Hotel Paradiso

I saw this when it first came out, and found it to be a work of some genius; but I must confess I was clearly in the minority at the time.

For me, the progressive lunacy of the proprietors of Guest House Paradiso just gets better and better throughout the film, with one of the most hilarious climaxes to a film ever.

But I wouldn't recommend it to Mother.

Lovers of gross-out comic book style humour will appreciate this movie; there are subtle jokes hidden away, but they are usually quickly flattened by a comedy frying pan. Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson are superb, and the deadpan, unsuspecting guests are also excellent.

The Guest House Paradiso is situated right on the edge of the cliffs on the English coast with great views on one side and a nuclear power plant on the other. As if that wasn't reason enough to avoid it, the owners, Eddie and Richard, are about the least competent or hospitable people in the hotel trade – making Basil Fawlty looking like the best manager in the world. When a disaster in the kitchen proves to be the last straw for the few guests living there, Richard and Eddie finds themselves alone in the hotel. The blissful peace doesn't last long though, because a young family (The Nice's) turn up, with the Paradiso being the only place they can afford. This is bad enough but things are only going to get more complicated when an Italian film star, rubber swimwear and a dish called "fish surprise" come into play.

It is not always possible to say that a film is bad or good because sometimes they are aimed so specifically at a particular audience that if you're not in that group then it is likely that you will hate it while they think it is fantastic. In these situations it is possible that the "majority rule" is not necessarily right but Guest house Paradiso is an example of where you really want to be trusting the majority. Of course you could fall into a very small group of people who find uninspired crudity funny but, if that is you then you probably have more important things to sort out than to be watching this film. Those who like Bottom will love this but I would be surprised if anyone else found much to enjoy in this thing; the violent and crude slapstick is basically copied from that TV show, which is a problem because, as you might guess, I'm not a fan of it at all.

The narrative here is pathetic though and makes Bottom's plots about sex etc look like highly polished works of literature. Here we have plots about Italian film stars, video tapes of rubber cavorting, nuclear fish and, when all else fails vomit, lots of vomit. The script doesn't offer anything other than crudity to work with and by the end of the film I had been worn down by shoddy jokes, crudity for crudity's sake and an endless feeling of being rather soiled by the whole affair. Normally I would sorry for the cast in this sort of film but since Mayall and Edmondson wrote and directed this they have nobody to blame. They can take a punch but they cannot make this tired old filth feel fresh or funny; by the time they are swimming in green vomit I really worried that they must have actually thought this was a good idea and worth doing. Support from Pegg is sad because he has shown himself to be much smarter than this with his various projects and this must have been like a low point for him. How on earth Casell, Nighy and Mahieu got involved is beyond me.

Overall, if you think Bottom is the funniest thing ever then you will enjoy this film. For the vast majority of audiences though it is endlessly crude and constantly just aiming for the lowest form of humour that it can get; the "big climax" of loads of vomit just made me wonder what on earth the funders of this rubbish were thinking. I apologise to all the teenage boys who think this film is brilliant but I gotta call it like I see it and this is sh*t of the highest (or lowest) order.

i had been looking for this film for so long before i found it, i had seen it when i was younger and loved it, after my second viewing i still loved it and i still do.

this is a love/hate film, if you like bottom, young ones, the comic strip, then you will find this funny. If you don't like that kind of humour then don't bother. I love this film and have grown up with these comedy programmes, for me this film is simply placing their comic genius on the big screen.. It is not an award winner by any means but if you just want good wholesome slapstick then this is it!

the film lacks the quality of the TV series and this is usually the case with films but it still has enough material to keep you laughing even if a lot of the jokes are pretty similar to their previous work.

yes, the humour is a little childish and not to everyone's taste but sometimes you just need that in a film.

A sign of what to expect in this film came when I spotted that this was the first (and probably the last) film to have in its credits a "Vomit Technician".

In what is a couple of hours of silly gags, hilarious violence and excellent slapstick humour.

This film was just what you'd expect from the Bottom boys, and it is great to see them back in their best form after Rik Mayall's life threatening accident.

Richie (Mayall) and Eddie (Edmondson) are too similar to their Bottom characters, if we can have any criticism at all, and Edmondson does a surprisingly good job in directing the film also.

This film has already spawned the predictable comparisons to Fawlty Towers that just aren't there, and the Guest House Paradiso itself is hardly Torquay!

Watch out for some excellently crafted dialogue amongst all the violence and mayhem.

If you don't like Bottom you'll probably hate this - but I loved it.

As someone who has thoroughly enjoyed "Bottom" on the TV I was hoping that the 2 lads would be able to maintain their style on film and benefit from the larger budget. I really don't think they wholly succeeded.

One of the early scenes with Eddie on a motorbike would've been handled with chroma-key green screen on video with a chaotic speeded up background and hilarious results. Here they virtually do the stunt for real at higher cost but with rather less effect.

In this film you can tell that instead of the economically efficient multicamera set-up they used at the BBC, one camera was used throughout with the resulting pressure on the acting talents of the 2 leads. With the best will in the world these guys are more used to a theatre style of physical comedy and their, and possibly more Ade Edmundson's, inexperience shows.

Ade Edmundson directed and for one reason or another Rik Mayall has well over 70% of the screen time. Which is not a bad thing. In addition Edmundson bravely goes nude in one scene - something never seen on the TV show. So I really think they were giving the film their best shot without concern for their own egos.

As usual the supporting characters are played as normal human beings accidentally walking into the madness but Simon Pegg, who we all now know to be no small comedy talent himself, is a little off putting in retrospect as I couldn't help but expect him to have some laughs of his own rather than play victim throughout.

One portion of the film intercuts a Richie and Eddie scene with what appears to be the rape of the main female character. This was rather disconcerting to me even when I knew full well that the bad-guy is going to come to a sticky end.

So over all there are several short-comings but for Bottom fans the film should be seen and not avoided as most reviews say.