Film Reviews by PV

Having read the book (by Danish author Ann Holm) st school when aged 13 I would certainly recommend that more than this film - I also recommend the radio drama adaptation from maybe 15 years ago on BBC Radio 4. That is superior to this. But the nature of the story make it so. It simply cannot be all that cinematic really. I think they changed the end in this adaptation too. My memory of the book is vague but I am sure it was different.

The story deals with an important and oft-forgotten issue - that if camps run under communist regimes. This is set in one such camp in 1952 in Bulgaria. Millions suffered in such camps and died too.

I am unsure of the casting here. The boy who plays the main character has the right look, but his voice is way too posh - it reminds me of all those 1970s and 80s BBC children's TV adaptations of old books. The kids were straight out of prep school even when playing Victorian street urchins. This film is 15 years old and the main actor seems to have disappeared without trace anyway and I have never seen him in anything else. His voice is just too posh and maybe too 'small' too. Some voices are. The face fits though.

One MASSIVE error in this movie is a globe of the world showing The Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. In 1952? It was Czechoslovakia then - from the end of WWII and the Communist putsch of 1948. Not separate countries again until 1 January 1993. Bad error.

But well worth watching, this film - the issue needs highlighting especially amongst the snowflake woke generation who often have a dewy-eyed view of Communism. They know nothing. Let this film start teaching them. It's suitable for kids of all ages.

3.5 stars rounded up.

As others have said, the original TV series of Deadwood was wonderful, classic, 5 stars and near perfect - a shame that HBO cancelled it and would not make a 4th series. FOR SHAME!

This spin-off movie is mediocre and, sadly, it has become infected with the pc-box-ticking diversity #metoo virus like so many Hollywood movies now too SO we simply must have empowered strong and independent women storylines (even same sex relationship too) and of course a racism theme with a black character (rare is a modern movie that does not have this trite cliched theme these days). Yawn. Seen it all a million times now and IT IS BORING. Yes, we get the message: racism is BAD; women can DO STUFF. Blah blah blah. Stop the polemic and lectures. ENOUGH ALREADY!

A wafer-thin plot that takes a while to get going make this like one of the weaker episodes of the TV series.

What makes it great is seeing the old characters again esp Ian McShane who, in the UK, will forever be Lovejoy the dodgy antiques dealer from the 1980s TV series. He fits the role perfectly and steals every scene - unlike some others (too much deliberate focus on the female characters makes the film lose focus, ironically). McShane is on top coughing form. The dialogue is nice and fruity too! Almost baroque.

No spoilers but the final act is wonderful really (it helps to know the characters backstory from the TV series though to make sense of the use of music etc).

Good to see Mr Wu again and make good use of his pigs, He has a boy now too, which doubles the south-east Asian diversity quota.

So really, forgettable and a bit of a vanity project, one feels. And sad no more TV series BUT makes me want to watch all 3 TV series again because Deadwood is certainly one of the best TV drama series of the last 15 years, and maybe the best ever depiction of the 'Wild West' or, at least, South Dakota in the late 19th century.

Meh, 2 stars.

I wanted to like this film. However, I have seen much better parodies of TV talent shows than this (the best being Spanish movie REALITY and UK novel RASMUS). This is just silly - I didn't believe in it.

For some reason the heroine lives in a massive house owned by her supposedly poverty-stricken mother too, something often see in the past and in UK movies now (in Paddington the film the family live in a house worth at least £3 million; in the books it's a modest suburban semi).

I suspect the Polish family aspect and the Croatian has-been opera singer manager were tacked on to tick the diversity boxes, make it all somehow timely and relevant, maybe to even make a political point about how wonderful immigration is BUT this film does not seem state-funded by the BBC, FilmFour, the BFI which all worship diversity, so why bother. The director is the son of famous, rich, Oscar-winning director Anthony Minghella so I am guessing that, like Sophia Coppola, he didn't have to struggle to get into the movie business either.

