Cathardincu
Surprisingly incoherent and boring
XoWizIama
Excellent adaptation.
AutCuddly
Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,
mark.waltz
Oliver's under the weather with the flu, and he's got Laurel taking care of him, so you know how that will go. Between giving him all sorts of funky non-medications (including one cotton swabbed throat relaxant that looks like a tootsie roll) , overdoing it on blowing up an air mattress and chases around the bed with Hardy just getting angrier and angrier and not any better, this is a mild early comedy short with frequent gags that manage to be amusing in this often creaky two reeler. Annoyed neighbors keep popping in to demand quiet, but that just makes the situation worse. The rising mattress is perhaps the funniest bit, with everything going wrong that can go wrong.
VictorianCushionCat
'They go boom' was one of the first talkie Laurel and Hardy efforts and sets the standard for the physical punishment that Hardys character would endure in many shorts there-after.The nice touch with this film is that whilst as per usual Ollie has to suffer at the innocent but destructive hands of Stan, including the usual nasty knocks complemented by anguished looks to camera, this time he takes it whilst suffering a nasty cold.Highlights include a classic 'nail in water-pipe' incident, air mattress explosion, multiple head knocks and an overblown air mattress and through the laughter you are only human if you feel just a little sympathy for Ollie.Definitely one of the best Laurel and Hardy shorts to catch if like me, you're a fan of the slapstick humour and find nothing funnier than Oliver Hardy getting hurt, then sharing his pain with the audience so convincingly.
MartinHafer
Laurel and Hardy made a ton of comedy shorts so it was inevitable that they'd have a few disappointments. While this film is watchable and mildly amusing in spots, it is certainly not a very good film by their standards. The problem was the script. It was incredibly mundane and unexciting and was later remade in much funnier ways. For example, the same basic plot and landlord (Charlie Hall) return for LAUGHING GRAVY. It wasn't a huge improvement, but adding the dog and allowing some of the action to take place outside really helped to pick up the pace. But with THEY GO BOOM!, it's all contained in their small apartment and the entire movie revolves around two unfunny gags--Ollie overreacting after he gets a cold and Stan mucking up the attempts to alleviate Ollie's sneezing as well as a rather lame joke about over-inflating the air mattress. It's worth seeing, but there are so many better Laurel and Hardy films I recommend this one to devoted fans only.
tedg
These guys work in two modes. The mode I like is brilliant, when Stan basically looks at the camera in gasping anguish for what punishment is upon him. It is the first example of direct dialog with the audience while keeping in character.The other mode is this, which is the same basic gags that dozens of others were up to: The flypaper joke. The feather joke, the blowing up the fat guy joke.Go elsewhere if you want to see better comedy. But look at this if you have any illusions about them portraying borderline homosexuals. Its not just a matter of passing interest because much of Laurel's manner became adopted by later portrayals of gays and thus "stuck" to the subculture.Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.
