que deja a entender la discreta estupidez del ser humano al uso de la bomba nuclear y sus personajes relacionados a la guerra.

Put aside Goerge C. Scott chewing gum in the war room while delivering too spoofy militarist lines; this is a great, happy, brilliant, cold war satire. Strangelove monologue in how to stop worrying and think on survival confusing fuhrer and president, is the best part.

If I told you a epic war movie could be just an hour and a half long, would you believe me? This is when Stanley Kubrick comes into play and creates a black and white suspense story of Russia and the USA at war.

This movie is defiantly one of the best of its time. Every actor in this movie is at the top of their game. Especially Peter Sellers who played 3 different characters and still didnt win an Oscar, no that is not a typo, its true. I thought the suspense was great it kept me on the edge of my seat. The comedy was there and it was great to ease some of that tension between the Russians and the USA.

A couple things that bugged me was the movie starts right away there is no back story, its just boom movie GO! I was a little surprised at that, I thought it would be a little longer. There was one scene that felt particularly long and drawn out. Also I wish there was more Dr. Strangelove!

All in all the movie was fun, it kept me on the edge of my seat, had some drawn out parts, but defiantly a work of art from Kubrick.

Dr. Stranglelove is an excellent film! Another amazing Peter Sellers performance mixed with addicting theme music.

Dr. Strangelove is, first and foremost, absolutely unflinching... Kubrick's precise use of camera angles, his uncanny sense of lighting, his punctuation with close-ups and occasionally with zoom shots, all galvanize the picture into macabre yet witty reality.
Dr. Strangelove applies to nuclear war, but its vicious examination of the nature of war itself gives it a timeless quality that survived the fall of the Soviet Union. It reduces war to the exploits of men whose inferiority complexes drive them to kill. Even when a nuke sets off the Russian doomsday machine and it spells the end of mankind, Turgidson and the Russian ambassador still bicker, and the ambassador sneaks off to take secret photos of the War Room. Why on Earth would he do this? Does he not understand that the notion of politics no longer has any meaning? It's just his job; who knows if Americans will agree to a peace settlement as a band of specially-chosen survivors flee to mine shafts, or vice-versa. Even at the end of civilization, man will look for any excuse to kill someone else.

To be honest, this movie was the only one directed by Stanley Kubrick with which I didn't have much a connection. I mean, I did like it but it didn't blow me away like the rest of his movies. On the other hand, I saw it only once and it was 15 years ago. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to watch it again recently and, this time, I understood why it was regarded as one of his best movies. It was the only comedy made by the great master and, as expected from the best director ever, it ended up being one of the best comedies ever made. Indeed, there were so many hysterical and hilarious scenes, I couldn't pick just one. Furthermore, everybody remembers Peter Sellers who was indeed excellent but the rest of the cast was also pretty awesome (George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Slim Pickens). Above all, I enjoyed the fact that it was very timely, especially when it was made and it was also very smart compared to all the stupid comedies they make nowadays. For example, everything happening in the plane was really accurate and made the whole thing even more surreal. Personally, I won't give it a higher rating because I don't think it was such a masterpiece as it was quite funny but not really hilarious. Still, it is one of the best comedies I have seen and it is definitely worth, especially if you are interested in Stanley Kubrick's work.

When I first saw this film 2 years ago, I saw it, I thought about it for a second, and I thought it was good, but I didn't understand why it was so universally loved. Really high on IMDB's Top 250 list, has a near perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes, put high on a few of AFI's lists, and at the top of many people's and critic's all time favorite films. So I got to thinking, why was it so well loved?

So, I saw it cheap on Amazon, so I bought it and I gave it a rewatch. Now, having rewatched it, I now understand why this film is so great. First, you can't really talk about the film without talking about the time period this film was released. It was made at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Cold War. So the idea of making a dark comedy about nuclear devastation at the height of all that was very bold. So I will give the film credit there.

This film is a very funny and interesting look at war, holocaustic catastrophe, and humanity. Even on the verge at the end of the world, humans are still selfish, racist, and untrusting. I also think it's funny how they have all of these pre-cautions in hopes of preventing nuclear war, and yet it's those pre-cautions that actually cause most of the problems in this films.

So what you have is a very bizarre dark comedy that has everything that could conceivably go wrong, go wrong all the while the people witnessing the whole thing don't change, waste time, and only make the problem worse rather than fixing it.

Speaking of the people, almost every actor in this film is great. Overacting, ham acting, etc. Expect that kind of acting and it's all fantastic. I also had no idea that Peter Sellars was playing the 3 parts at first. I had to look it up to find out. Multi-acting at it's finest.

All of these combine together with hilarious scenes, great memorable characters, and a plot that is brilliant. I personally think that it's a film you have to stop and think about in order to understand it. Once you realize it and watch it maybe twice, you can see why it's so beloved. For my money, it's really great. Just took me a while to see why.

Stanley Kubrick's best film - a masterpiece.