After recent cinematic abominations like Pixels, Fantastic Four and The Gallows, it occurred to me, sitting through its excruciating trailer too many times recently, that going to see The Bad Education Movie with the express intention of tearing it a new arsehole was somewhat akin to shooting fish in a barrel. Using a blunderbuss. With that in mind, the stream of consciousness that follows only reflects the positive aspects I found in the film; what it does right, what it does well, and where it's surprising. The overall rating and seven-question roundup, however, will still be succinctly honest.
This review is in no way my entire, unadulterated opinion on The Bad Education Movie, as I'm fairly certain that other media outlets will decide upon it, showing no such restraint.
I should also point out that this burst of uncharacteristic positivity does not represent either a fondness for the original TV series, its performers or creators. It is for no other reason than being a self-imposed writing challenge. After all, seeing the best in films and prompting me to write regularly were the two goals which started me reviewing in the first place...
Using the template which worked so successfully for The Inbetweeners Movie(s), The Bad Education Movie is a big-screen spin-off of a 3-series TV sitcom set in a school, which has been released around the time that exam-results are landing on doormats, with ramped up profanity and a 15-Certificate to suit. The film's roster incorporates all of the mainstays from the TV iteration, and places them into an out-of-school environment, utilising their already-laid character foundations in a wider arena not possible in a 29 minute runtime.
Basically, 'Holiday On The Buses', for teenagers.
That such a format has been used so widely before (and with TV adaptations of Keith Lemon, Alan Partridge and Mrs Brown's Boys setting a recent-years precedent for the Summer months) does little to harm the film, and if anything adds The Bad Education Movie firmly and comfortably to that pantheon. Fans of the show won't be disappointed, as this is really just an extended episode with larger sets and on a bigger screen.
The school-outing to Cornwall is ideal for the exercise, as cinematographer Pete Rowe gets to take in some of the gorgeous coastal scenery to widen the scope. The change of setting also allows for an impressive supporting cast of British comedy and character actors, usually reserved for the small screen. Things never get overcrowded (and there are no stunt-cameos), but the roles which do exist have been cast wisely.
With an end-result which is (tellingly) reminiscent of The Inbetweeners mixed with Hot Fuzz and a smattering of The Mighty Boosh, The Bad Education Movie is a film which knows its audience and plays proudly to them, bringing a narrative-closure to the TV show that couldn't have been achieved on the small-screen.
^^ Everything I have said above is genuine ^^
However, the positivity exercise ends at that line. Readers who think that Bad Education sounds like a reasonable adaptation may want to stop now and visit a cinema of their choice.
For everyone else, highlight-to-read…
Oh, of course not. It's tawdry, patronising, resolutely unfunny, and absolute shite.
The film's jokes are based around AR-glasses, prosthetic testicles, and "the Cornish being a bit weird"…
When this is on TV (in less than a year), you'll be able to claim a partial rebate on your TV licence…
Yes. A film's script in which 'retarded', 'bitch' and 'rape' are used in their colloquially-insulting terms; a film in which a man swallows a purportedly sacred foreskin for comedic purposes; a film in which a woman's drink is spiked with laxatives for comedic purposes; a film in which the only apparent purpose for the character in a wheelchair is to fall out of the wheelchair for comedic purposes*1; a film in which the lead character has his trousers pulled down and genitals exposed for comedic purposes - twice… this represents the best work of Jack Whitehall. Yes.
It actually does, so low are its standards.
Somehow, I probably won't.
There isn't, but there are at least two scenes where you'd expect to hear one.
There's a boot-shot involving a chest/crate; that's yer lot.
The film stars (inexplicably) Clarke Peters, who also appeared in 1981's Silver Dream Racer, as did Richard 'Admiral Motti' LeParmentier.
*1Seriously, though. It's insulting to actor and Paralympian Jack Binstead that the screenplay takes place in so many locations which are clearly inaccessible to wheelchairs (especially when the obvious assistance he'd require is barely shown on-screen, even in the background as a matter-of-course depiction). The film's crescendo features a joke where his wheelchair is stuck on a rocky beach, ignoring the fact that he wouldn't have been able to fucking well get there anyway. Is a visual gag where a kid falls out of a wheelchair really any better when the actor playing him is actually disabled? Does that give the joke a layer of self-deprecation which means it's safe for 'the normies' to laugh at? Given that the rest of the script is puerile and lazy in equal measure, I'm not sure that it does...
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Oh, it's a cruel and capricious screenwriter who sub-titles a film with a Slayer song and then, as his only apparent nod to thrash metal, inserts the "now I lay me down to sleep" prayer used in Metallica'a most well-known track. Shame on you, Jon Croker, and shame on director Tom Harper for encouraging you…
'Angel Of Death' opens some 30 years or so after the events of 'The Woman In Black' with the Second World War already in full swing and children being evacuated to "The Countryside". So a derelict house on a swamp-enclosed island will be close enough, definitely. When young school teacher Eve Parkins is despatched to look after a group of youngsters with their austere headmistress, the troubled past of the island latches on to the already-traumatised children, and foul things rise once more…
So, yeah, this is a completely unnecessary sequel to a film which worked perfectly well in its own arena, and while it's at least not a total rehash of its predecessor, the screenplay tries at every turn to expand on the events and backstory of The Woman In Black. Tries and fails. As a horror film, it's efficient enough (Friday night's audience*1 jumped at All The Loud Noises™), but the suffocating creepiness which made the first film work just isn't present here. The supernatural mystery story has been replaced by a generic face-at-the-window horror which also has the temerity to borrow the set as well as the name of its forebear.
