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Reviews
Boudica (2023)
Utter Insulting Rubbish
How difficult can it be to write a decent screenplay about Boudicca? How can they get it SO wrong? An historic icon. A great Queen. And she's ended up with this! They even get the ending wrong. She was not butchered by the Romans. She poisoned herself, preserving her dignity & dying in freedom.
Sheesh. This is gory inaccurate rubbish. It follows what are believed to be the main events of Boudicca & her tribes but the interpretation is wildly wide of the mark.
There are acronyms such as "I reckon", dead daughters (in reality they probably fought alongside Boudicca), an Excalibur type sword & some weird characters who seem to have remarkable insight. This is unlike Boudicca herself who comes across as a naive idiot who relies on the advice of her dead daughters.
What a huge disappointment. If you must watch it, settle down with some mates, a bottle of wine & have a good laugh of the inanity of it all.
Phantom Thread (2017)
I Really Tried to Like it
I thought I'd enjoy this. I settled down one evening and started to watch. By the end I thought it tedious; it really dragged.
I did watch it until the bitter end but wished I hadn't bothered. The two main characters are deeply unpleasant. By the end I just wanted it to.
Emma. (2020)
"It was badly done indeed"
I fail to see why anyone thought another version of Emma was necessary. There's a good film version from 1996 and an excellent TV series from 2009. So why this?
It feels badly miscast in the two main characters, especially Mr Knightley, who comes across as boorish and petulant. Where is the charm, the wit, the subtlety?
And in the name of God why the nude scene at the start! We know people had bodies in the past but if it doesn't fit, in any way, with the storyline or theme why show us Knightley's rear?
I feel I shall have to go and lie down in a darkened room and watch Emma Thompson's version of Sense & Sensibility on loop.
Oliver Twist (1948)
It's the dog that does it
I've seen this film many times over the decades. It's faultless. It evokes the times superbly: the utter hopelessness of the poor & the privileged life of the rest. The cast are amazing, not a weak performance amongst them. And you've got top drawer actors e.g. Alec Guiness. And the up & coming (Anthony Newley, Diana Dors &, blink or you'll miss her, Hattie Jacques). The sets are superb, the direction sublime. But the top award has to go to Bullseye, the dog. I don't want to do spoilers but when the key dramatic scene comes at the end it's the dog, frantically clawing at the door, that makes you gulp.
A Christmas Carol (2019)
The Arrogance of Some People
I wonder why many writers feel the need to tamper with the classics? They became classics because they are timeless. They have characters that are always relevant; their plots reflect their and our times.
Yet onto the scene comes some clever knowall who feels that a modern audience needs to have the subtleties of the original story updated with all the art of being hit continually over the head with a brick.
And so the story then becomes a modern story with people dressed in old costume.
If Dickens had wanted his characters to swear and behave in such a lewd and crude manner then he would have written it like that. He didn't. So he didn't. And if he had it probably wouldn't have become the classic it has.
Modern writers are breathtakingly condescending to their audience. If I read Dickens I want to read Dickens. If I watch Dickens then I want to watch Dickens. Not some appalling update "for modern audiences."
Then there are the new irrelevant scenes. For example, the gas explosion. What in the name of time was that for? Been given a CGI set for Christmas have we? And all the tramping about in woods and clearings. The novel was written to reflect the harshness of the industrial world. It was set in a few streets of London (apart from a few scenes from Scrooge's past). Yet in this adaptation we have camels!
May I suggest that if writers want to produce some Victorian set, but unsubtle modern story, they at least have the wit to write their own plot and characters. And leave the Dickens alone!