I thought I wouldn’t hold back on that post title, especially since I didn’t write this review. Thanks to my mate Doug – not the comedian friend of John, but my friend from work – who wasted his money going to see it, then spent some quality time sending me this little write up – obviously not at work though, I’ll make sure your autosignature’s not included!
I’ll warn all fans of the TV series first, you won’t like this review, but you have to realise that Doug is a big fan of the series too before you start reading. Me? I couldn’t care two hoots. I saw one episode and didn’t get it at all, and the trailers I’ve seen several times now in the cinema, and the audience have held a deathly hush with the odd uncomfortable giggle afterwards, not good.
For a start, I was quite worried about the whole thing, as the comedy programme to big screen transition has been fraught with disasters over the years. You just have to look at Are You Being Served? and On The Buses to prove that point. At least they didn’t follow the 70s formula of simply taking the whole cast on a summer holiday to Spain.
Film starts off ‘teasing’ the audience with the more popular characters (Tubbs and Edward), but after the first 5 minutes or so they’re hardly in it and we’re left with 3 characters that never had particularly large parts on the TV – Hillary Briss (purveyor of ‘special stuff’), Herr Lipp (overly camp German) and Geoff Tipps (the hot-headed, impatient psycho who never gets jokes right). Was never really a fan of Hillary, but did like Herr Lipp. Unfortunately, whilst double entendre knob gags work in a sketch show, stretching them out for the full hour and a half is a nightmare.
Really disjointed feel to the film, as it skips between Royston Vasey, London and the Middle Ages. This is allegedly something to do with the fact that the guys were actually working on the middle ages story for a while and it was going nowhere, so it was used in this film. I find it a bit sad that the whole premise of this movie is that the creators are bored with Royston Vasey, as they’ve been doing it for 10 years, and want to end it. The characters find this out and set about changing the creators minds before they are killed off. I wasn’t aware that I was also bored with Royston Vasey, but this movie has pressed that point home to me.
There were a few silly moments when I chuckled to myself (such as when Geoff is being tortured by the middle ages characters and they think his name is George at Asda because of the label in his anorak), but they’re few and far between.
A real stinker.
I think I almost get what Doug is saying…it’s rubbish. Has anyone else seen it? Thoughts? Would you agree?
