Robin Williams: Weapons of Self Destruction (2009) Reviews

• just hilarious

  lee_eisenberg2009-12-18

  I saw Robin Williams in concert in 2002 and was hoarse from laughing by the end of the concert. "Robin Williams: Weapons of Self Destruction" is the same sort of humor, except focusing on more recent topics (namely Sarah Palin). As always with Williams, he's always a joke or two ahead by the time you figure out a joke, and laughing the whole time. One or two of the jokes I had heard before, but it's still a hoot how he puts everything out, complete with various accents (his Scottish accent is always the best). This is certainly one of Williams's best. It shows that without a doubt, Williams is best in unrestrained form (I have no plans to ever see "Old Dogs"). Just hilarious.

• A great insight look of the mind of comedian, Robin Williams

  ironhorse_iv2014-09-13

  The death of Robin Williams, a beloved comedic and dramatic actor in 2014 was very hard hitting for most of his fans. People were prompted with emotion, when it was found out, that he killed himself. Looking back at it, Robin Williams: Weapon of Self-Destruction show early signs where Robin William was heading. After all, the title 'Weapon of Self-Destruction,' doesn't ring happiest. It's really hard to tell, if a comedian was indeed joking or calling for a cry for help. At the time, the jokes in here, were pretty dark, but nobody could had guess that Robin Williams would indeed act upon the things that he was preaching against. What drives people to suicide is a mystery, only the victim could answer. We, the audience could only guess what, they were thinking. You can tell that the comedian was trying to reignite his career in 2009, after several of his main lead movies in the 2000's became bombs at the box office. Becoming too much of a gamble, producers were nearly unwilling to pay the enough of money to keep Robin William as a leading man. Since then, Williams took smaller acting in smaller films to pay his bills. This may have led to money troubles. It didn't help that 2009 was a rough year for Williams. His second marriage just ended, due to citing irreconcilable differences and he had really bad heart problems. These factors force Williams to return back to his roots, and try out 'Stand up", once more. Robin Williams did a special for HBO about his first solo TV concert since 2002 filmed at Washington D.C.'s DAR Constitution Hall on his sold-out "Weapons of Self Destruction" national tour. It was here that Robin covers a range of topics such as global warning, health care in America, politics, sex and others. He even put spotlight in more personal topics such as his recent open heart surgery, his past drug and alcohol abuse, and his struggle with severe depression. All the jokes were nearly all hits than misses to the funny bone to me. Still, the special was missing something. The jokes really have no pattern to them. Robin Williams really jumps around way too much here. It didn't flow right. I know that William use Free association in the past, but it was bit distracting here. Even for 2009, some of the humor was really dated as if he told them, years before. Why was he talking about the changing of the Pope in 2009? It felt like we jump back into a time machine to 2005, where that joke would had made more sense. Even the Bill Clinton humor, while mostly timeless, felt a bit odd to hear. It felt like some joke that he forgot to talk about in the 1990s. At less, he got some of his future predictions right. South America pope. Who knew, right! Some critics might hate the special due to the fact, that Williams said that this was his last chance to make jokes at the expense of the Bush administration, but by the time the show was staged, only a few minutes covered that subject. It felt a bit false advertisement. I love the fact that most of his humor in this, was for the intellectual audience. It takes a higher level of wit to make them laugh. Still, there were some stupid humor here, but it wasn't too much in bad taste or felt offending. Some critics might not like the special due to the harsh language that Robin Williams use. Anybody, who knows Robin William's previous stand up works; knows that it isn't PG. Sadly, most people know him for his work in children movies, so it's hard for certain people to give him free range in comedy. This special is definitely not appropriate for kids as it's a bit raw and raunchy. His delivery is hectic, frenetic, and hyper. You can tell with how many times, he go to the water bottles that was place for him, which occasionally become props in his act. Is it distracting? Not really, in my opinion, he still performance with the greatest of ease. I love the way, he able to use his voice to make his act felt more illuminating. The way, he created voice impressions of people, including Walter Cronkite, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Stewart, Popeye and others here were amazing. In this special, you really see, why Robin Williams is not only a great voice actor, but a great slapstick body actor. He work out a story through body motions, like a loud-mouth mime on steroids. Still, it was a bit odd to see, William stimulate sex scenes or have a talking penis. It was also pretty nice to see his ability to improv as the opening to the special, didn't really go his way, due to certain late guests. Overall: He's still one of the best in the industry, and I'll be adding this to my collection for sure. It's a must-watch for any Robin Williams fan. I do recommended it.

