Absolutely Fabulous: Le Film

This film is lighthearted, funny and crazy from beginning to end. If you were a fan of the TV show, I think you're more likely to enjoy it because you would understand the silliness and not expect it to be amazing. This film shows the return of Patsy, Edina and Saffy, along with some new characters and many celebrity cameos.

One of the new characters we see in the film is Edina's granddaughter; Lola. Lola appears frequently throughout but fails to engage the audience. The character is weak and I think shouldn't appear as often as she does in the film.

From the very beginning of this film we notice there are many celebrity cameos in this film, 60 in total. Many of these celebrities only appear for a minute each, but some of them are not needed at all as they only say a word or two. Despite this, many of the other celebrity appearances are very amusing and bring a smile to our faces. For example, Rebel Wilson, Lulu etc.

Overall, this film is crazy, amusing and doesn't fail to make you smile. It is definitely aimed at people who were fans of the TV show, as it brings a sense of nostalgia and reuses some of the classic jokes used in the show. The story line is bonkers, but that's what we expect from Patsy and Edina. Some characters definitely shouldn't have been included as they don't add anything to the film and appear to be used to fill time. If you weren't a fan of the show, I'd give this one a miss.

It started very slowly, and at first I was really worried that this was nothing but a cash grab...after they "killed" Kate Moss, though, it really took off! In lieu of a "review", I've got bullet points:

*Stella McCartney was totally hilarious, but only if you know your Beatles

*It saddens me to say, but the least funny person in this film is...BUBBLE??? Let me put it this way - in "AF:tM", she is the equivalent of Jack Black in "Tropic Thunder"

*Saffy's tirade is hysterically funny...but only if you watched the series

*I recognized Barry Humphries in his 2 seconds as Dame Edna, but NOT as Charles...I didn't realize it until the credits

*I LOVED the homage to "Some Like it Hot"!!

A movie produced on the same material 25 years after the heyday of a television show will take a toll on quality. At the time, the Dawn French / Joana Lumley show traded on its subversive material and outrageous performances. Since then the world has moved dramatically toward the outpost the two established for themselves putting the show's aesthetic somewhere in the middle of the culture. So relying on the same shock value jokes from the early 90's results in the film's now mildly eye-raising but still mostly funny lines. All of the standbys from the original appear: Eddie gives her daughter poor parenting advice, her daughter lectures her to be more conservative, Lumley pulls out her "Pat Stone" routine at one point, she blacks out, etc., etc., etc. Vintage stuff if a little worn. The softness of the script benefits from a very long list of cameos although American audiences will miss many of the local British faces who didn't quite become global names. In short, like "Zoolander 2", AbFab the movie relies more on nostalgia than good writing but for hardcore fans that may be enough.

If you are a fan of the first three of the six seasons of Absolutely fabulous like I was, you might be,disappointed in this long awaited movie. This movie seems to have been written by the writers of seasons 4-6. Writers of Seasons 4-6 seemed to believe saying "Sweetie Darling" would get laughs, and they were wrong! This movie seems to be an unedited/uncensored two part episode from season 6 that somehow was a turned into a theatrical release. Just like seasons 4-6, this move was bland but amusing. Footnote: Get a load of a certain British starlet from 1950s on up who was doing cameos near the end.. She should put together an info-mercial on the Botox she used. You would never believe that's her at eighty plus of age.

Several years on from when we last saw Patsy and Eddy, Patsy is still in her fashion critic role but Eddie's fortunes have waned. Her list of PR clients is limited and low-key and her memoirs are not going to get published. While attempting to gain Kate Moss as a client, Eddie accidentally pushes her into the River Thames. Moss does not reappear and Eddie becomes a murder suspect, and Public Enemy Number 1. To escape the publicity Eddie and Patsy head for Nice.

Being a fan of the TV series I did not have great expectations for this movie. TV-to-movie conversions seldom work and in this case the TV series finished four years previously and was pretty much done long before that.

In the end, I was right about the conversion aspect - there's not enough material to sustain a feature film and the movie is festooned with silly scenes to pad out the time. The characters haven't aged well, and Joanna Lumley's script has not really adapted to their aging, seeming to still be based in the 90s in terms of character traits. Saffy / Julia Sawalha and Bubble / Jane Horrocks are particularly hard done by in this regard.

This said, its not all bad. There is a great swipe at the pretentiousness of the fashion industry and the superficiality of the media. There are also a few very funny moments. While the main characters feel like they're misplaced in time, and are living off old glories, some of the secondary characters make up for this. Kathy Burke as Magda is particularly entertaining.

Ultimately quite uneven with just enough good bits to make it likable.