It is a deeply old-fashioned 'meh' movie much better suited to being a TV drama, frankly, and becomes more annoying as it goes on.

Kids may like it more, maybe. But just maybe.

The more I watched this movie - which I very nearly turned off before the end several times - the more stupid it became. It's basically a TV comedy show made movie, and probably appeals more to one key racial US demographic.

If you want to watch a real comedy about capitalism then try BREWSTER'S MILLIONS or THE MILLION POUND NOTE, or maybe even WALL STREET or MARGIN CALL.

This is just B-movie trash. Popcorn for the eyes and so forgettable I can barely remember it now. Sill special effects too.

1 star

I am not a horror fan or even a fan of Stephen King. The movie studios always play it safe with remakes (cf Disney's cashing in now with The Lion King CGI etc), and teens now expect the latest CGI special effects. This offers the usual Stephen King tropes and stylised horror scenes - nothing original at all to see here. There's even a haunted house, for goodness sake.

BUT on the plus side, I liked the main characters - King is always good at that coming-of-age teen angsty stuff. And the horror scenes are predictably scary and very gruesome actually too - stylised and obviously expensive. Well done too for including a main character with a stutter.

On the down side, it goes on too long esp in the third act and gets muddled with the usual contrived post-modern introversion and trying to over-explain itself.

It would be 4 stars were it not for the final act, so 3 stars.

If you have seen the series Britannia, then this is way superior. I cannot believe it is all based on fact (pretty Viking maidens single-handedly fighting off scores of enemies...yeah right), but Britannia was so full of fake history you could almost call it science fiction - there is basis in fact here at least, as 8th Century AD Vikings pillage (though raping kept to a minimum no doubt to pander to modern pc sensibilities).

Some interesting characters in Floki and Athelstan especially, as the various clans and tribes are kept busy raiding and stealing and slaughtering each other.

It can be hard to differentiate characters and tell the leaders apart, so best watched in quick succession do viewers do not forget who is who.

Enjoyable stuff. But the 1950s VIKINGS movie which made Kirk Douglas a fortune and gave a break to Stanley Kubrick is probably more enjoyable as a short fix.

4 stars

I watched 40 minutes of this then gave up - IT IS AWFUL. A silly horror spoof which thinks it is so funny but isn't.

A great cast wasted. Most 'jokes' fall flat - esp breaking the fourth wall.

Awful film, bad over-rated director.

AVOID

This film is awful - I lasted 25 minutes then could not stand it any more.

It is simply NOT FUNNY at all. Not at all. Silly sketches from unfunny US TV comedy shows rehashed.

If you like that, you'll like this but I HATED it.

No stars. Avoid if you have a brain and appreciate decent comedy. This is not that.

This film is too long, over-written, badly-acted, derivative and certainly not profound which it no doubt thinks it is with all the guff about 'the other' and 'replicants' and cloning. At one point it actually has to EXPLAIN what the backstory is - never a good sign.

It is a flabby film, with silly parts, and a focus on imagery and style, like a glossy advert.

No idea what point the film maker is trying to make and I am guessing he doesn't really know - he seems to think if he chucks in a lot of black actors and focuses on that, it makes a movie meaningful, Well it doesn't. It is, in a word, a gimmick.

I saw the twist in this coming a mile off. GUMPY's MIRRORLAND has the same plot. Check it out Google it. A film in the 70s with David Niven and is shadow double did it better.

But i's not all bad. Flabby in the middle - but the silly sci-fi plot is something a 14 year old would invent in an English lesson - totally unbelievable and silly leaving lots of unanswered questions.

Honestly, if this movie was made with only white actors, people would be calling it a B movie.

2 stars, Meh

This is the 2nd worst Welsh film I have ever seen. The worst was the tedious RESISTENCE by Owen Sheers which ridicuolously thinks Nazi invaders in WWII would head straight to a Welsh sheep farm. Yeah right. That was state-funded by our taxes too, as was this dreadful slow miserablist movie (where hardly anyone moves much) - by Wales Film (which refuses to fund much better movies like CANARIES - recommended), BFI, Lottery and Arts Council.

