I was a bit disappointed with "Sleeper" in comparison to other early Woody Allen films. This is most likely due the amount of slapstick comedy, which I found to be a little too alien for a Woody Allen picture. This is not to say that the slapstick was not funny at times, just that Woody Allen really excels at plot/dialog driven comedy and the slapstick became redundant and the humor was lost. However, this should not detract from how funny this film is especially in comparison to most of today's silver screen comedies, even recent Woody Allen contributions.
Putting the slapstick aside, "Sleeper" employed a lot of Sci-Fi archetypes: the sleeper, an American dystopia with an Orwellian "Leader," androids and machine living, cloning, and so on. Unfortunately, Woody Allen doesn't really joke on these Sci-Fi conventions, instead the film mocked American pop culture up to 1973. This dates the film more so than the antiquated look of the "futuristic" computers, and in my opinion, a missed opportunity to give some really good jabs to the Sci-Fi genre.
Putting the slapstick aside, "Sleeper" employed a lot of Sci-Fi archetypes: the sleeper, an American dystopia with an Orwellian "Leader," androids and machine living, cloning, and so on. Unfortunately, Woody Allen doesn't really joke on these Sci-Fi conventions, instead the film mocked American pop culture up to 1973. This dates the film more so than the antiquated look of the "futuristic" computers, and in my opinion, a missed opportunity to give some really good jabs to the Sci-Fi genre.