Film Reviews by PaulaJGriffin65

What I spotted this on my list I thought perhaps this is another cash in on the “Spirited Away” bandwagon. However this is 1,000,000 miles away from the Miyazaki classic, a stand-alone delight that faces up to some of the toughest moments in a young child’s life yet never forgets the positives that come from them. Watching this there are plenty of tears, a few bizarre moments but ultimately you’ll left beaming with joy. Definitely one for parents & young children to enjoy together especially if they have faced some grief in their lives. I know that for me the ending with especially cathartic.

Whilst this updated version is beautifully animated the storylines lack that sense of otherworldliness that the previous animation and the original snooks by Tove Jansson possessed. The stories are far too light and frivolous without the sense of Nordic menace that made reading these a child the first step into the world of adult literature. There’s a stellar selection of famous names on the voice cast list but so many seem wrong. Moominpapa sounds like he is reading a 1980s public information film and the Snork sounding like a Peckham girl just makes me want to scream! Some of the characterisation seems to have be “updated” for example Little My was always mischievous but never malevolent whilst others seem to have been airbrushed our altogether. Where were Too-Tickey & The Groke?

Well where to start with this? Think of watching GBBO & thinking that you can make that amazing cake that Mary Berry has just whistled up. You then go and stick all the wrong ingredients in the bowl before taking it out of the oven long before it’s ready... None of the voices seem right, there’s no Kevin Conroy, no Mark Hamill, the closest the film gets is a passable Jeff Goldblum impression from a half fly/half human scientist (geddit?). The animation is a disappointment too rather in that grungy style of The Batman animations which works for none of the protagonists.

They also didn't seem to know what audience they were going for. Almost everything is goofy and jokey for kids - which is totally fine - except that there's occasional bad language and some rather brutal violence. As it stands, they made something that doesn't work for kids OR adults.

Though I had heard the name of Gertrude Bell mentioned in relation to Britain’s infamous involvement in Middle Eastern affairs at the start of the last century & in the wake of the collapse of the dissolute Ottoman Empire it was often as a footnote to the accomplishments of one TE Lawrence in that arena. Lawrence of Arabia does of course feature in this but it is not to praise himself but to acknowledge the achievements of Miss Bell whose became so embroiled in the Iraqi, Persian & Arabic theatres that she was equally respected and feared across the political & religious divide & was instrumental in shaping this part of the world after 1918. The combination of Tilda Swinton’s voice with its ethereal dreamlike qualities reading letters that mingle frustration & triumph, love & life, along with amazing rate archive footage showing life in the likes of Tehran, Baghdad & elsewhere make for engrossing viewing.

Minor chunks of the band themselves but on the whole this is an ego trip for a number of non entities to slaughter this album. If you expect a tale of how this album was constructed in the twilight of the bands career you will be sorely disappointed.