How on earth earth did the writer/director get funding for this non-starter borefest? Simples! TICK DEM DIVERSITY BOXES. So here we have a black man with a Welsh accent as a doctor - in north Wales over 200 years ago, Well even now, Wales as a whole is less than 5% ethnic and most of that is Asian. Hardly any black men in Snowdonia now, and certainly not then. this is SO fake. Rewriting history in pc colours. This sort of colourblind casting can work on stage with Shakespeare etc but it DOES NOT WORK in realism, supposedly historically-accurate portrayals of the past. It is absurd as making Zulu tribesmen white gingers!

AND all men in this movie - all white men - are portrayed as brutal monsters (except the black man of course, and even he is not as perfect as the perpetual victim women and girls).

For the record, PEOPLE oppressed others in the past and most white men were oppressed, and 97% war dead are men, and 85% of homeless on the streets right now are white men too.

I get sick of the endless feminist metoo pity parties not polluting the movie business - they are a brazen blatant attempt to disparage men - as well as portray them as either monsters or buffoons - and to claim women are better in every way, and all problems in their lives are caused by nasty-wasty (white) men.

This film is tedious beyond belief and is FICTION - none of this actually happened. The writer/directer just adds misery on misery for the poor victim women in the plot to try and squeeze as much manhating and sympathy for women from his target audience - who I assume is his mates from film school and other subsidy monkeys.

Just awful, ALL that is wrong with the British and Welsh film industries.

NO STARS.

I have NO idea how this movie was even nominated for Oscars. Oh wait, I do - it's an almost total black caste and now the Oscars has de facto quotas for African-American actors. How making all black movies represents progress I do not know - it is pure segregation, whether in great movies like Moonlight or dross like Black Panther. Oscars so wrong. Imagine an all-white movie these days.

In this film all whites are portrayed as 2 dimensional racists. All white men, that is. A Jewish man, Italian man, older woman are portrayed as non-racist angels.

Not sure if this is what was in the book and I am sure this soapy family drama would work better as a novel. James Baldwin was a great and brave writer - black, yes, but also gay, when the African American community was as homophobic as it remains now. He is a better writer than this movie suggests. This story is 'of its time' maybe - early 1970s. Remember that many white men have been wrongly convicted of crimes too - a great many. Race is not the only game in town.

Very disappointing minor movie that should never have come near to getting nominated for Oscars.

Great music though so 1 star for that and 1 star for the actual film.

I always hated Bros - they were a fad for silly girls when I was at university in 1988 and fizzled out pretty quickly. I always through the songs by Bros were dross!

This is a reunion, perhaps to cash in as most music income for all artists now comes from live concerts not records or CDs, and downloads pay pennies as does YouTube.

Some of the lines here are SO BAD THEY'RE GOOD - a complete lack of self-awarness of the LA-based brothers makes it all even funnier.

One surprise was the genuinely moving parts about their late mother.

I enjoyed this a lot, like SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN or KILL YOUR FRIENDS or KILLING BONO or FRANK - all great music business movies.

4 stars

This is a perfect Friday night film - a movie to see in a noisy crowed cinema. It's hilarious in parts, with some great hammy acting and some lines which made me laugh out loud.

I dislike overused CGI special effects - some movies now resemble computer games because of them. Here they use traditional pre-CGI special effects which works wonderfully.

The plot parodies many a science fiction or horror movie - and the deadpan policeman's lines are pure comedy, and great fun.

Enjoy the ride and don;t be too serious, and you'll enjoy it, 4 stars.

As others have said, this is very like some SAW movies and maybe HOSTEL and FINAL DESTINATION. It also harks back to various Portmanteau films of the past, often from HAMMER, such as Dr Terror's House of Horror, Ghost Train and Torture Garden and more, where several stories are in one movie. here that is via separate characters' back stories. Totally unbelievable of course, but enjoyable enough - it is what it is. Reminds me a bit of TV series WEST WORLD too.

