Film Reviews by PV

OK so this film is educational - it shows what happens in Jehovah's Witness churches or whatever they're called - one is down the road and the Jehovies are always out recruiting by the local shops. I remember a girl at primary school was one too - no Christmas, so she left the main hall whenever there were carols sung.

But really, why is this a film for cinematic release? The funding is from our taxes via the BBC and Film England and the lottery. But this is ideal TV drama territory really - it reminded me of the old TV Play for Today, where writers such as Dennis Potter started out.

All interesting up to a point, but no further. It's just not cinematic! 2 stars

Based on an 1865 novella by Nicholai Leskov which was published originally in a magazine run by Dostoevsky, then turned into an opera, this is a strong story which sticks in the mind (nothing to do with the Shakespeare play by the way).

It's more or less a character study of a sick and twisted evil woman - though no doubt she's seen as a feminist hero by some.

It's slow, all very Brit arthouse, and predictably state-funded by BBC and lottery money. Static camera, repetitive shots, lots of silence - which all screams state subsidy! Enjoy it - our taxes paid for it!

It's set in Count Durham in 1865, so it's rather baffling that half the main characters are black; now, people may applaud the colourblind approach but it's so absurd, I cannot - it's as daft as casting white ginger persons as Zulu warriors! People really have to get real and ditch the pc virtue-signalling. It made the whole thing unbelievable, frankly. No race issues mentioned either which is absurd for the day - as if it wouldn't be relevant. This is `1865 in Durham, for goodness sake! A real place in real time; play colourblind diversity doughunts with more abstract stories, fine; but do not try to rewrite history according to modern pc prejudices - unless you want your audience to scoff and shame their weary heads at being lectured to by box-ticking casting.

With more accurate and realistic casting and a less pretentious approach, with the focus on telling the story not scoring pc diversity/feminist points, this could have been a great film; as it is, it's a 2 star effort.PC

This movie has its moments - most of them tediously predictable CGI-saturated seen-it-all-before scifi fantasy.

Deeply derivative in every way (even down to a soundtrack that rips off Star Wars) this is only for big fans of the genre. Clooney is irritating as ever and I never believed the Hugh Laurie characters (watch House instead!)

One to put on for the kids while you go and do something better instead! 1.5 stars rounded up.

How this won first prize at Cannes I don't know - but they have lauded dross over the years.

This is all pretty to watch, especially if you like bees and honey! Pretty Italian countryside. Non-credible tacked on reality TV plot.

Watch the EXCELLENT 2012 Spanish film 'Reality' all about reality TV instead. That is 5 stars.

This is 1.5 stars rounded up.

This film starts well - the first half hour is a joy. Typically British in that the Rob Bryden hero is a loser character - that just isn't an American thing, but more British than a cup of tea.

Like The Full Monty or Reggie Perrin in water then, with some well-known British actors starring and some great lines.

It does go on too long and has to force in a love angle, of course; the female trainer also gets very irritating.

But all in all, watchable and good clean fun! 3 stars.

This film is not awful at all, BUT it does stretch our belief to the limit - and brings to mind other mistaken identity dramas, like MARTIN GUERRE et al,

Having said that, it's a nice little character piece - though way too long.

The slight story simply does not have the meat on its bones for make a full length movie meal; it could easily have been a TV drama of 30 or 40 minutes.

The director of this movie seems rather pretentious - in for some reason insisting on a certain screen ration, as if that makes any difference at all - this movies does not have sweeping vistas like Lawrence of Arabia, after all!

Maybe those of a religious bent will get this more. For me, the main character's backstory seemed tacked on and predictable - and the later development in SO predictable before the item (I shall not mention what - no spoilers) is found.

The plot is simply unbelievable with the screenwriter looking to raise the jeopardy - a real by-numbers approach. Watch TV series SPOOKS or maybe INFERNO a movie of Dan Brown's book to see this environmentalist/terrorist done better.

Environmental concerns are a topic that's going to appear in more and more movies, and hats off for mentioning THE ONLY environmental issue, which is overpopulation and the lack of any controls in Africa and Asia especially.

But it's only all partially effective really. A interesting curiosity but by no means a work of art! 2 stars.

This sequel has some funny silly walk sections, and a ludicrous plot as you would expect. It's watchable but not laugh-out-loud hilarious. And it's rather forgettable - I only realised in the last half hour that I'd actually watched it once before when it was on TV. That's a measure of how it's forgettable, I find!

