Jackson Booth-Millard
The League of Gentlemen became a rather popular sketch show style sitcom, so it was almost inevitable that it would follow in the steps of other sitcoms and have a movie spin-off, written by Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton, Reece Shearsmith and Jeremy Dyson, directed by Steve Bendelack (Mr. Bean's Holiday, The Harry Hill Movie). Basically on night, Jeremy Dyson (Michael Sheen) calls the other members of The League of Gentlemen about an idea to have all the characters of Royston Vasey having tails. But the other members want to move on to other projects, and Jeremy is suddenly confronted and terrorised by three of the characters, Edward and Tulip "Tubbs" Tattsyrup (Shearsmith and Pemberton) and Papa Lazarou (Shearsmith), he tries to run, but falls off the edge of a cliff. In Royston Vasey, the village is being hit by meteors, vicar Reverend Bernice Woodall (Shearsmith) shows fellow residents Pauline Campbell-Jones (Pemberton) and Mr. Matthew Chinnery (Gatiss) that there are signs of The Apocalypse occurring. Hilary Briss (Gatiss) has escaped from prison, he finds Herr Lipp (Pemberton) on the moors and takes him hostage and uses him to steal a car driven by Geoff Tipps (Shearsmith). Fleeing the fireballs, they go into the church and find the crypt, going through a door that leads them into the real world. They wind up in the town of Hadfield, Derbyshire, the setting for Royston Vasey in The League of Gentlemen television series, the situation is explained to them by Lazarou and the Tattsyrups. Briss, Herr Lipp and Geoff Tipps travel to London to find the show creators, to confront them that their fictional world is being destroyed because they are not working together to continue writing for them. While Lipp pretends to be his creator, Steve Pemberton, Briss and Tipps read through the creators' new project, a historical horror called The King's Evil, Briss chases after an escaped Pemberton, while Tipps continues to read the script, and writes himself into it as the hero. While Lipp has become very attached to Pemberton's family, in particular his children, Briss takes Pemberton up to Hadfield to call Reece Shearsmith to tell him what is going on, Shearsmith only believes him when the real Mark Gatiss is standing in front of him and the voice of Gatiss' character Briss is talking. Shearsmith and Gatiss find and capture Herr Lipp, and they travel up to Hadfield, and step through the dimensional door to enter Royston Vasey. They try to swap hostages, but Pemberton is killed by a stray gunshot. Dr. Erasmus Pea (David Warner), the villain of The King's Evil, tries to convince Briss to leave Royston Vasey and join him, he refuses, and a battle ensues, with many fellow characters being killed. Shearsmith and Gatiss climb up the wall of the church in order to escape, but Shearsmith falls to his death. Briss kills the monster that appears, but is stabbed in the back Dr. Pea, before dying he tells Tipps that he is the only one that can save Royston Vasey. Gatiss tries to escape and return to the real world, but Herr Lipp holds him at gunpoint, Tipps manages to kill Pea, but the chaos continues. Herr Lipp threatens to kill Gatiss in the church, but the other characters try to dissuade him, as they believe if all the writers are dead, Royston Vasey will cease to exist, and they will all die. Lipp says they will be better off, because they will no longer be controlled, and things will not get better, Tipps persuades Lipp to hand him the gun, only for him to accidentally fire it and kill Gatiss. With all the writers now dead, the people of Royston Vasey dead prepare for the worst, but instead, everything calms down and The Apocalypse ends, they realise they are now free. Herr Lipp adopts some orphaned children, Mr Chinnery finds a rabbit to look after without killing it, and Bernice and Pauline appear to become romantically involved. Tipps leaves the church, waving goodbye to Edward, Tubbs and Papa Lazarou, it appears Royston Vasey can exist independently without its creators, but Dyson is still alive in a coma, and everyone in the real world now has a tail. Also starring Mark Gatiss as Mickey M. Michaels, Steve Pemberton as Steve, Reece Shearsmith as Geoff, Victoria Wood as Queen Mary II, Bernard Hill as King William III, Peter Kay as Simon Pig, Simon Pegg as Peter Cow, Emily Woof as Lindsay and Bruno Langley as Damon. Most of the recognisable and popular characters get some good moments, but this film also gives the lesser known and explored characters an opportunity for storylines and screen time, the plot is twisted and a bit difficult to explain, but it is essentially the bizarre fictional world clashing with the real world, it is weird, but that's probably what the creators wanted, and there are enough funny and dark moments to satisfy fans of the TV show, a reasonable surreal horror comedy. Worth watching!
