Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

Softwing Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Phillida Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Master Baldwin While the whole plot could seem rather weak, this movie is a perfect example of a modern storytelling done with mastery. The pace of the movie is voluntarily slow, the actors are excellent, the breaking of the fourth wall is used with wit by a character who at first seems to be there only to tell us the story, and there are some surprising events that are typical of an action movie.

lasttimeisaw A cutesy BBC TV movie of Roald's Dahl's children book, starring two titanic thespians, Mr. Hoffman and Dame Ms. Dench, it is a life-affirming romance of old age, brandishes the never-too-late-to- fall-in-love trope but outranks it with a more high-minded love-her-even-she-doesn't-love-me magnanimity, but in the end, it relents from its love-lorn tenor with a mutually love-at-first-sight happenstance.Mr. Henry Hopper (Hoffman), moons over his neighbor one story below Mrs. Lavinia Silver (Dench), who has a pet tortoise named Alfie, but worries about its stalled growth. To win her heart, a habitually halting Mr. Hopper fabricates an incantation which he named "Esio Trot" (of Bedouin extraction) and declares that through the magic (thrice a day before meals, specifically, Ms. Silver's meals), Alfie will grow twice as big within one month, which Lavinia accepts with alacrity, she certainly is not the brightest gal in the building (but the heart wants what the heart wants). So Mr. Hopper expends his savings and time in purchasing legions of tortoises with various sizes, so that he can secretively exchange them according to their weight with their predecessor, to conjure up the weight-growing process which predictably will lead to a backfire when bills finally being spilled through a third-wheel played by Cordery with utter chutzpah. There is hearty charm and warmth in the tall-tale, and some actions too (a septuagenarian Hoffman hanging on a make-shift ladder outside his apartment), chiefly, this adaptation pivots on a good-natured show-down between Hoffman's introvert ineptness and Dench's effusive sprightliness, to paper over the story's implausibility and its rather slipshod production design (too garish in its fairy-tale-like artificiality), and James Corden, to significantly lower the average age of the cast, assumes the job as an eloquent fourth-wall-breaking raconteur, as well as a slightly mindless father.Steeped in Louis Armstrong's repertoire, ESIO TROT (literally "tortoise", spelt backwards, which is the linchpin of the incantation, though its logic linked to this tardy breed is a head-scratcher), is coyly nostalgic in its mawkishness being a twilight love story based on a whopper cannot even get a free pass in one's dotage, but it is so rare a movie dedicated itself to that neglected sphere of elder people's love life, garnished by two winsome performances from its eminent dab-hands, it is a delicate amuse-gueule, as often as not, can muzzle those lenient-hearted from bad-mouthing its saccharine overtone.referential point: Dustin Hoffman's QUARTET (2012), 6.0/10

doriweb-555-829367 There is definitely an age difference between the principle actors, but I think the age difference wasn't too distracting, because, once you get past a certain age, it seems old age is just old age. I take exception to another reviewer stating his opinion as though it were gospel, that Dustin Hoffman didn't want to make this movie. That is utterly ridiculous. If he hadn't wanted to make it, I'm sure he wouldn't have. Why would he? I think he did a great job, just what the script called for, and I find it highly insulting for anyone to claim that his performance was less than excellent. It seems a little slow at times, but don't give up on it. I felt it was definitely worth it to stay until the end. It left me feeling that my time watching it was not wasted, and I felt a peaceful kind of happy.

paul-201-136732 One of the most disappointing experiences of the festive season. The writers have forgotten what it's like to read a Roald Dahl story to children - the comfortable, innocent experience that is an oasis of childhood.This movie, a pimped-up atrocity with formulaic love triangle had nothing to do with the cleverness, innocence, and brilliantly-judged length of Roald Dahl's original story. He knew there is only so much you can do with a great idea - push it too far and it becomes ordinary (at best).Quips that the writers obviously thought were clever, including both literal and backwards 'choice language', just took the experience further and further away from Dahl's genius for innocence. Additions such as a love rival, alienating narration scenes trying to lean on a father's relationship with their daughter to somehow infuse the film with warmth; even a neighbour's child asking "Are you going to offer me sweets and kidnap me?"... All have a hand in bursting the perfect bubble that Dahl originally created.Edit - sorry, forgot to mention that the three stars are for Dustin Hoffman. A class act, even in this.