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Reviews
The Royal Bodyguard (2011)
David Jason Saves the Day - But Only Just.
A weak script with unlikeable supporting characters spoiled what could have been a great idea. As it is, The Royal Bodyguard is funny as a gentle comedy. It is not something David Jason will be remembered for, despite trying hard. Some people have said it would have been saved by a younger actor, but to me, this looks like missing the point. The premise is that Guy Hubble, a forgotten member of the security forces is given the job as a car park attendant so that he can carry on working out of harms way, but through being in the wrong place at the right time he impresses HM The Queen so much that she insists he be promoted way above his level of competence. It's a one joke film, of course. The only way the premise can be stretched is that everyone else is incompetent too. We have incompetent senior civil servants, incompetent security guards, even incompetent terrorists. It could be argued that the Queen herself is incompetent to be taken in, to the extent of insisting on Hubble being kept in his job. That is the weakness of the concept. An incompetent security officer in a highly efficient security department facing well organised, highly disciplined terrorists could have been far more suspenseful and therefore far funnier when the comedy relieved the tension. Instead we get situations where everyone falls over their own and each others' feet and Hubble wins by being the last man standing. This is not intelligent comedy at all.
Comparisons have been made with Norman Wisdom. But Norman Wisdom comedies had sympathetic characters. The foils for Wisdom's antics were always the mighty brought down. In The Royal Bodyguard, we don't care about any of the other characters, and the mighty are brought down by their own incompetence as much as anything.
There is one big mistake in Hubble's character. He blames everyone else. This is a believable flaw, but it alienates him from us. Hubble does too much of it. It is not well written because he is always childishly shouting, "That was your fault!" it is one thing to let someone take the blame, but to deliberately blame innocent passers by is not the way to endear audiences.
I have given this a fairly generous score of five out of ten. This is entirely for David Jason. He brings pathos to what would be - in real life - a tragedy. This is a story about someone who is overconfident and in over his head; an old man who is too proud to retire and take a less active role and who pathetically attempts to look younger by wearing an obvious wig. People like that really exist and, in these days, there are probably more of them than ever. With better writing, this could have rocked. With poor writing it crumbles.
Carry on Teacher (1959)
Maudlin is Right
A new school needs a headmaster and temporary headmaster William Wakefield, (ably played by Ted Ray) shows he deserves the job he so passionately wants. The trouble is the children at his current school wilfully sabotage his chances with flour bombs, itching powder and other booby traps in a series of hilarious set- pieces. This is where Carry On films shine. Unfortunately, the producers decided to work in a 'Mr Chips' style sentimental ending. I suppose they painted themselves into a corner because, strictly speaking, the children responsible for the chaos should have been very severely punished. Instead, when the headmaster realises their antisocial behaviour is because they did not want him to leave, he forgives them and stays on as headmaster. After all, what price ambition when you have the transient affection of a few mawkish school children with a funny way of showing that they 'care'? The name of the school is, 'Maudlin Street' so we can take it the scriptwriter wasn't fooled for a moment even if his characters were. Not a nice trick to play on an audience, even if it is very funny right up to the drippy ending. There were a lot of post war films that played the 'duty' trump card at the end. I suppose the pendulum has swung the other way, now. Well, we can but hope.
So, how else could it have been ended? Well, for comparison, look at the first (and possibly best) of the series, "Carry on Sargeant'. Yes, it is sentimental but there's a difference. The retiring training sergeant (William Hartnel) would dearly love to go out on a high with the accolade for the best platoon but his hope is dashed when he is landed with the worst recruits in army history. Again, we have the hilarious set-pieces and again we have a twist at the end but here the soldiers realising the sergeant is retiring and deciding that they will do their damnedest to become the best platoon and give him the send-off he deserves. The conclusion of Carry on Sergeant is genuinely touching. The lads in 'Able Platoon' saw that their sergeant had a dream and helped him to fulfil it. The children of Maudlin Street didn't want to lose their easy going headmaster so they scuppered his chances. A better ending would have been if the children had done a little growing up and said, "Let's help him get his dream job," and shown that they really cared.
Planet of Dinosaurs (1977)
A Surprise (Warning - Spoilers!)
I thought I'd seen all the old dinosaur films. I thought this would be "Prehistoric Planet" with a different title. I expected dinosaur footage ripped off from other movies. I was pleasantly surprised. It's a new one on me and it's not that bad. I'm especially surprised that the special effects are so good for the standard of the acting and the budget it implies. It was nicely photographed and for its time the effects were comparable to the best in the genre and better than some - such as Dinosaurus. It looks as though all the budget went on stop motion animation - which is expensive - and the actors were dragged in off the street and paid in jelly beans or something.
The story isn't bad. That's largely because it's kept simple. I was was also surprised that so many of the characters got eaten. It helped make it suspenseful not knowing who would survive. It was slightly predictable that the more obnoxious guy would come to a sticky end but other deaths were more shocking. Incidentally, the film was rather sexist. Generally the women screwed up and died because they were silly and girlie and clearly not capable of looking after themselves. The assumption was that women were not leadership material. The Alien movies laid that one to rest.
The dinosaurs were so recognisable that I was expecting a corny denouement where they realised they were back on earth only through a time warp and millions of years in the past. Maybe they were. I'd like to think so. If so it's good that the writer and director left it for the audience to work that out. It would have been cleverer though if the last shot had somehow let us in on this while keeping the cast in the dark. Maybe the writer just wasn't that imaginative. I enjoyed how the sophisticated officers and scientists gradually devolved into cave people and then managed to climb back to civilisation. Satisfying but not particularly thrilling. Still worth a look if you like this genre.