miss_lady_ice-853-608700
With three series, a Christmas special and the original radio series, we were already spoilt for choice. To make any film was unnecessary, let alone make one as awful as this, where it feels like the actors are just going through the motions in order to please an audience.The concept is that the inhabitants of Royston Vasey realise that they are fictional characters and so they track down real writers Mark Gatiss, Jeremy Dyson, Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton (playing themselves apart from non-actor Jeremy Dyson who is played by Michael Sheen). Despite the marketing material promising Tubbs and Edward (seemingly come back from the dead), we get a brief cameo. Other iconic characters such as Papa Lazarou and Pauline also receive this treatment. It's nice to see Bernice back but again, she doesn't get a lot of screen-time.So, contrary to the poster, the three lead characters are bitter businessman Geoff (Reece Shearsmith), murderous butcher Hilary (Mark Gatiss) and malapropic pervert Herr Lipp (Steve Pemberton). On the surface, you can see why they were chosen; no one could argue that Hilary and Lipp aren't examples of surreal dark humour, even if Geoff feels like a bit of an odd inclusion in that case. But these aren't characters we want to spend very long with. They make us laugh uncomfortably but because they only briefly appear, we feel safe. To give them leading roles therefore- particularly when in one scene Lipp is looking after the children of 'Steve Pemberton'- makes us want to turn off. We don't want to see the cuddly side of Herr Lipp; it's like having the Teletubbies swear. Lipp did have some pathos as a character, as we saw in the Christmas Special, but this was because he was a pathetic slave to his desires and we had the relief of Shearsmith playing the teenager Lipp lusts for. The fact that he was a paedophile was neevr questioned so why has he suddenly converted into an angel?Whilst it is nice to see the secondary characters get their chance to 'shine',casual viewers (and I suspect most fans) want to see the iconic characters. For me, The League of Gentlemen works best when the characters are in pairs or trios, as the chemistry of the actors is what really makes the show. I understand that they didn't want to put all their eggs in one basket, as the only main sketches where all three are used are the Denton family and Pauline/Mickey/Ross, and that being able to break away from the 'sketch show' format meant that we could see inhabitants who never encountered each other being forced to 'work together'. However the choice of characters doesn't really work; Hilary works within his secret club of 'special stuff' addicts and Lipp works with his gaggle of boys. Geoff does work outside of his workmates Brian and Mike, as we see in one of the better episodes of Series 3, but he's not very likable.Unlikeability runs throughout. The personas that Shearsmith, Gatiss and Pemberton choose to play as the writers are self-centred money-grabbing writers. This only serves to alienate the audience as they watch a film with the underlying fear that the whole film really is a cynical cash-in. and without wishing to be rude, seeing the writers breaks the illusion that Royston Vasey's inhabitants are different individuals.Some of the positive reviewers have argued that the film shows the depth of TLOG and that people simply wanted their favourite characters and a load of catchphrases. That may be true of Series Three, which manages to show the humanity of the monsters in a cruelly funny way. But the 'depth' that the film gives is a false one, adding extra layers that mean nothing.In a rather odd interlude between Royston Vasey and London, we get a fictional seventeenth century comedy horror film that is the writers fictional new project. Geoff gets stuck in this film for a bit and it feels as if this section is simply stuck in to bulk out the thin and hard-to-work premise and to tick off the horror allusions that TLOG like to put in. Uncharacteristically for TLOG, it's just not funny.Perhaps the weak comedy is because the writers were under pressure to make a 'comedy film'; a diverting amusement that we see because we crave the familiarity of our favourite comedy show. However TLOG used various types of humour: surreal, dark, cruel, satire, gross-out. The film can't decide what type of humour to go for so the writers plump for the eternal crowd-pleaser: toilet humour. this does provide some humorous lines, such as the iconic 'brown fish', but this jars with the metafictional clever-cleverness and the tacked-on pathos. At times it feels as if the whole thing is just toilet humour- quite literally when a singing toilet appears at one point. Of course, this gross element was always part of the show but it was more occasional and its satirical aspect justified its presence. If you want to see a LOG film, the Christmas Special is the best example. This film feels like somebody else's version of TLOG, as if somebody who'd watched one episode was explaining the humour to their friend. As fans know, the real nature and charms of TLOG are inexplicable.
dilbertsuperman
I originally watched this because I thought it was going to be the sequel to the League of EXTRAORDINARY Gentlemen and this movie is a whole different thing entirely going on here-a comedy! However, I loved it anyways! The League of Gentlemen is apparently some British TV series with some rather odd characters and some sharp humour. This is British comedy so it revolves around being very silly, dressing up in costumes and making lots of fun of Germans and french, homosexual references- in short it's very very funny!THe plot revolves around the writers of the TV show deciding to cancel some of the characters and the characters coming out of their dimension into the writer's dimension to stop that from happening. It's a fun twist and there's plenty of great scenes in this idiotic adventure. I laughed out loud numerous times and applauded the brazen style of humour. This makes Mr Bean look like the watered down wimp he is.(Rowan is much better in Black Adder series btw)This is not Monty Python, but you can never escape the comparison when you are talking British humour, and there are a few similarities but not so many as to keep it from being it's own thing and being fresh. It leans more towards the young ones and Guest House Paradiso in its' comedic style.If you liked this, check out The Young Ones series and Guest House Paradiso movie, and of course, I assume the TV series League of Gentlemen must be rather funny as well.
