I don't think you can intellectualize something like Three Ages too strenuously, as you either find it funny or you don't (or maybe to the degree not as much as Steamboat Bill Jr or The General, which is like saying Lou Gherrig's one home run early in his ballplayers time didn't match his other home run from when he was at his peak). Three Ages takes mild inspiration from Intolerance, only instead of showing us stories spanning millennia on how human beings come together and come apart on an epic scale this is more about Buster's frustrations over not getting laid, which is a noble goal for a movie to have. It features him making an entrance on a dinosaur in the Stone Age (hell yes), he is challenged to a chariot race and only manages to get dogs instead of horses, but my lord what he does with that cat (easily my biggest laugh of the movie), and in modern times he plays football and has to make a desperate phone call that leads to one of Buster's most thrilling and dangerous stunts.
It's largely silly and placing more emphasis than other Buster films I've seen on going for straight slapstick, which is far from a negative thing when its a modern master doing it all, and it features things like the (I'm not kidding) Wizard with a pointy hat in the Roman segment dispensing advice to Buster, and then when our struggling hero finds himself in a prison cell with a lion in place of doing the Pulling a Thorn from the Paw trick (a title card tells us he vaguely remembered it from somewhere and don't we all), he instead gives the lion ah uh manicure and a paw massage (!) There's plenty of fun and funny stuff here, and if it's a little slack when it comes to things like a more original story or characters or more amazing stunts - and clearly this was set up in case he needed three shorts instead of a feature - it manages to be funny on a fairly consistent level.
As Buster Keaton's first (co-directed) feature as an Independent, it's a silly goose with heart - and a nice ending for all three versions of the hero.
It's largely silly and placing more emphasis than other Buster films I've seen on going for straight slapstick, which is far from a negative thing when its a modern master doing it all, and it features things like the (I'm not kidding) Wizard with a pointy hat in the Roman segment dispensing advice to Buster, and then when our struggling hero finds himself in a prison cell with a lion in place of doing the Pulling a Thorn from the Paw trick (a title card tells us he vaguely remembered it from somewhere and don't we all), he instead gives the lion ah uh manicure and a paw massage (!) There's plenty of fun and funny stuff here, and if it's a little slack when it comes to things like a more original story or characters or more amazing stunts - and clearly this was set up in case he needed three shorts instead of a feature - it manages to be funny on a fairly consistent level.
As Buster Keaton's first (co-directed) feature as an Independent, it's a silly goose with heart - and a nice ending for all three versions of the hero.