My expectations for this big screen reboot of the classic BBC sitcom fluctuated in the time leading up to its release. Originally it sounded like a horrible idea, but then when the news of the cast came out, Toby Jones, Bill Nighy, Tom Courtenay, Michael Gambon amongst them, I began to have hopes that this idea must just work. Now having seen the film, I can report that the makers have just about got away with it.
Let’s firstly look at what works. Toby Jones has an impossible task of following Arthur Lowe in the main role of Captain Mainwaring. It took a while to get my head around him being in the role, but in the end he does a decent enough job. No one could replicate John Le Mesurier’s charm and insouciance as my favourite character, Sergeant Wilson, but Nighy brings his own skills to the part, Gambon captures the charm of Private Godfrey very well and Daniel Mays is perfectly cast as the spiv, Walker.
Of the characters new to the film, Catherine Zeta Jones is fine as the journalist assigned to write an article on the platoon, Holli Dempsey impresses as Pike’s girlfriend and Mark Gatiss is superb as Mainwaring’s commanding officer. He has most of the best lines, and is a joy in the part. Best of all are the appearances of Frank Williams reprising his role as the vicar, though all too briefly, and Ian Lavender as the Brigadier, which was a lovely touch.
The period details, both harking back to the time and recapturing the elements of the TV series are very well done. The nod to the original theme tune and credits is great and small touches like using the original font when introducing the characters was very pleasing.
However, there were other elements that just did not work. Bill Patterson doesn’t have the same slightly unhinged doom laden air as John Laurie did as the undertaker Frazer, Blake Harrison is jarring as private Pike and the warden, Hodges, is almost totally side lined. That decision may have been a good thing as Martin Savage is poor in the role but I missed the to and fro between Mainwaring and Hodges. Worst of all is the casting of the usually excellent Tom Courtenay as Corporal Jones.
Courtenay was great just last year both in film (45 Years) and on TV (Unforgotten) but he is all at sea as Jones, the character who ends up differing his persona in the TV series the most. The plot is perfunctory, and the climatic action scene doesn’t really work. though it has to be said that the original series did sometimes suffer from the same problems.
If you are a fan of the TV series, and watch this attempt with an open mind, there should be enough to make it worth your while and you should be enveloped by a pleasant nostalgia with seeing these characters brought to life again.
Rating 6 out of 10