But Rowan Atkinson is a comic genius and I'd rather watch anything with him in that all the pc diversity-box-ticking alleged 'comedy' shows on BBC TV these days. I like it more than gross-out unfunny teen Hollywood movies too.

All very OTT and aimed at a young and undemanding international audience. One word: MEH! It's harmless fun.

I am getting totally sick and tired of films like this, and most TV drama come to that, which want to rewrite history, cast white Brits of the Empire as somehow evil baddies, and all black people as angels - THAT is utterly racist, of course, and also promotes lies as history.

ALL the white Brits in this odious state-funded film are pantomime baddies - they do everything but twirl their moustaches here. Now THAT is racism, just like how white Brits are portrayed as racist stereotypes in all those dire racist silly Bollywood dance movies.

Most of the British empire was good - though of its time - and it gave far more than it took and was largely supported by loyal members of the empire in Asia and Africa too - though no-one admits that now. The largest peacetime army of 2.5 million was raised in Raj India in WWII. Never more than 50,000 Brit soldiers in India during empire.

Africa these days is so corrupt and mostly full of failed states poorer than 50-60 years ago despite the trillions of aid they have been given and which the elite steal. Under the British, there was rule of law, stability, and lack of corruption.

Even in supposed success story Botswana the average age of mortality today is 33. Some success story...

Maybe make some films about the empires of African and Asian states - the ones that enslaved people, traded slaves, were all powerful dictatorships - because it is SO wrong that the MOST benevolent empire in history, the British empire, which civilised the world and banned slavery AND sacrificed so much to enforce that ban is now portrayed as the baddie, whilst corrupt African kings are somehow always-good angels. It is FAKE NEWS basically and LIE-HISTORY - as seen on the shameful Dr Who Brit-bashing episodes from India - all aimed I presume to make people hate Britain.

This movie shows WHY most films take place DURING a war and not in the stunned uneventful aftermath - because NOTHING HAPPENS, basically - apart from the over-rated eye-candy-cast Keira Knightly swooning and blubbing. Her transatlantic posho public school accent is cringe-worthy - people did NOT talk like that in 1946. They pronounced the T's in BeTTer; they did not say 'BeDDer' like modern posh totty who went to Bedales and Rodean. Totally miscast. Knightly is only a successful actress coz of her looks NOT her acting talent. That shows here.

The rest of this movie is SO SLOW I looked at my watch generally during it. The characters are so two dimensional you just do not care if they live or die - which rather undermines dramatic tension, Keira Knightly is SO irritating I half expected the 2 men she's playing with to do her in. I might have cheered then and woken up!

SO much CGI here - all the ruins of Hamburg. Probably works better in the novel. No mention here that the main characters are supposed to be Welsh )albeit posh Welsh without accents) - in fact, Keir's tedious irritating character calls her husband SO ENGLISH at one point.

The most interesting characters are the teenage daughter and the 88 nazi kids yet that is SO under-developed, sadly.

The best thing about this movie is the magnificent house - a real Austro-Hungarian beauty in the Czech Republic. The plot and characters were so boring I spent a lot of time antique-spotting in the décor! That's how tedious this misfiring miscast film is.

To be honest, if you want to watch this movie just watch the trailer - that shows all the eventful bits and leaves out the 90 minutes of tedium love triangle gushing in between. This is probably a women's movie - but it isn't a patch on Catherine Cookson or other romantic stories.

This is Mills & Boon amongst the ruins, Only for hardcore costume drama fans. I see ROTTEN TOMATOES gives this film 23%. I tend to agree. BUT maybe if I were a woman wanting emo-porn and a gushing Mills & Boon story, I'd like it more.

2 hours of my life I'm never getting back.

This started off so-so BUT soon descended into an utter pc mess of a movie.

I hated the CGI toys with American accents - as in the early 70s Pooh movie which is a large influence here. The Sherman bros songs are great BUT this movie is not.

Totally miscast MacGregor - with a dodgy posh English accent; he lives in a house worth £3-5 million probably but apparently works in a lowly managerial job. The same nonsense was in the superior Paddington films which this one aims to ape, and fails badly - in the books Paddington lives in a normal suburban semi, not a Georgian mansion in South Kensington!

