THE MOUSE THAT ROARED (1959) **1/2 Much as I love Peter Sellers, I'm not sure I can embrace the orthodox perception of this film as a masterpiece. Elements of the plot are ingenious, and it's funny throughout, but for a film about superweapons it doesn't punch very hard. It's not an overtly political film, for the most part, but the insights it offers are well-taken, the pot-shots deserved. Philosophically I'm there, it's just kind of lightweight, and rarely laugh-out-loud funny. Sellers plays several roles, none better than Queen of the land. The master of commodious understatement, he invokes the most severe barbarity in the most gentle and restrained gesture. He's a good Queen, and “overstated” doesn't describe the best bits much better than “understated” does. A paradox, truly, worthy of rival gurus and fish-farmers. But never you mind, and I think it's best not to try too hard to think. The truths will come to you without effort, and so maybe they're the truest of all truths, important ones actually. And yet, don't we so often emphasize the peripheral at the expense of the fundamental....See? There, I did it again. They don't, always, so we should thank them for that, sometimes.
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