Sir Billi

"Sir Billi" is a film so awful that after Sean Connery made it, he retired. When asked why, he said that the quality of the films they offered him were terrible and he was tired of making bad films. Considering late in his career he appeared in films like "The League of Extraordinary Gentleman" and "The Avengers" (based on the TV show...not the Marvel characters) and "Sir Billi", I can certainly understand his frustration. They are all terrible films, though somehow "Sir Billi" manages to be the worst of these!

"Sir Billi" is a CGI film made by a Scottish production company and I can only pray that they never make another...it's THAT bad! The CGI is simply the ugliest I can recall...even worse than "Foodfight"! Now THAT's bad. The quality of the artwork is so bad that the 2012 film looks like it was made back in the 1990s! And even then, it would be an ugly film!

The plot lost me....and after a while my eyes glazed over and my brain went to sleep. There's a talking goat who thinks he's a dog and a lot of other weird things...making the script perhaps as bad as the godawful CGI.

As far as the voicework goes, it was NOT good. Connery sounded very old, tired and sad. The rest of the cast weren't much better. But the worse were the hellishly annoying voices of the child characters. Imagine fingernails going across the chalkboard...and it's even worse!

In summation, there is absolutely nothing enjoyable nor well made about this terrible film...a film so awful that it didn't even deserved to go straight to video. Among the very worst films I've ever seen and about as pleasant as Ebola.

This movie is the worst thing that has ever happened to my beautiful country. Honestly it was painful for me to even sit through it, but somehow I endured the torture.

I've never been so insulted in my life. : (

Firstly, the character design in this film is abysmal; every character is hard to look at it. Secondly, the whole concept is quite strange, and frankly pretty sinister - animals and humans live side-by-side and can talk with each other, yet cows are still milked, certain animals are threatened with extermination, etc... Beyond that the whole thing is very strange, the main character is apparently a retired vet, but also has been knighted? There's a policeman obsessed with catching a beaver? There's a duck who flies a plane?

The storyline veers from repititce and predictable to bizarre and inexplicable, and the jokes and stereotypes feel dated at best, and for a kids film, there are some weirdly sexual, and quite frankly offensively sexist moments with female characters.

I don't know who funded this but I feel bad for them.

Avoid.

This movie fricken suck so bad that's all you need to know

Were there reasons in the first place to see Sir Billi? Yes, that it was Sean Connery's comeback, that there are some talented actors on board and that it was billed to be the first animated film to be done entirely in Scotland. Avid fans of the animation medium would find a further reason to see it. It's a shame that such a great and charismatic actor like would comeback with a film that is a contender for the worst film of his career, certainly the worst animated film of 2013 and the worst I've seen in a while.

The only redeeming qualities are the striking Bond-style opening sequence and Dame Shirley Bassey's singing, nice song and she sounds great. You'd think that Connery would elevate things as well, sadly while it was nice to hear him and his distinctive voice his talent is wasted by being given little to do, it makes one wonder what made him break his retirement in the first place. The rest of the cast aren't much better, they lack energy and some of the accents are cringe-worthy.

And there's no better news with the animation, which is really quite bad. The characters are very plastic-looking and the colours are garish. It often looks very freaky-looking as well. The music is not bad-sounding but is not used well, like some lines it can be out of place, and the Bond references were completely pointless, adding absolutely nothing to the story. Were they paying homage to Connery by any chance?

Sir Billi is a very poorly-written film too. The dialogue as a whole is uninspired and unremarkable, ruined further by that it seems to have no idea who it's aiming at. There is a lot of smut and innuendo which will go over kids' heads, if they were trying to widen the target audience they failed at that. Even worse is that not only is the use of it overkill but even adults won't find it funny at all and will find it distasteful instead. The story is dull and incoherent, and filled with too many characters that serve little if anything to the telling of it. Regarding the characters here too, if you are trying to find any to root for, good luck, that certainly didn't happen with me(you might think differently though).

Overall, from a personal subjective opinion Sir Billi was dire with very little good about it. Considering the potential it had it was really disappointing too, Planes and Justin and the Knights of Valour were underwhelming films with some potential, but Sir Billi's potential was even bigger(being Sean Connery's comeback and claiming to be the first animated film from Scotland) and fell flat on its face even harder. 1/10 Bethany Cox