I was very disappointed in this movie and surprised to see it so highly rated by IMDb viewers. I think you have to want to like this film a great deal in order to find much joy in it. I can see why Chaplin's own story would tip some folks toward giving it the sympathy vote, but face it, if this were, heaven forbid, the only Chaplin film you had ever seen, wouldn't you come away from this wondering why he was regarded as such a comic genius? It has intermittent moments of satirical insight and a broad range of targets in its send-up of 1950's American culture. But Chaplin did it with so much more balance between entertainment and enlightenment in films like "The Great Dictator" and "Modern Times" that this one suffers greatly by comparison. Cheap-looking sets, relatively no-name actors, and a rather rushed pace in far too many scenes keep this "King" off my list of royal Chaplin experiences.
Review of A King in New York
