Castles in the Sky

What could have been a fascinating tale turns out, regrettably, to be a pile of slush. Fine cast can't overcome a weak script by the brilliant historian Ian Kershaw. Not only does he fail to create rounded believable characters, but he is unable to capture a substantive explanation for how the men are developing their theories. All reduced to blackboard scribbles. It's not an easy thing to present complex science to a credible plot for lay viewers, but Kershaw's version collapses into the simplistic and flat. It just leaves the film empty. If you want to see a great film on a war-time pressure cooker for inventors try The Dam Busters (1955), directed by Michael Anderson. Another absolutely brilliant one about scientific war time geeks is The Small Back Room (1948) by the startling, inventive and fun duo Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. They nail all the quirky Britishisms and get the romance right too. Kershaw might've taken a few tips from these tremendous scripts and films.

I guess I enjoyed this film because of its theme - RADAR - rather than the cinematic dimensions. I worked in the BBC's engineering department many years ago and could identify the challenges of inventing something new with limited resources.

Having said that I thought Eddie Izzard did a really good job despite other people's criticism or his wobbly accent. His acting was believable and carried the passion that Robert Watson-Watt must have had to press through to an operational system. I liked the themes of teamwork, toxic relationships, camaraderie, not giving up, working to deadlines.

As another reviewer mentioned, there was good use of symbolism if you were open to see it. The weakest part for me was the relationship between Robert and his wife played by Laura Fraser. Seeing her again made me want to watch the wonderful 'A Knight's Tale' with Heath Ledger.

I guess the technology challenges added to the score for this. If you like that kind of thing this is a good film to watch.

Not knowing much about how radar came about (although knew of the significance) and being a fan of Mr Izzard I was keen to watch this docu-drama. They were honest from the start saying this was based on true events, but the events you see have been made up for TV. Well, that's fine and fair enough.

But as soon as it started I felt my attention slip, Eddie Izzard was good, his accent went from Scottish to American can back again which I found funny. But he came across as a nice enough chap enthusiastic about his job. I didn't care much for his wife, and assumed that they didn't have children but lived that experience through his nephew?! That's when it hit me, if these things matter I clearly am not enjoying this programme.

I fast found myself confused by who everyone was, what became of the mole, or the guys who worked for him. I didn't care much about Robert's personal circumstances and was surprised he was surprised things didn't go according to plan. His team were good sorts, but I guess they all enlisted bar one?! I don't know I was out of the room at that time.

I understand the writers didn't really know how they got to a successful radar station, but the "eureka" moments were plain dull. I had hoped that Taffy was having a flash back from WW1 and was going to put them all in jeopardy. But no...

I wanted to like this, but it was just too dull, like boiled meat and potatoes. Shame for something so momentous and unsung. If you don't know about the birth of radar and don't want to be spoken at for an hour, this will give you all you need to know in a softer 1 ½ hours.

It is the mid-1930s and Germany is making radical advances in weaponry, especially aircraft. Suspecting that a war with Germany is likely, the British War Ministry look to new and advanced inventions of their own. After aiming for something more radical - a death ray - they end up with the invention that saved Britain during its darkest hour - radar. This is the story of the invention of radar, and, in particular, the story of Robert Watson Watt, its inventor. We see his trials and tribulations of its invention, and the characters that were trying to undermine his project.

A decent history-drama. Gives a good sense of the work, trial and error and set backs involved in the invention of radar. We also see how close the project came to being shelved, and the impact it had on WW2, especially the Battle of Britain.

Solid performance by Eddie Izzard as Robert Watson Watt. I couldn't imagine him as a dramatic actor before this, as he is more a comedy actor and stand-up comedian (and a very good one). However, he proves very much up to the task.

Well worth watching, especially if you're a history buff.

A local theatre has been showing little-known WW II films this month (August 2015) on the 70th anniversary of the end of that war, and this film on the British development of radar for the RAF prior to WW II was one of them. I'm interested in the historical development of technology plus I had seen a PBS Nova show several years ago on WW II's spur to radar's development, so I was interested in this BBC production. In addition, Ian Kershaw, a well-respected British historian, wrote the script. I was not disappointed; it was a very enjoyable film for me.

I had also seen earlier this year "The Imitation Game" featuring Alan Turing and his team of British mathematicians and codebreakers at Bletchley Park, and the parallels with "Castles" are striking. Both films have groups of unconventional geniuses monitored by class-conscious representatives of Britain's ruling circles and sequestered in rural hideaways where they work under great pressure to help win the war ("Imitation") or prepare for war ("Castles"). Robert Watson Watt, played by Eddie Izzard, is the Alan Turing of "Castles", and although not as eccentric as Turing, is sufficiently unconventional to warrant suspicion and doubt by those in the British government in the late-30s who must trust him with their scarce resources. His idea is to use a series of radio beams: (1) of sufficient strength to echo off incoming objects, e.g., bombers, at a sufficient distance, (2) and of sufficient number to ascertain their direction. The senior officials want him to use the nation's top physicists from Oxford and Cambridge to assist him, but Watt is an engineer for the Meteorological Service and wants to use his fellow "weather engineers" who can think outside-the-box. He gets his way against the rigid class structure of pre-war Britain, and for my money the visible drama of demonstrating radar's efficacy in detecting planes from 60 miles out (as shown in "Castles") is more striking than the drama that unfolds in "Imitation" where the group is finally able to read a coded message. The end of "Castles" shows how well radar has been integrated into RAF's Fighter Command by taking us inside their command centers that are ready to scramble fighters at the first ping on the radarscope on the eve of the Battle of Britain (when the Luftwaffe had three times as many planes at the outset).

Modern wars, for better or worse, are said to be won with economic production and technology, and it's thus gratifying to see little-known figures like Watt featured in a film like this. It's sad to compare, however, that Watt was rewarded with a knighthood in 1942 for his pre-war development of radar, while Turing, pledged to secrecy by the British government for his war-time codebreaking, was not honored during his lifetime and apparently committed suicide.