Film Reviews by PV

This is a dreadful film - the major fault is no character is really sympathetic; the main character is a spoilt greedy selfish woman - and I just do not believe such a person would start a computer game company (it's a very male field) or shrug off the fact her father did something so awful.

I was looking at my watch from 10 minutes in - I should have turned off then.

I watched half an hour of this hokum then switched off; I'll never get that half hour back though!

I suppose some who are unware of Santorini may learn something - but I have known of that theory for decades.

Only for hardcore costume drama-docs based on flimsy evidence really.

Mike Leigh often focuses on left wing causes and improvised dialogue etc - and this film is worth watching if only for the interesting dialect (still present in places like Sheffield where they say YourSEN not yourself). But it is a bit of a long slog.

Now I know some won't hear a word said against Mike Leigh and his stablemate Ken Loach, but the sad fact is these two have enjoyed way too much praise and subsidy for what has been mediocre work, despite their 1970s triumphs.

Good to see this event in a film despite all the bias and the wicked King George IV such a cartoon character baddie he could have had a waxed moustache. The Great Reform Act 1832 is something that deserves a film too.

So interesting but not a triumph.

This is based on the book by William Goldman (known for his quote about the film industry that NOBODY KNOWS ANYTHING).

An all start cast including Peter Cook and Mel Smith and Brit Cary Elwes (seen in Another Country with Colin Firth and Rupert Everett in 1983 but now in the torture porn SAW movies), and a baddie played by Christopher Guest.

This is an 1987 so is mercifully free of political correctness, parachuted in black characters, and kick-boxing female ones - back in those days they allowed a damsel in distress to be rescued by male characters AS TRADITIONAL STORIES DICTATE. Since Hollywood started worshipping #metoo casting, cinema seat sales are down 26%.

My favourite character here is Fezzik the giant who despite some awfully pronounced dialogue (couldn't someone tell him how to pronounce 'prince') certainly makes an impression. He was a wrestler known as Andre the Giant, born in France to Russian and Polish parents; he died in 1993.

I enjoyed this for the deeply derivative hokem fantasy nonsense it is - a shame this sort of film is seen as un-pc now; a modern version would have aggressive female characters doing down men and ethnic characters parachuted in everywhere AND I WOULD NOT WATCH IT.

This movie is too long at over 2 hours. WHY? Because the demand of political 'correctness' mean the producers and director felt that had to include silly subplots involving the female characters, so we get lots of tedious nonsense about Neil Armstrong's wife and female neighbours and how worried they are. There is also a completely unnecessary and frankly racist and offensive section where some African American racist sings a racist ditty called WHITEY'S ON THE MOON. Now, if you delete that and the female box-ticking, you'd have a great movie of 1 hour and 30/40- minutes, which would be much better.

But I enjoyed this movie - it has an emotional depth unlike most space movies like Apollo 13. Neil Armstrong is a fascinating quiet man character too and Buzz Aldrin a nice contrast. And some scenes do manage to convey the sheer jaw-dropping magnitude of what they did and the sights of the moon and the earth - and how risky this all was.

4 stars. Just a shame about the pc box-ticking.

I enjoyed this film. YES, it's silly, mindless, cartoony nonsense BUT it's funny and just right when you want to escape the world via dancing dogs and talking animals.

The plot is derivative and cartoony, and the characters 2 dimensional types. BUT so what? It's not Shakespeare! The innocent family, dastardy baddie John Sessions, weak dodgy ending to a paper-thin plot BUT so what?

You watch this for the dancing dogs and talking animals...which I enjoyed greatly, esp the horses!

I loved this and I'm a cat lover! A shame that yet again the baddie is shown as a cat lover and cats get a bad press BUT tis has been standard in Hollywood for years.

I also wondered how the family can SELL a London house and end up renting in the countryside - the dad is missing/dead/divorced. All unexplained,

But so what? There are dancing dogs and talking farmyard animals! I loved the mad dog woman with the pink poodles too. I don't even like David Walliams but not even he can mess things up and his voice-over of Pudsey works.

Silly but funny - if you're in the right mood, it hits the spot. 4 stars

My advice: watch the original performance of Pudsey on Britain's Got Talent on YouTube before watching this.

First thing to say is this film is NOT multicultural. White (and black) people are, in effect, BANNED from all scenes - even though MANY whites and blacks live and work in China. Can you imagine a UK/US film with parties with ONLY white people? Those who say this is progress are clearly very ignorant or misunderstand the whole point of FAIR representation. Ditto all-black movies.

This film starts with a disgustingly racist scene - racist against white British people that is. According to this race hate movie, a posh London hotel in 1995 would be entirely staffed by bigoted racist nasty-wasty white British men who'd be so racist as to try and turn away a rich Chinese family who had made a reservation. This is pure race hate - and a manufactured lie intended to stir up mockery and hatred of the British (who actually created the most successful part of China - Hong Kong!)

The facts: Hotels in London - yes, even in 1995 - are mostly staffed by foreigners. Posh hotel clients are mostly foreigners too and usually rich Arabs, Africans, Asians. EVEN a century ago, posh hotels welcomed ethnic foreigners from all over the world. The UK never EVER had race laws unlike the USA or indeed China, with it's racist Boxers. That is why Motown musicians have such fond memories of the UK from their early 60s tour - NO racial segregation here and NO blacks using back entrances.

After that disgusting race hate scene, I could not enjoy this movie - despite some funny set pieces. The fact it has a Chinese cast does NOT make racism OK. Ditto all black movies. Take not, Spike Lee.

The worship of ostentatious material wealth here is also stomach-churning. Made me realise why people in the Far East wanted to be communist actually.

And basically it's all a silly Mills and Boon drivel drama for teenage girls anyway.

