Pro Tour Punditry
Guru
I went to see the new movie last night. It took me a while to get the "this is crap, it's just not right" thoughts out of my head*, but once I did I enjoyed it; the pace was similar to the original series, the actors did a decent job of getting the right mix of "same but different" and the storyline was just as mundane but interesting. Nothing much happened, it pottered along, the plot was obvious. It was fun.
Toby Jones as Mainwaring and Michael Gambon as Godfrey were great in a "played it like the originals" way, the actors playing Joe and Pike (I didn't recognise them and can't be bothered googling their names) were also very good in a "different than originals" way; Bill Nighy as Wilson and Tom Coutney as Jonesy didn't quite work for me - neither similar nor different but a bit too similar but not well enough done (if that makes sense). Fraser never did get much coverage in the original series, but when he did John Lawrie made the most of it; Bill Paterson did not have as strong a presence in the role (I'll not go as far as saying it didn't work for me, but it was just ok).
The addition of seeing Mrs Mainwaring worked.
If you do go to see it make sure you hang around til the end of the credits; the "out takes" are ok but the end bit was quite sweet (I know, I know "who are you and what have you done with Marmion?).
*It was quite difficult as anytime I thought an actor was doing an impersonation of an original character I thought "stop doing an impersonation" and when an actor departed from the original character I thought "why don't you just do an impersonation of the original actor doing the character".
Toby Jones as Mainwaring and Michael Gambon as Godfrey were great in a "played it like the originals" way, the actors playing Joe and Pike (I didn't recognise them and can't be bothered googling their names) were also very good in a "different than originals" way; Bill Nighy as Wilson and Tom Coutney as Jonesy didn't quite work for me - neither similar nor different but a bit too similar but not well enough done (if that makes sense). Fraser never did get much coverage in the original series, but when he did John Lawrie made the most of it; Bill Paterson did not have as strong a presence in the role (I'll not go as far as saying it didn't work for me, but it was just ok).
The addition of seeing Mrs Mainwaring worked.
If you do go to see it make sure you hang around til the end of the credits; the "out takes" are ok but the end bit was quite sweet (I know, I know "who are you and what have you done with Marmion?).
*It was quite difficult as anytime I thought an actor was doing an impersonation of an original character I thought "stop doing an impersonation" and when an actor departed from the original character I thought "why don't you just do an impersonation of the original actor doing the character".
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