Die Bombe fliegt

There's a genre of spy thriller which involves Presidents, Prime Ministers and other heads of government, top police and spymasters, an assassin like Carlos the Jackal, and the imminent outbreak of WWIII. Whoops Apocalypse is one of those.

Just as Airplane is a disaster movie.

Not that Whoops Apocalypse is as funny as Airplane - there are too many scenes when the plot advances in a reasonably pointful fashion for that - but there are some inspired spoof scenes. There's a beautiful one when the Navy Officer gets his orders to report to his ship by nightfall - there are reasons why this isn't quite as poignant as the similar scenes in b&w 1942 movies.

Some bits of it may well seem inexplicable unless you remember that it was made in Britain in 1986, with the Falklands War still fairly fresh in people's minds, Di-mania a-booming, and Margaret Thatcher still running the country in demented fashion.

The highlight of the film is Peter Cook's portrayal of Prime Minister Sir Mortimer Chris: a high-powered Sir Bufton Tufton, fearfully right-wing and, as we discover, stark staring bonkers. Loretta Swit plays the US President a la Carol Channing, and a number of others kick in with decent cameos.

I'd like to see it again, to find out whether I got all the jokes the first time round - Airplane must have taken a dozen viewings before I'd spotted some of the really subtle touches. I suspect there is less to discover in this second and third time round, but it's not a bad attempt, overall.

This is a corny, horribly-paced comedy where you see every joke coming a mile away, and then they hit you over the head with the punchline as hard as they can. It starts off with some clown doing an "old people move slowly" joke that feels straight out of the early 1800s. Then the movie repeats the same joke. And it stays at that level of cornball laziness the whole time.

This movie LOVES dragging out & repeating its jokes to make sure they're as dead & unfunny as possible. Here's an island full of Russians wearing the same disguise, so let's hit you over the head with that 1 visual gag over and over and over for multiple scenes. Or here's a special ops squad breaking into a wax museum where they've heard the Princess is being held prisoner. Obviously the lamest, corniest joke you could do is "the soldiers think the wax dummies are real people," and the movie does that joke about 15 times.

OR they won't even bother with any jokes at all: Here's Michael Richards in blackface, does he say or do anything remotely funny? Nope, this is one of those movies that thinks "comedy means the audience is supposed to laugh, not that the actors are supposed to be funny."

Richards is a good example of the godawful directing in this movie, as he's horribly overdirected & saddled with a "funny" nasal voice most of the time (think Adam Sandler at his worst). It's obvious the screenwriter was in love with his own words, creating a tedious, talky script where the actors have barely any breathing room to add their own personality. The classy Peter Cook and the always-energetic Rik Mayall try their hardest to add some spark to their roles, but they're totally wasted as they shuffle through a series of incredibly lame jokes that might've "looked good on paper" but are a chore to actually sit through.

Meanwhile Loretta Swit plays the 1 major female character; as the US president, she's basically a boring sitcom mom who just wags her finger scoldingly at the male characters' clowning around. That's right, we get the cliche of every hack writer who has no idea how to make a woman funny or even interesting, so he just makes her the boring "smart" character who sits there. Of course, most of the movie follows this barely-even-a-character. Other characters in the movie actually DO things, but the closest thing we have to a protagonist is this boring plank of wood. How stupid do you have to be to fail that badly at basic screenwriting?

So if the comedians in the cast brought you to this movie, don't get your hopes up for an "underrated gem" or a "forgotten classic." Maybe to people who grew up in the 1950s and were sheltered from satire their entire lives, this movie was "outrageous," but even stuff made at least a decade earlier was harder-hitting. It's honestly depressing to see the talent completely wasted on this hacky, embarrassingly lame script. The only value in this movie is a guideline to young screenwriters: "do the opposite of this."

This was the film that I watched on the closing day of the ABC cinema Golders Green. It was a popular cinema but was sold because the fire Cannon Group had to have money to pay for their loans.

This film does have some funny moments in amongst some really silly scenes involving The Myall.

Peter Cook is the most prominent name in the cast. He plays all the absurdities with a straight face.

Herbert Lom,one of my favourite actors,plays the rebel General in his own inimitable way.

Loretta Switt,has a fairly straight part as the. United States President.

This film is no great classic,but it will not bore the pants off you.

I hadn't seen this for years and just brought it on DVD. I've got up off the floor now! This film has it all. Insane politicians, evil terrorists (wanted for releasing the recipe for airline lunches, a crime that rates alongside killing), demented journalists, the SAS blasting the London wax museum (Madame Tussards) to pieces and a British princess enduring unenviable treatment at the hands of the baddie. I think anyone over 30 or those who survived the Thatcher/Regan era should see this film, it is just toooooo funny for words. Most of the jokes are still funny now and I will never ever make a cup of tea using a Liptons tea-bag ever again. Ian Richardsons camp admiral and Rik Mayalls SAS captain are guaranteed to bring tears to your eyes whilst Peter Cook as the PM is so funny you'll laugh till you burst your ribs. A classic and I'm off to watch it again right now!

but there are some very funny bits in this: Rik Mayall's manic SAS agent, Ian Richardson's Rear Admiral Bendish (you may need some familiarity with British slang to get the joke, but it's made clear soon enough), the incomparable Peter Cook's crazed Prime Minister and several other performances lend this sometimes fairly juvenile outing a good deal more comedic mileage than it probably would have gotten from a less talented cast. The ending does come close to ranking up there as a bit of a classic, and overall it's a pretty entertaining piece of silliness. It's not going to knock 'Dr. Strangelove' off of any pedestals for stinging anti-war satire, but it does supply some genuine laughs.

Michael Richards' portrayal of Lacrobat can't come close to John Cleese's handling of the role in the 1982 television series, but he gets some amusing business in; and the somewhat oddly cast Loretta Swit does a better job with her role as President Adams than might have been expected.