Diagonaldi Very well executed

ScoobyMint Disappointment for a huge fan!

Helllins It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

robert-temple-1 This is a very funny film written and directed by Marshall Brickman, who wrote Woody Allen's ANNIE HALL, MANHATTAN, and MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY, as well as numerous other films. He only directed four films, of which this is the first, and it shows the least directorial skill unfortunately. His second film LOVESICK (1983, see my review) was much more satisfactory as a film. SIMON should have been far more hilarious than it is, but Brickman was too inexperienced and did not plot the pace sufficiently to keep the action moving, so that it repeatedly sags with people talking for too long, and with too much space between the jokes. However, it is very good value if you are willing to go with the flow and not mind the minor faults. Austin Pendleton is the co-star, along with Alan Arkin, and Madeleine Kahn is one of the two female leads. Austin is my cousin, and I believe he and I met Maddy Kahn together for the first time at the Upstairs at the Downstairs when she was still doing live shows, long before she was ever in a movie. This film is a comic sci fi caper, where a think tank full of mad scientists interested in brainwashing techniques, which is run by Austin, choose Arkin for an experiment. They put him into an isolation tank for a very long period of sensory deprivation and persuade him that he is an alien. Much of the comedy then results from Arkin's behaviour once he comes to believe this. Wallace Shawn adds good support, as he always does. I won't spoil the ending by discussing what this all leads to, but 'a good time was had by all', as they say.

fedor8 One of those comedies which are interesting rather than funny. Not that "Simon" is particularly interesting either, but it does have the benefit of being somewhat unusual, straying from the norm until the last third when it gets more formulaic: the wicked, wicked military chasing "the alien" (don't they always chase to kill?), media attention surrounding the title character (a mega-cliché in comedies), and a love interest that brings Simon back to Earth (I'm allowed a bad pun now and again, I believe).Lurking behind all the silliness is quite possibly the writer's social/political agenda, but it is so clumsily presented that it remains unclear where this guy stands politically. (And you can bet your pants that a Hollywood writer will NOT be wise enough to send a politically neutral message, i.e. mocking both sides of the fence for greater impact.) On one hand Simon quotes the Bible, but on the other he cites Sergey Eisenstein as the epitome of a great film-maker; those are contradictory signals, making it difficult to pin down the writer's political orientation. However, considering that he got a chance to write for Hollywood movies, and taking into account the extremely high percentage of left-wingers in U.S. cinema, I'd put my money on him being yet another liberal whining about "modern consumer-obsessed society" or some such childish nonsense. It's just that this one is probably a little confused, hence the way he went about it while writing the script.On the other hand, who could argue with the proposal to send all lawyers who lose a case to prison along with their defendant? Some of Simon's propositions are obviously goofy, included just for laughs, but some clearly reflect the writer's own frustrations with 70s America, so it's hard to figure him out. It's almost as if he used Simon both to mock him and as a jumping board for his own views - which is like wanting to have your cake and eat it too. Whatever the case, it's safe to say the writer is a bit of a malcontent who'd never personally experienced the Third World (or for that matter, the "Second World") in his whole life.I like Arkin, and he's generally well-suited to playing oddballs, but I had a feeling that perhaps someone like Steve Martin or even Bill Murray would have been funnier. Martin is funnier than Arkin when he shouts, and there is plenty of shouting, whereas Murray could have made the character more of a wise-ass hence funnier; Murray is better at playing those, and less suited to playing idealistic victims of circumstance so I guess Simon would have had to be toned down somewhat for Bill. This is not to say Arkin isn't interesting.

octavalvehandle I remember being very impressed with "Simon" when I saw it on a cable. But that was more than 20 years ago. What I remember was that the humor was clever and offbeat. It wasn't goofy, just weird and fun. There is a similarity to Woody Allen's "Sleeper" and I would also place film like "The President's Analyst" in the this category. Whether it was funny or not, I don't recall. But it doesn't really matter. There are many comedies that are extremely entertaining but not necessarily laugh-out-loud funny.Of all the films that are not available on DVD, this is near the top of my want list (along with another Alan Arkin film, "The Seven Percent Solution". I'm curious to see what I'd think of it now. The 9 star vote I've given it is based on my memory. Hopefully, when I see it again, it will hold up.

MartinHafer This movie started off better than probably 95% of the movies out there. The extremely funny segments where this think-tank of geniuses whose only aim is to jerk around the rest of the unsuspecting public were great. I loved how they used their superior intellect just to play one cruel joke after another on the world. The movie needed more of this sort of dark humor. However, when they decided to create their ultimate prank in the form of "Simon", the movie slowed to a deadly crawl! It was only at the end, when Simon caught on to their scheme that the movie got back on track. So, basically I loved the beginning and the end and everything else was a bit ponderous. Because of this, this is one movie ACHING for a re-make to correct these flaws.