Churchill: Detonando a História

For a long time now, Hollywood have overblown things, messed with facts and just generally not been all that honest with what has made it to the screen.. You can imagine then, the producers of Churchill - The Hollywood Years sat around thinking of ways to play with this idea. Making a send-up of Hollywood by casting Christian Slater as William Churchill must have seemed like a grand idea, and after seeing the trailer I was very much all for it...but it's safe to say that the film has missed the mark, and all Churchill - The Hollywood Years really is, is a bottom drawer action spoof with very little in the way of redeeming features or funny ideas. The film basically has one running joke, which is never good for a film; but it's especially rubbish when you realise that this joke isn't even capitalised on to the extent that it could have been. The film seems to be happy to just rely on giggles rather than big laughs, and only about half of these giggles work; and only about a quarter of the ones that work garner any kind of substantial laugh factor. This film isn't exactly sidesplitting.

One thing that definitely is to this movie's credit is the casting of Christian Slater in the lead role. Slater has made a lot of rubbish lately, and while this film isn't good; at least he's good in it. Slater gives Winston Churchill just the right essence of the standard 'American hero' and seeing him "kick butt" is always a pleasure. Well...it would be if the action sequences weren't so tacky. It's more local theatre than Hollywood. One miscasting is Neve Campbell as the queen of Britain. I'm a fan of Neve, and liked her a lot in the likes of 'Scream' and 'Wild Things', but here she just makes a fool of herself. Her British accent is stupid in the extreme and her performance isn't convincing at all. Like many British productions, this one has hired just about every British comedian going for various roles, and this doesn't do the film any favours in my opinion. Their caricatures are largely unfunny and it's obvious that they're only in the film so that they've got something to do. It's a huge shame that this film isn't very good as it could have been a nice little parody. Oh well.

Great idea - overplayed in places, but still enjoyable.

If they'd have been a bit more subtle in places they'd have made a better film. Performances of Neve Campbell as Princess Elizabeth and Phil Cornwall as Martin Boreman (with a great east-end accent) really stand out. Pity they didn't have time to develop some of the supporting roles especially the irish cockney of Mackenzie Crook and Miranda Richardson as Eva Braun

One to look back on laugh. Just wish they could do a sequel but in reverse - the British all action hero Churchill saving America from the Communist threat !

I have to admit that I didn't expect to like this movie but actually it was a pleasant surprise. I think the fact that some of the dialogue clunked terribly added to the humour. The premise is ridiculous, yes, but it is so for a reason. The people making this film don't expect you to take it seriously, it's not a history lesson. The film delights in sending up stock Hollywood clichés, the token black guy, the Americans saving the world etc, and I would suggest it as a tonic to anyone who had just endured "Hollywood history" dross like Pearl Harbour or U-571. The script contains some cracking one-liners and there is a pretty great British cast. Having Hitler to stay at the palace is an inspired piece of comic invention and the story with the princess parodies Mel Gibson's Braveheart sub-plot quite hilariously The absurdity of the movie is what saves it, if they had gone and made a half hearted effort it would never have gotten to film. Give it a go.

A patchy British send-up of the way Hollywood rewrites history in favour of America.

Although I enjoyed seeing a British film sticking two fingers up to Hollywood, in the end it only, and ironically, serves to demonstrate why Hollywood has won the war in the UK box office. A ramshackle gathering of comical ideas, just about held together around the idea that Churchill wasn't a fat old British aristocrat, but was in fact a young American hero who single-handedly saves England from the Nazis, while falling in love with the future Queen of England.

But too many times the script fell foul of going for the obvious gag, or just swearing for supposed comical effect. And the action sequences were so incompetently done, looking more like something out of an episode of Dad's Army, that they didn't work as a send up of Hollywood action sequences.

Whereas Monty Python had the talents of Terry Gilliam to give their movies style, Peter Richardson is somewhat less than gifted in that department. Some of it looks good, some of it just looks cheap.

Reeves and Mortimer are tedious as usual, and you just get the feeling that most of the Brit comedians who appeared were just here to amuse themselves. This gives a pretty amateurish feel to some scenes.

Still, I laughed and I think its worth seeing, simply because it does show up the absurdity of Hollywood history.

When taken in the right spirit, this is a pretty enjoyable film, but it has its share of problems nonetheless. Sold as a parody of the way Hollywood tends to treat actual historical events, it doesn't really live up to its promises as it only occasionally does a decent job of lampooning its subject matter. When it does, it's very funny - my favourite exchange being (paraphrased) "It's up to the Americans to save the day again!", "God, I wish I was an American!". The rest of the time, though, it seems content to simply be a wacky slapstick comedy that gets its laughs from making prominent historical figures look a little ridiculous. Sometimes this works - I adored Neve Campbell's performance as Elizabeth, as well as her hilariously overdone accent... in fact she's probably the best part of the movie - but other times it doesn't, for example with Goering and Goebbels. It also has a habit of making its jokes too obvious at times, as if writer/director Peter Richardson was afraid that audiences wouldn't get it: it's not enough for Churchill's fellow GI, an African-American, to be relegated to the role of the stereotypical black comic relief character, he actually has to point this out to us.

Nonetheless, it's a fun movie, although I suspect that it will go down better with British audiences than American viewers. Provided you're not expecting sophisticated comedy or subtlety of any kind I expect you'll have fun. 7/10