Mrs. Brown's Boys D'Movie

If reviews were to be believed, we would all think D'Movie was a film about Nazis that clubbed baby seals to death. That's literally the reception this movie has received; I haven't seen a single good one. Even massive fans seem to have been bitterly disappointed with it. In spite of this, I attended a screening of it this evening (with my expectations lowered to subterranean levels, granted).

Now, the series has never been a critical favourite. It has been slated and dragged through the mud since its inception and to be fair, I can see why. I'm a casual admirer of the series but it's very, very old fashioned. So dated is the humour, it could pass for a BBC sitcom from the 70's were it not for the HD format. Its brand of humour is also very, well, cheap. Easy. Not that that's a bad thing... per say. It's certainly still funny. It works mostly because it's too jovial to dislike. The actors aren't great but they get the job done, and O'Carrol is admittedly fantastic as Mrs. Brown.

So, what happened D'Movie? The truth is, the big screen magnifies every little flaw the series has. Small things that are forgivable or even enjoyable in half-hour- interrupted-by-a-break format are downright deal breaking in this longer, less digestible format. The acting is showed up as being absolutely terrible, and the constant childish and cheap humour that gives us a laugh on telly wears thin very quickly here. The expanded scope of the plot also means that a lot of the better, more subtle family related and situational humour from the series is lost because it simply doesn't have a place here. Sure, there are a few laughs but not many for a film this long, and many "jokes" are simply embarrassing. One of the very worst is when O'Carrol loses the wig and plays a "Chinese" man by squinting his eyes and speaking in a clichéd and very stereotypical manner. That stops being funny by the time people turn 10; what's it doing here, dragged on for a laborious amount of time?

This also highlights another problem from the series that gets magnified here; the every so slight mean streak running through the script. I'm not going to call them "racist" or "discriminatory", because they're not, but such blatant use of stereotyping in place of humor really pushes its luck in a film that already calls for near-charity for it to be laughed at. If I was Russian or Chinese I'm pretty sure I'd find this film offensive; for that matter, I am gay, and watching I realized that the character Rory is a other embarrassing stereotype milked aggressively for laughs, and to be honest it's almost insulting. Don't get me wrong; humour riffing on stereotypes can be great (which, to be fair, is done very well in the series), but here it just wallows in it instead of creating comedy, and it feels plain mean, which is an absolute pity when the few laughs it did get were actually from the more good natured jokes.

Other problems arise just from the sheer laziness from other facets of production. The opening sequence is just abysmal, featuring the kind of "dancing" that would be considered embarrassing in a village pantomime (literally); a problem not helped by the fact it's repeated at the end instead of a proper finale, like the brilliant sing song at the end of one of the episodes on telly. The soundtrack is downright atrocious, too, often with cliché orchestral cues when a joke is cracked, or typical weepy music when something sad is happening. By the time one of Westlife's dreadful ballads rolls around in one of the key scenes, you may just need the sick bucket.

So far I've slated the movie, and to be honest I could go on and on because it's just an excruciatingly bad film. It really, really is an absolute disaster; if this hadn't been a television series before this was released, I probably would have given it a 1, honestly. But, as I say up top, it's a generous 2. Why? Well,truth be told, one thing shines through; it has a lot of spirit, which at times nearly (NEARLY) makes up for all the flaws. As I said, Brendan is honest to god fantastic as Mrs. Brown; nobody could play her better. The few laughs the film does manage are enough to remind you how really funny the series is, too, even though they show how bad the rest of the film is. None of these things save this production though; with this script, nothing could have.

I feel like I've over-analyzed this film, but I don't think I have, really. It simply doesn't work, and I've tried to root out the reasons why. Many people might think that none of these things matter, well, I say otherwise. Good film comedy runs like an engine, and this one has too many small problems under the hood to really get going, eventually just becoming one big problem. I've heard Mr. O'Carrol plans on making a trilogy; let's hope next time (if there is one) he manages to weed out the problems present here to make something closer in quality to the series.

Popular t.v. comedies aren't known to have reputable success. As with this one, sadly, it enormously fails, where laughs are scarce. The script has to thank for that too, where as a movie, we see the material's been restricted, where we're missing a lot "feckin'" words or vulgarities, what have you, where at times, I honestly was in a stupor. I don't know they couldn't just stick to their guns, where the movie, then would of warranted a MA rating, but it would be a lot of better than this disappointing film. What were the highlights, was the start with that brilliantly choreographed number, and song, where all the old lassies got out their prams, where at last we get to see Brown suburbia, which was pretty. The plot of course was so stereotypical of these t.v. sitcoms to film, with good versus bad. Some big guns, are trying to close down the market stalls, and guess who won't sell hers. We really have some big chunks of zero humor where as a Brown's fan, you will see. There were actually times when watching this, I was crying out for the series, to cure my despondence. We learn too a bit of shock truth about Mrs Brown's history, that really put a no spin on the movie.

If you have only seen the second version of the show, this movie is a bit confusing. For some reason they decided to go with things from the first series like Agnes having six kids and owning a vegetable stand.They also say that ninjas are from China and I'm pretty sure they weren't joking.The entire plot is non-sense.There's a scene where she eats breakfast at a diner.No matter which version of the show you go with, Agnes Brown would never go out for breakfast.The only good change is that Grandad has a much bigger part.He has more lines in this movie than he did in the entire series and he's really funny.For some reason they decided to use the fake bloopers in the movie which just doesn't make any sense, but it makes more sense than having Agnes push a pram around.The best part was seeing Brendan O'Carroll do a different character even though that character just sounded like Agnes with a lisp.Changing the subtitles to Russian when the Russians started speaking English was funny but this movie put too much emphasis on the serious stuff.While it's not a complete disappointment, it is more proof that TV shows should not be made into movies.

Anyone familiar with the show will not be surprised with what to expect here. Mrs Brown's curious mixture of shock humor and sentimentality plays as easily as ever. Not hateable in its own pedestrian way and they did manage to sort of make a plot worthy of being feature length but it's hard to imagine the arts being any less rich for its non-existence.

The sequence with the ninjas gives Connor a chance to show off his versatility as an actor but it just feels bizarre.

Recommended strictly for big fans of the series.

I really looked forward to seeing this. I love the TV show. Put simply though, like so many great television comedies, it just doesn't work in a full length movie. Of course there are funny (or at least mildly amusing) moments, but just not enough of them to carry the rather absurd plot. The solicitor's character and affliction had rich comedic potential, but was wasted in style. Hopefully this disappointing effort will not damage the reputation of what is a great success story. If you get bored like I did, at least the last line gets the biggest laugh of the whole thing (at least it did when I was there). However, that says more about the quality of what has gone before than it does about that moment.

Very poor.