Some imaginative and fun set-ups here. Heat, cold, various dangers and deaths. Tension mounts and I suppose it ends in an OK way, and no doubt sequels will come as this sort of simple B-movie violent stuff appeals to teenagers. Probably a good movie to see at a noisy cinema on a Friday night.

Gets a bit sillier as it goes on - and the obligatory ethnic quotas and the 'strong independent' woman new stereotype here yet again. How many movies now have a small female somehow overpowering several large men eh? Sheer femi-fantasy and silly. Risks challenging the willing suspension of belief we all need to enjoy stories.

But OK - no more, though. 3 stars.

Any movie full of classic Beatles songs will be good, even if the film itself is awful. Hard to get those rights (owned now by Sony) but if you can, you;re away. Richard Curtis is a big name, so could.

One point: some critics call the idea for this film 'brilliant and original' but it isn't. I saw two outlines of screenplays in 1995/6 which imagined a world without Beatles music - differently done, but essentially the same idea. A fantasy WHAT IF alternative reality genre - a bit like FATHERLAND, IT HAPPENED HERE, or WENT THE DAY WELL all about imagining what would have happened if the Nazis had won WWII.

Anyway, it's a decent idea and well-executed, especially in the first half of the film. Later on, as is typical with Richard Curtis films, it gets suffocated in slushy sludge and sentimental emo-porn romance. Every single Richard Curtis is the same - a man wants a woman; she is not sure and/or rejects him but eventually comes round and they end up together walking off into the metaphorical sunset. Every SINGLE Richard Curtis movie has that plot.

Some great jokes especially at the start - and I liked the main characters resistance to 'going back into teaching'; his potential girlfriend and manager says he shouldn;t because h'll end up putting all his energy and imagination and talent into the kids he teaches instead of his songs. YES!

A point re the casting: Ed Sheeran does just fine in a cameo (though I feel his very derivative song writing is over-rated). The main character played by Himish Patel can sing well but lacks any charisma at all so I struggle to believe he can be a worldwide star.

I think Richard Curtis was very much criticised in the past for not having many ethnic characters in stuff like NOTTING HILL so he has perhaps gone too far the other way here. He just about gets away with it re the main character. However he and his parents do seem rather like white characters who have been 'coloured in' to tick the pc diversity boxes. His parents played by real-life spouses the ever-annoying Meera Syal and Sanjeev Bhaskar are absurd. For a start, Lowestoft and Suffolk are all East Anglia are VERY white areas of England, so very few Asians AND I promise you, no Asian dad called JED with a strong Suffolk farmers' accent like the dad character. Find me an Asian man called JED who speaks like a farmer and I'll buy you curries for a year! I think if we have that main character realism would dictate he's white or maybe Asian and adopted by a white family. The deliberate diversity box-ticking annoys.

I liked the character ROCK - the drunken layabout roadie. He's a lot of fun.

I loved the early scenes at the warehouse and local TV - having done local radio and TV myself, I laughed inwardly at all that!

The subplot with 2 others is a bit odd, but then the fantasy plot here is so full of holes it could be a Swiss cheese - best just to sit back, relax and enjoy the ride and the classic Beatles music.

I found the ending annoyingly unbelievable, but it's neat and circular, and most will go AHHHH in all the right places. I find I tend to go UGHHHH at all the gushingly sentimental parts though...but that';s just me.

A flimsy but enjoyable film BUT not original. There is a short film featuring John Lennon working in a Job Centre because the Beatles didn;t happen too - cannot remember the name. In real life, John Lennon's dad and grandfather were in the merchant navy and he would have probably joined too if the Beatles hadn;t happened (and Paul would have tried his luck as PAUL RAMON and become a teacher if that failed). John Lennon was a cat man though (the Lennons had a cat called TIM when he was a boy) not a dog man. A nice scene with him though in this, though I don;t believe he would NOT have a guitar around somewhere.

4 stars.