PlatinumRead Just so...so bad

Breakinger A Brilliant Conflict

Gary The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Haven Kaycee It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

Fudge-3 It is described as an adult fairy tale and that is true provided you understand it as the traditional definition of fairy tale. Anyway, that's what drew me in and I spent the first twenty minutes utterly bemused and the rest of the film completely transfixed. Toward the end of the movie I caught myself leaning in off my seat so as to not miss the end of the telling.Dean Spanley is funny, charming, bizarre and uplifting. An extraordinary collection of characters, perfectly portrayed with great acting are brought together in this delightful story.It's best watched with no idea of what's coming. So I'm not giving anything away. Who won't like this? Maybe cat ladies, sheep herders and anyone else who doesn't know the rules. Oh; and bunny rabbits, don't watch this if you are a bunny rabbit.

patrick powell The puzzle is why this film was ever made in the first place, though I hasten to add that I don't mean that as any kind of criticism. It is a gentle, rather whimsical and moving piece which I can't think would find a mass audience anywhere much, though that, too, is not meant as criticism.To put it all in perspective: thank goodness there are some people around in the film world prepared to produce films of this calibre for apparently no other reason than that they like films and like making good ones. It is a British and New Zealand co-production which astutely avoids all the pitfalls many smaller scale British films fall into. Its lightness of touch is admirable where all too often Brit films are just a tad heavy-handed and suffer as a result. There is only a small cast – just five main characters – and the story itself is superficially slight, yet it packs a punch which touches true emotion rather than mere sentimental whimsy. It would be unfair to pick out any particular performance because none stands out above the others – they are all excellent, as is the gently witty screenplay.Its evocation of Edwardian Britain is all the better for being understated – this is no 'period piece' and thus avoids the horrors just beneath the surface which many a 'period piece' singularly fails to avoid. My advice to everyone is to watch this and savour everything about it. If you like well-made films, you will probably love this. I shan't bother to provide a synopsis because that would be thoroughly misleading. There's far more to this than meets the eye.

The_late_Buddy_Ryan Despite its lofty pedigree (it's based on a novel by Lord Dunsany), formidable cast and handsome period locations, this 100-minute shaggy dog story long overstays its welcome and left us feeling disappointed. The premise is that Horatio Fisk (Peter O'Toole), a cranky old gentleman in Edwardian London, is unable to mourn the death of his wife and son, the latter killed in the Boer War, or to make any emotional connection with his surviving son, a subdued Jeremy Northam, who supplies the voice-over narration. The problem turns out to be that the old man's never recovered from the loss of his beloved dog, a spaniel called Wag, when he was a boy. The younger Fisk discovers, through a lengthy investigation that takes up the first and much more involving half of the film, that an otherwise sober and uninteresting clergyman, W.A.G. Spanley (Sam Neill), when plied with a glass or three of vintage tokay, can hold an audience spellbound with his reminiscences of a previous life as a dog… I'm guessing the original tale has been brushed up a bit by veteran screenwriter Alan Sharp in accordance with contemporary notions of closure and father-son bonding, and Neill does a great job with his big scene as Wag the dog, but the film had lost momentum by that point and the attempted feel-good ending totally failed to connect with us. Neill, a part-time Kiwi, seems to have attracted some NZ Film Board funds to this admirable-in-principle but unsuccessful venture.

alinekaplan-1 We found Dean Spanley by surfing Comcast On Demand and were delighted by this witty, thought-provoking and emotional film. It's based on a story by Lord Dunsany, a writer who "imaginatively transforms materials from The Arabian Nights, classical mythology, Celtic, Germanic, and Hindu folklore as well as from medieval lays and quest romances." The cast is amazing for a New Zealand film, the script is excellent, the acting is superb and the climactic scene is totally gripping for all that it takes place in a dinner-table conversation. American film makers should take note of how this is done -- but they won't. Peter O'Toole should get an Oscar for his performance as Fisk Senior -- but he won't. We should all be able to see more movies like Dean Spanley -- but I'm not holding my breath. Don't let that keep you from enjoying this terrific movie. Four enthusiastic thumbs-up for Dean Spanley. (Dean is a title, not a name.)