Postman Pat: The Movie

I took my three year old granddaughter to see this film but it had nothing like the appeal to her of her earlier visit to "Frozen".

As a familiar character from television and books, Postman Pat (voiced by TV actor Stephen Mangan but with Ronan Keating as the singing voice) has an immediate attraction for young children and the cartoon has plenty of colour, action and songs, although it looks more like a television production than a big screen affair.

However, the storyline's weak double satire - of management efficiency measures in a postal operation called Special Delivery Service and of an overpowering game show host named Simon Cowbell - are better understood by parents than children, so neither age group was terribly enthused.

Nice (London Olympics style) intro, passable opening theme version but then horrors of horrors.....those voices...terrible. Sounds as if all the main characters have been ingesting helium. Did the Producers really buy into the franchise at all or were they just out to make a quick buck with celebrity voices and a poor tie in to a talent show. Anyone brought up on the original t.v. series will shake their heads at this very poor film. Ever watched Shaun the Sheep? that's the way to do a feature film- true to the original with MINIMUM changes. I hope this never crosses my path again and warn anyone thinking of watching this film to expect very little of the original- for that is what you will get.

As a parent who can enjoy children's animations, this was a disappointment to say the least. I think the writers completely missed an opportunity to make a kids film that could've been endearing, funny, and true to the original TV series. The characters voices were not right, and I think this was mainly because bringing in big name actors to voice was more important than delivering a product- sorry film - to its fans.

The story started quite promising, (a huge smile on my children's face during the opening credits) but very quickly diverted in a direction that just didn't tie in with the whole film. The introduction of a mainstream 'talent' show was unnecessary and didn't work,(in my opinion) and was just far removed from what a child watching would expect - not all children watch British talent shows - and if this was introduced only to make fun of Simon Cowell, then thats just poor writing. All the characters had tiny quirky moments, but it was sporadic throughout, and lost in amongst the poor storyline. Characters such as Ted Glen didn't get much air time, when he could've added a funny slapstick element to it all.

Very disappointed by the this, a completely lost opportunity....

I'll admit, for the first half-hour, I really didn't see what was so bad about this film. The first little while felt like an episode of the series and even the talent show story line at least made sense as Pat was doing it for his wife and not for himself, and Pat's always been selfless so that was great. I was already a little sceptical when they revealed the whole Robot Pat thing, but when it escalated into a bigger plot, this was where the movie almost lost me. I was able to accept the existence of cellphones and a PS Vita, of all things, in the world of Postman Pat, but the evil robot thing really shouldn't be connected to this.

And before you say anything, yes, I know movies connected to cartoon shows usually try to differentiate themselves from their source material. And honestly, I think the talent show plot was good enough. You could have had the fame and attention get to Pat's head only for him to learn a lesson in the end and that would have been fine. As if that's not enough, we also get a terminator reference and, yeah, is this really Postman Pat?

However, in spite of all of this, I found this strangely enjoyable, but more as its own stand-alone sort of thing. Like Tom and Jerry the movie, I don't really like this as something connected to its respective series but rather its own entity. Every time the movie did something to make me groan, like when the villain revealed his evil plan before it was too late for Pat to stop him and, probably the most painful of all, Jess not being able to tell the difference between his beloved owner and a robot, it managed to pull me back with either a decent joke or something equally entertaining.

All-in-all, I can see why a lot of Pat fans don't like this movie. After the first half-hour, it starts to lose a lot of its charm in favour for something I'd accept in any other animated film, but I still found it strangely entertaining. I can't recommend it, really, but it's a guilty pleasure for me.

Watched this with two 4 year olds (one boy one girl) and a two year old. Both of the elder children asked to leave about 30 minutes in with the comments of 'this is rubbish' and 'I'm bored'. From an adult perspective I found nothing of any interest in the attempts at humour, and the story line was as dull as dishwater. It just doesn't work on any level.

The same group of us watched Frozen and they loved it from start to finish. So I don't think it was the children's ability to stay focused in the cinema that led to, what felt like, a wasted afternoon.

I implore you not to waste either your time nor money on this film.