His wife totally miscast and the character unbelievable - this is set around 1946 and NO woman of any decency would behave as she does and disrespect her husband so much and basically dump him for being a good father (though not a helicopter dad 21st C style). And the box-ticking in having a daughter who is a 'strong independent woman in the making' is cringe-worthy.

The diversity box-ticking stinks too - this is 1946 SO hardly any black people in Britain and yet we are led to believe tjhat Christopher Robin;/s secretary is a black woman, and his luggage firm has 3 black employees in a management team of 15. GIVE ME A BREAK! Totally ruined ANY sense of realise - impossible to suspend disbelief with this pc casting, as it would be if a Zulu tribe in Africa had 3 white ginger members! GET REAL, PEOPLE!

Mark Gatiss plays a panto villain badly and is also miscast.

The whole thing misfires on all levels. Avoid, 1 star - for the songs.

To enjoy a piece of drama or a film, an audience has to engage in the WILLING SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF. That is possible also in a fantasy setting - HOWEVER the characters MUST still be believable, in what they say and do AND what they look liks.

The idea that there were happy clap mixed black and white crews on US airplanes in 1945 for the Normandy landings is PURE fantasy - this was a time when racial segregation still existed in the southern states of the US and NO WAY would whites take orders from a black sergeant. This is NOT Viet Nam or the Gulf War. Watch SAVING PRIVATE RYAN to see how it really looked, or DUNKIRK.

The young pretty main character is not only black though - to tick those Hollywood diversity boxes - he is also totally unrealistic as he is PERFECT in every day. Like a black GI Mary Poppins circa 1945. He is so totally moral and perfect and always right he should have a halo. That makes that character absurd and means the suspension of disbelief is jarred.

This is overlong too with endless fight scenes and make-up/CGI for the kids; BUT it's nothing more than a B-movie with a daft plot and lots of gore. No better than WEREWOLVES OF THE THIRD REICH or other low budget stuff.

One star. It'd be 2 or even 2.5 if the pc diversity casting hadn't ruined it.

This is a WONDERFUL movie - Icelandic with loads of barren landscapes, it is at its core a simple haunted house film, with spooky missing children - another horror/ghost movie trope. All atmosphere - not gore, so teens need not bother.

The ONLY thing I didn't like was the confusion of the characters - it used to be that film directors often cast 2 or 3 blonde women who looked almost identical; now they cast 2 or 3 youngish men with hipster beards who look almost identical.

The setting makes this original, and I thoroughly enjoyed it - and jumped and got spooked! WAY better than multi-million budget Hollywood horror fare - for me, anyway. 4.5 stars rounded up.

This looks like a vanity project small indie movie - only 6 characters and the main character is also the films' producer (so he put up the money to start in the movie, no doubt). He plays a rather irritatingly wet, wimpish, Californian hippydippy liberal man whose life gets ruined by a pretty young wife moving in next door.

So far, so predictable - BUT I just do not believe the harsh thing his wife does - it is out of character for her as we have known her, so that jars; also it all ends way too conveniently.

But it does show a truth: put a pretty woman amongst a group of men and conflict is ALWAYS created, and often violence - an argument for men-only teams, clubs and schools, if there ever was one.

This is basically like a POUNDLAND American Beauty or The Graduate. 2 stars.

Some points about this movie which has got great reviews from the usual pc virtue-signally critics who feel they have to give a film by a black director with black actors and women starring a brilliant rating and reviews.

Unfortunately, this is a rubbish film. The massively over-rated director is only matched by the over-rated Viola David who is UTTERLY unbelievable in the role she plays. Liam Neeson's wife? Yeah right. This mixed marriage race thing may be a novelty in the mainly segregated USA but it's old hat in the UK.

Making women the bank robbers is also old hat - it was done in the far better original 1983 TV series which I watched at the time, back when it WAS a novelty (even though NO real life bank robbers are female - the wives and girlfriends just get the cash as hubbies go to prison lol!)

This is basically polemic about gender and race, box-ticking like crazy, with a few unbelievable twists and some US corrupt Chicago politics chucked in to try to give depth.

Just awful. Also boring and overlong.

If you want to watch a GREAT heist movie then rent out SEXY BEAST; if you want a better so-so heist film then get THE HATTON GARDEN JOB. This movie of WIDOWS is rash masquerading as social statement about race and gender. If this is the future of film-making, I shall not be visiting the cinema much again (and ticket sales 26% down since Hollywood became obsessed with churning our race/gender-obsessed movies galore).

1 star. Dreadful trash.