• a million things on Williams mind, and most of them make for comic gold

  Quinoa19842009-12-31

  Robin Williams' mind moves at a clip that is still unfathomable. He's reaching into his late 50's, and yet with a few bottles of water on stage (far less than he had at his 2002 Broadway show, but I digress) he can go on a series of topics with rapid-fire energy and a clarity that is incredible. His topics range from topical to more philosophical, but not exactly in the George Carlin sense. No, he has some more 'unique' ways of talking about the human condition, such as his closing act about how human beings would go about (or mostly just talk about) creating the male and female sexual organs. Just watching and listening Williams describe in full anatomical detail like it's interior decorating is some of the funniest and sharpest material of the decade. Some of the jokes may fall flat or not connect quite as much as Williams intends, but why carp? Just around the bend will be another joke that will rip your vocal chords out and have you glad he took you along the way. No one is spared- certainly not the past president Bush and his people- and there's always a voice or a character or vulgarity waiting to come out of his head and at the audience. It's mostly masterful work by a comedian who knows what he's talking about every step of the way, even if it would appear he might trail off and never come back to what he was talking about before. You'll want to re-watch it to see what you missed, or to just have the experience of some of his crazier stories like getting heart surgery ("Hm, a pig or a cow heart valve?") and the dangers of non-sexual-intended Viagra!

• Robin scrapes the bottom of the barrel

  Nozz2010-04-01

  This comedy set is fine for people who laugh at any drug joke or penis joke, no matter how old or poorly constructed, but Robin Williams used to be so much better, more original and with a greater range of schtick. It's hard not to notice how often he punctuates a gag by announcing that it's "number one" of a series of observations. (Usually he does provide another but without numbering it.) His material about growing older rang true, and it was certainly fresher than a Jimmy Stewart imitation or a talking-vagina gag (both of which he does resort to), but I suppose that to focus on approaching the age of 60 would be to lose much of the audience-- at least the audience that we see photographed, who seem to be half Robin's age.

• A fitting, standup swan song

  StevePulaski2014-08-12

  As of yesterday, August 11, 2014, Robin Williams: Weapons of Self Destruction stands as the final televised comedy special by the man we'll ever see, and to leave a career off on this particular show isn't at all a bad thing. At fifty-eight years old at the time of filming this, Williams seems as energetic and zealous as ever, prancing around the stage for eighty-nine minutes, with no breaks or intermissions, showing himself as a nonstop comedic force of nature. In such a short time, Williams show himself doing great impressions, questioning life, and doing something few film roles allowed him to do - be so brazenly crude and bawdy. Despite his crudeness, Williams entices with a certain sense of wit and wordplay to his mannerisms and lectures. Williams, for one, transitions from topic-to-topic, regardless of how outlandish the previous topic was, smoothly and fearlessly, never missing a beat or interrupting himself, resulting in a lost sense of continuity. In five minutes, Williams amusingly and thoughtfully discusses wildfires, marijuana, tornadoes, and hurricanes, making easy transitions into each topic. He continues on by frequently dropping hilarious jokes, such as the commonality between a tornado and a divorce in the south is that someone inevitably loses a trailer and that the reasons Germany doesn't have any comedians or funny personalities is because they tried to kill them all decades back. Arguably the most entertaining is when Williams reminds us how asinine our recent history has been, saying that "it's like we've been on the drug 'f*** it all' for the past eight years," as he recounts political events from 2000 to 2008. Through and through, Williams is entertaining as hell, spirited, clearly working off of ample amounts of energy, not fumes of it, and offering advice and keen observations at every turn. He even gives us one of the most memorable statements on marriage I've ever heard which is, "there are penalties for early withdrawal and depositing into another account." Directed by: Marty Callner.