Bring Back Childhood With More Poor Films Please
By Adam Clery on October 13, 2010 in Film
About three years ago now I visited a famous Swedish furniture outlet, which I won’t name, and had the following dilemma;
“I’d like to buy that lovely tupperware set, but I’m just not sure I have enough leftover soups and sauces to really justify it.”
And in that moment, as I stood there weighing up the pros and cons of the little plastic pots, I realised that my childhood had long since died.
Imagine my delight then that Newcastle’s very own Tyneside Cinema decided to bully me back to adolescence last week by not only giving me a wonderful stop-animation film to watch, but a treasure hunt to play in order to get my ticket.
Stéphane Aubier and Vincent Patar’s first foray into feature films, A TOWN CALLED PANIC, is essentially the story of three friends. Cowboy (who is a cowboy), Horse (who is a horse) and Indian (who is a ‘native-American’).
Starting with Horse’s birthday and taking you on a journey through comic mishaps, piano lessons and giant robotic penguins, fans of the original show will be pleased to know that the transition into cinema ticks all the same boxes that have made it something of a cult hit over the last decade.
There’s an exquisite supporting cast of love interests, neighbours, thieves, a postman, a policeman, mad scientists and various farmyard animals, and the unrelenting pace of the film leaves you with the kind of giddy rush you won’t have had since you found that last elusive piece of Lego in the bottom of the box.
This being a review and all, I should probably make some effort to critique it as a movie, but part of me really doesn’t want to. Because, at the end of the day, it’s just a brilliantly fun film. Does it make much sense? No. Does the story seem like it doesn’t really know what it’s meant to be? Yup. Are there huge glaring plot holes? Yeah, but so what they’re probably intentional.
So overall, it’s not a great film, but it is a great piece of cinema. If you understand that sentence, and you’re not the kind of tit who shirks subtitles, then go see it, you’ll love it and you’ll leave with a smile.
But what about the aforementioned treasure hunt you ask? Well those lovely folks at the Tyneside Cinema had hidden four toy horses around town with two free tickets being the reward for bringing them home. I might be biased because I won the last set but whatever, that was glorious fun, more of that please.
I’m sure someone will write pages and pages about how, compared to the ultra-slick animations being churned out by Pixar these days, it’s just crudely animated Eurotrash lurching from plot point to plot point. Little more than a Belgian episode of Pingu, littered with holes and with a story that, like the last smearings of Nutella, spreads too thinly over its 78 minutes.
But whoever writes that is a dick.
Related Posts:
- Film Review: War Horse – As Exciting As A Steeplechase, As Heartwarming As A Glue Factory
Mark Cousins Come To The Tyneside Cinema For Film Q&A
Film Review: Senna – A Great Film First, A Documentary Second
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A Town Called Panic review @tynesidecinema Bring Back Childhood With More Poor Films Please http://www.kyeo.tv/?p=4624
RT @kyeotv: A Town Called Panic review @tynesidecinema Bring Back Childhood With More Poor Films Please http://www.kyeo.tv/?p=4624
RT @kyeotv: A Town Called Panic review @tynesidecinema Bring Back Childhood With More Poor Films Please http://www.kyeo.tv/?p=4624
@Film4 I got my TOWN CALLED PANIC film review printed! http://bit.ly/duitBC
RT @kyeotv: A Town Called Panic review @tynesidecinema Bring Back Childhood With More Poor Films Please http://www.kyeo.tv/?p=4624