Phoebe Fox puts in a good turn as the protagonist (restrained by a clunky backstory), Helen McCrory is completely wasted as the headmistress who doesn't suffer fools gladly, and Jeremy Irvine seems to have been drafted in to put the Ham™ into Hammer Horror, taking a badly written role and performing it badly (he is better than this). Most amazingly, the titular Woman™ has not only been re-cast with a different actress, but also seems to have been reduced to a cameo-role in her own film. 'Jennet' shows up occasionally with nowhere near the menace or intensity which Liz White brought to the role. Truth be told, the whole threat-element is just a mess in this film. The mechanism (and reason) by which Jennet works her evil isn't explained for audience members who haven't seen the first one, the mass-hypnotism of the children is reduced massively, and there's a blind fella living with a bunch of ghost-children back on the mainland which seems to have nothing to do with the story at all.
Maybe I shouldn't expect better from Hammer (they gave us The Quiet Ones, after all), but I'm afraid I do. And that's the only time I've been afraid all night...
Oh, and how come the grumpy bus driver tells Eve he can't put the headlights on because there's a blackout and there could be enemy bombers overhead, yet twenty minutes later he's strolling out of the mansion and over the gardens with a torch in his hand?
Not unless your standards with horror are incredibly pedestrian/forgiving.
Oh, it's a telly or Netflix job.
I haven't seen Phoebe Fox in anything else, but she seems on good form here.
Irvine and McCrory? Nowhere near.
Make a few quid for Hammer by riding on the coat-tails of an acceptable previous film?
It probably does, yes.
Well, I just might.
There isn't.
Helen McCrory starred in the Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows films alongside Mr Domnhall Gleeson, who will be appearing on our screens this December in Star Wars: The Force Awakens..
*1 And my word, a Friday-night horror-audience is a terrible thing to behold. Fidgeting and chatting (NO, REALLY) throughout the entire film when the loud noises didn't call for them to outwardly shriek. Bastards.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
The Railway Man (SPOILERS)
Cert: 15 / 116 mins / Dir. Jonathan Teplitzky
It gives me no great pleasure to say that I wasn't really moved either way by The Railway Man. What should have been a thoroughly thought-provoking, if not harrowing, study of pride, post-traumatic stress disorder and forgiveness came over as a rather clunky melodrama (albeit with remarkably solid acting, somehow).
Despite the excellent, tense atmosphere the film creates, I wasn't really moved by the scenes of emotional breakdown in the first act, wasn't really horrified by those of torture in the second, and wasn't convinced by the reconciliation in the third; all of which is only exacerbated by the fact that this actually happened. The film doesn't get all War Horse about the moral issues at play, but it makes little attempt to paint grey areas either. I was expecting the story to convey the horrors of war, but instead only learned that Eric Lomax had a really shitty time of things after 1942 (which I knew before I went in, so…).
Maybe the film, being released strategically for awards-season, has just been paled by its competition in 2014? Or maybe choice lines of emphasised dialogue like "I am happy" and "I am sorry" sound like they should have been left at the first draft?
…then again, the audience around me seemed fairly engrossed, so maybe the problem with this film lies with this viewer.
Pretty much, yeah.
I didn't. You might.
Not for me, but hopefully for the folks who made it, yes.
The cinematography's nice, but you don't need to see it on a massive screen.
I won't.
Doubtful.
There ain't.
1) In 'the funeral scene', why do the surviving comrades all have Scottish accents? They didn't when they were prisoners.
2) Looking at the standard-issue 'comparison' photos over the final credits, Jeremy Irvine looks like the young Eric Lomax, and Colin Firth looks like the old Eric Lomax. And Eric Lomax looks like Eric Lomax. So why doesn't Jeremy Irvine look like Colin Firth*1?
*1 Even though Jeremy Irvine does a bloody good job of acting and sounding like Colin Firth, and underlining the fact that Colin Firth is really just acting and sounding like Colin Firth. #ColinFirth
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
I'm not entirely sure what to make of this one. I'm pretty sure I enjoyed it, but I have no frame of reference in which to make comparisons, and the only reason I kept on top of the oft-sprawling/weaving plot is because of a pre-game primer from Mrs Blackout. Everyone in front of the camera seems to be doing a great job, with the only possible drawback being that pretty much all of the characters are likeable*1 - including the ones who are meant to be the exact opposite. It's no biggie to me, but it may have the purists frowning.
After having my fingers burned with Jane Eyre, I'm glad that a film like this restores the balance somewhat. Although while I'll be interested to see other adaptations of Great Expectations, I'm not entirely sure I've been switched on to Dickens.
And from someone with far more experience in this field that I, Mrs Blackout said largely the same thing: good, but not definitive.
Oh, and full marks to Ralph Fiennes for channeling The Hitcher for his portrayal of Magwitch. I appreciated that, even if it seemed lost on most of the cinema audience.
*1 Even David Walliams, in full pantomime mode no less, fits in without me wanting to throw obscenities at the screen. This is a new world record.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
