Dad's Army

I'm sorry, but with the best will in the world I wanted to like this movie. I've probably watched all the original series when they were first televised and thought that they were so, so funny. I watched the DVD's of the series several years ago and still found them highly amusing, not as funny as when I originally saw them but that, to a certain extent, is understandable. However, this remake!! It is so not funny! The dialogue and interaction between the characters is woefully weak. If I were to see that sort of interaction in a school play rehearsal I would seriously consider canceling the show! Why do producers think it is good value to remake classics without the original actors? Could you imagine a remake of Steptoe and Son without Wilfred Brambell and Harry H Corbett? Perish the thought! Sorry, but this movie is a no-no for me and I would advise anyone who has a 'soft spot' for the original 'Army' to stick to your good memories of that show and not to spoil those memories with this poor attempt at an alternative version.

Having just seen this, and being old enough to remember the original series, it was, as expected, not terribly good. One of the things that makes the original series so good, the interplay between the cool and elegant Sergeant Wilson, and the pompous Captain Mainwaring. In the real world war two, the original Sergeant Wilson, John Le Mesurier, had been a tank regiment Captain, and the original Captain Mainwaring, Arthur Lowe, had been a ranker, a radar technician, and the role-reversal in the series worked so well..... the little class nuances between the two are completely lost in the film, . Michael Gambon carries off Godfrey to a tee, but the rest of the cast just don't seem to get it. Where was Frazer's gloom and doom? Jonesy a cook in the Sudan? have the producers not seen the 'dirty fakir' episode? Hodges barely gets a look in, no verger, and the vicar appears to have turned straight....there are so many little things in the original series that make it so funny, all those little things are missing here, along with the utterly spot on comic timing of the original time-served cast.

Some of the script writing is dire, with no attempt made to get it historically right, the Godfrey sisters to miss Winters, 'where will you be next, New York, Paris... difficult given that Paris was under German occupation at the time... and a U boat surfacing in broad daylight in the bay? Tank traps on the beach at the bottom of a cliff, but no wire or mines? , wire and mines would have put Corporal Jones right in his comedic element!

And as others have observed, Mrs Mainwaring is an original 'er indoors, never actually seen in the series,It was one of the elements of the original that Mainwaring would do absolutely anything to avoid his wife, why change this?

The biggest problem I had watching it though, was that I kept hearing the lines coming out of the on-screen actors, but in my head I was hearing them coming out of the mouths of the original cast,and it just can't live up to it, it's like a huge shadow cast over the whole film, somewhat akin to the relationship between the TV Sweeney, and the dreadful Nick Love film..timing is everything!

This is a film version of a famous and funny TV series of the same name. In the last war the home guard consisted of mainly older men protecting Britain's shores: the series and now this movie portrays their comical adventures.

Unfortunately most of the characters in the movie version are inferior clones of the series. The making of this movie seems to have been rushed. A script that is mostly poor and unfunny and I could not wait for the picture to end.

In the TV series what made it so amusing was the strong interplay between the main male players. The lead actors wife was talked about but never seen nor were female recruits visible if at all. The film makers have ruined the picture by failing to give us a picture that does justice to the original series.

2 and a half, rounded up =

3/10

As someone in his frisky fifties, I am old enough to remember the arrival on our British TV screens of the original Dad's Army back in 1968. I can still remember my dearly departed Dad with tears flowing down his cheeks at the antics of this motley crew of (mostly) old folks as they confronted the (mostly imagined) Nazi hoards. Now nearly 40 years after the last episode premiered comes another big screen version (a spin off film with the original cast came out in 1971).

For those reading this from other parts of the world that may need a little more explanation, Dad's Army refers to the British Home Guard - a group of old timers from the First World War and/or those otherwise unable to serve in the active fighting forces in World War 2. The Home Guard were to be the last line of defense in an invasion of the UK.

The plot of the new film is paper thin. It's 1944 and the Nazi's are desperate to understand the invasion plans of the Allied forces. They dispatch a spy - Agent Cobra - to the sleepy seaside town of Walmington- on-Sea to try to dig out the truth. At the same time, an attractive journalist in the shapely form of Catherine Zeta-Jones arrives in the town to do an article on the Home Guard unit, stirring up passions and relationship-disruptions as she goes. And that about sums it up! (Now, you'd have to be pretty clinically stupid after watching the trailer not to work out who the spy was going to be, and fortunately for the film this is not a secret that is left to outstay its welcome.)

As a standalone film it's a pleasant enough watch, but in the end a bit of a damp squib. It really only works as a strong dose of nostalgia for the characters from the original series. So the key demographic for this would be those over 50 or children under 12 who may also enjoy some of the farcical and knockabout humor.

Many of the cast are perfectly suited to their roles, as caricatures of the original cast. Toby Jones plays the pompous Mainwaring; Bill Nighy is the spit of Le Mesurier as Sergeant Wilson; Michael Gambon makes a fantastic Private Godfrey; and Blake Harrison (from "The Inbetweeners") is good as 'Stupid Boy' Pike. Toby Jones in particular excels in getting across the character of the puffed up and self-important Mainwaring. The quality of his acting is nicely brought home by a blooper shown over the end credits involving a mobile phone: Jones stays perfectly in character as he lambasts Private Godfrey.

It was also truly fantastic to see 84-year old Frank Williams reprise his role as the vicar. With Ian Lavender's cameo, one of only two of the original cast members to do so.

The one cast member that really didn't work for me was Tom Courtenay as Corporal Jones: an excellent actor, but not a good fit for this part. Jones (in the guise of Clive Dunn) was at the farcical comedy centre of the original series, but here all of his lines fall as flat as a deflated blimp.

The script manages to fabricate opportunities for most of the cast to utter their classic catchphrases, with some more successful than others. There is also a lack of chemistry between some of the cast, with the Mainwaring/Wilson class war not really working well: a classic line about Wilson speaking Latin falls to the floor like a dead weight as a result.

Directed by Oliver Parker, this is one mainly for the older fans of the TV Series. It's probably a 4* film at best, but the extra 2 *'s I give this one is for the heady dose of nostalgia and good memories from my youth.

(Please visit bob-the-movie-man.com for the graphical version of this review. Thanks.)

Lets face it, everyone involved in this was on a hiding to nothing from the start. If this film had too many nods to the original (and beloved) TV series, it would be criticised. If it tried to be its own beast, it would be criticised.

In the end it fails as a film because a) it tries to be a bit of both, and b) it just simply isn't funny.

There are some talented people involved, all doing very respectful takes on the original characters, but they are working with a weak (and often historically inaccurate) script that means they are lumbered doing imitations, rather than putting their own spin on the roles.

It's a shame this isn't good, but I can't say I'm surprised.