Reviews

With our tween son, we enjoyed this film so much more than the first. So many moments where we were erupting in laughter. Characters like Mopsy -renaming herself as Lavatory- Fox, as a new vegetarian and the D'eer, have some wonderful jokes. Peter learns his lesson and everything turns out great. Tim Minchin as the Busker/squirrel was a delight and a fab use of music for parents. Great animation and MacGregor wasn't as suffocating awful as in the first movie- honestly spoilt it for me. We watched PR2, twice just for the brillance of the Farmers Market sequence that is delightful even if this outcome wasn't what Peter (or the viewer) expects.

Could have had less of Bea's publishing storyline, but that is a small complaint.

Overall, a great change from scary, dark or battle-violent storylines that often creep into kids tv.

If you like some comedy and history with your culture this is it. Physical humour, great characters, great paced, fast talking... I had to regularly pause while watching to check I was understanding the banter correctly.

I thought it was a fresh take on Napoleon Bonaparte also.

Charlie, an unlikeable self centred lawyer takes a long time to be humbled and shaken from her arrogant, narrow views. For the first 20mins she thinks she's on some kind of drug trip as she faces a historical setting where women were punished for stepping outside of the confines of parent, cook, cleaner and wife. She continues to confront history and in at least a couple of cases, the incredibly slow pace that the French law moves at.

French women were the last of all developed countries to gain the right to vote.

Lots of great moments. It had me laughing out loud.

I need to rewatch it to check the hate reviews... maybe the subtitles were just really bad for them?

Our son picked this as his choice for our family movie night; and He loved it!

The hour long film is great for players of the computer game, as it uses that world and it's conventions and many familiar characters and "Mobs" from the game.

As parents it was simple entertainment and allows us to understand more what our boy like about the game.

It's all subtitled- there are a few spelling mistakes and typos. But for a self funded thing we were impressed. The timing of the subtitles is occasionally off but this is made up for the cleverness of sense of Craft of Lego Minecraft with characters that interact nicely. Music has moments where it's great.

As an adult don't expect too much and you might get through the hour pretty well.

I wanted so much to enjoy this. The Essex Serpent would have made a great mini series of 3 episodes. It had so much potential.

The actors did their best with a script that was at least 2 episodes short of substance. There was so much stretching out of scenes, the "tense" music of the latter 4 episodes was over the top. Occasionally the dialogue between the two leads is hard to believe as realistic either today or when it was set- as though it was lifted direct from the novel. Clémence Poésy's Stella, as the wife of Hiddleston's Will, was left with little script development to work with. Generally the character journeys of the children: Cora's Frankie, Will's Jo and local girl, Naomi were fuller and more believable.

Clare Danes is lovely to watch. Hiddleston is difficult to take your eyes off, he is charismatic and engaging whenever he's on screen. Hayley Squires as Martha was a highlight also, intriguing and vibrant and purposeful. The actor playing the ambitious surgeon... his performance landed as 'weird', and was not in sync with his context.

Having said all that, the shots of marshes were great and incredibly atmospheric; shot often from ground level. So much that the village and its surrounds were a character of importance whether or not they held the much disputed man-killing serpent... I'm sorry to say the "Skip forward 10seconds" option was used regularly after the second episode for me as I wanted to see how Danes, Hiddleston and Squires came out of the journey.

I can't believed I waited 15 years to see this clever, exciting film. We watched with our 8 year old. A fantastic 2 hours spent. Our Son rated this as: Super Good. Thrilling with fabulous comic timing and an exciting pace.

Nicole and Charlie - wow!

Admittedly I have been married for ten years and like Charlie and Nicole we have an only child, who is 8 yrs old.

Baumbach has captured the beauty, the intimacy and challenges of marriage. If you can accept that relationships don't always work out and that this story will end in divorce, then you might find this humble journey about marriage worthwhile.

Like a classic two hander theatre piece, it uses wit and biting dialogue, as we journey to this a wedding neither person wants to goto. They are also two miserable people, however I ended up loving both characters- quite a feat, considering how repellent they are in the opening scenes. Keanu especially is at his best in this film, and made a very solid performance. And it's great to see Winona again, as she was an actress I followed as a teen. The two are just delightful to watch together.