I actually think the UK/US should now make a movie insulting China and showing Asians as racist bigots, just for the sake of balance.

No stars. In the trash.

This film is NOT awful and I liked the Cat Stevens reference.

But my word, it's schmaltzy, saccharine, sentimental, tear-jerking stuff. So if you like a good cry and slush, you'll love this.

Personally, I always hate overtly religious references in movies and this film is stuffed full of it, which made me cringe. But no doubt will go down well will American audiences.

But hey, it's not awful and I have seen and read worse animal stories.

And good music so 2 stars.

Watch to the end to see the real stray dog and family - because this is based on a real early 90s story, apparently.

I really enjoyed this film (except the fizzled out ending - no spoilers) and have always liked ghost stories like this.

One major criticism is the main character using the word 'snuck' as the past of 'sneak'. That is a recent American import - the last 20-30 years - and would NOT have been used in the late 1940s, in provincial England. 'Sneaked' is what the character should have said. I do wish authors/screenwriters would be more careful to get language right and correct!

But this is a really enjoyable haunted house ghost story overall - with added tension of madness and murder, the first world war and the decline of the aristocracy and landed gentry.

So 4 stars. But oh what a shame about that ending!

I rented this film because I remembered watching it when aged maybe 10 or 11 on our black and white TV - the end scenes were SO memorable they stuck in my mind.

I love these old films - 1965 in this case - so liberated from the pc diversity obsessions of our modern pompous age!

Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee in this, and Bernard Cribbins! Plus hot totty in the form or Ursula Andrews.

Based on a Rider Haggard novel so lots of old school adventure in exotic lands and some hokum plot re Ancient Egypt.

And full-on African tribes - even #whiteface whiting up and authentic dancing - I'd love to know which tribe they are from because they are NOT African-Americans faking it and pretending to be Africans as in so many more modern movies.

I loved this. Loved it. 5 stars

This starts well - all about punk in 1976 and schoolboys.

Then it morphs into a wacky aliens in Croydon adventure which seems like a spoof of itself.

I am not really into scifi so I lost interest really then - I'd have preferred a film about punk with no weird alien plot.

BUT that isn't the fault of the film makers - it's all based on a Neil Gaiman story, so blame him!

Not that bad though. Maybe 2.5 stars out of ten so 3 stars.

This film started off well as a character study of a hitman living with his mother.

It then descends into an unbelievable plot about politician organised abuse of underage girls, intercut with flashbacks from the main character's abusive childhood.

Too violent for my taste AND what with the number of guns in the USA, it seems incredible that a hammer-wielding hitman would survive very long or escape arrest.

Obviously influenced by movies like NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN and TAXI DRIVER, this is a so-so effort so 3 stars.

This comes from a novel and it shows - it tries to cram in way too much: an unbelievable spiritual 'seer' plot; 11th century England; 11th century Iran; Muslim history; Jewish history, Christian history; the expected romantic subplot...

BUT good in parts though historically inaccurate - there WERE hospitals and doctors in 11th century England and well before that too. Even Stonehenge is now recognised as a healing place. The Dark Ages are misnamed and only named so in later centuries when historians and philosophers wanted to show how advanced they were compared to their forebears.

Of course, the medicine of the Islamic world drew completely on work done in Ancient Greece then Rome - and the part re radical Islamists wanting to destroy everything is true: by 1100 Islam ossified and that is still having effects today, as Islam has had no reformation. At this time the Muslim hordes burnt down the great library at Alexandria which contained many Aristotle texts - HOWEVER now wonderful technology is allowing researchers to read scrolls that are nothing more than carbon.

The idea 11th century 'doctors' knew nothing of body parts or medicine is simply untrue - people in the British Isles were using medicines from nature for centuries, including willow as aspirin to treat headaches and pain; and copper oxide to treat wounds; and gold and silver too. Plus plants - some of which worked!

Apparently this was originally a German TV movie in several parts and probably worked much better that way.

I hated the cod-spiritual seer/healer/premonition sub-plot and the romantic element was predictably boring. I preferred the medical and religious parts THOUGH one does have to bear in mind that all Jews were expelled from England under Edward I (I think) but then readmitted by Oliver Cromwell in the 17th century.

NO subtitles at all though is a great weakness especially as some of the cod-Persian 11th century accents are barely understandable!

3 stars. Just.

This is a reasonably funny movie with the expectedly absurd plot, and some glorious set-pieces by visual comedy genius Rowan Atkinson.

I got a bit sick of the CGI stuff, to be honest - but was prepared to go along with the ridiculous plot and Clouseau-like disasters for one reason nd one reason only: IT'S FUNNY. Simple, yes, but just funny in a child-like way. And sometimes that's enough. I get so weary of supposedly funny BBC 'comedies' with tricksy postmodern sneering etc. Yawn. That is not funny. This is.

Lots of silly dancing and James-Bond-spoof tropes and some glorious visual gags - a few plants in the script early on give away the plot (to me anyway). But the writing is sharp - and some great lines in this, especially from the female prime minister.

Good clean fun which I enjoyed a lot! 4 stars

The first thing to say about this film is that it's too long at over 2 hours, like so many Hollywood movies.

This has got rave reviews but I found it tiresome the longer it went on. It's al a dream fantasy really and desperately tries to squeeze in too much incl racial politics (yawn!), cult leaders like Waco, the FBI, an armed robbery backstory, feminism, child abuse, Motown, Viet Nam, religion, and even a hinted-at JFK element. Too much really. This could and maybe should have been 2 movies - the cult scenes later on could be a different film, frankly.

It's watchable and does have surprises and plot twists aplenty. But what it reminds me of really is an Agatha Christie whodunnit. And the end is pure Hamlet. Reminds me too of that Tarantino movie set in a hotel with vampires.

So-so. So 3 stars.