Ian Loring | On 12, Jun 2016

Director: Oliver Parker
Cast: Toby Jones, Bill Nighy, Catherine Zeta-Jones
Certificate: PG
Watch Dad’s Army online in the UK: Sky Cinema / NOW TV / uTunes / Prime Video (Buy/Rent) / TalkTalk TV / Rakuten TV / Google Play

The grey pound has grown in significance in recent years, but Dad’s Army getting a big-screen remake is a reminder that death is coming for us all. Encroaching mortality is something that plagues thoughts from time to time, but Dad’s Army brings this terrifyingly to the forefront. Those who watched it all those years ago? Many of them are very likely dead. Those who watched it with their parents or relatives? The halcyon days of yore are behind them, now dealing with mortgages, pension planning and hoping their children do better than they managed to. People too young for it now? Probably Snapchatting their bums to each other and wondering if Hitler was real or a popular video game villain. Dad’s Army may ostensibly be a comedy, but my goodness is watching the thing depressing.

If you are of the target age demographic of Dad’s Army, expect to feel insulted. Taking the original cast of characters and making them spend 90 minutes either making jokes about bladder control or chasing after Catherine Zeta-Jones (who looks so insanely bored as journalist Rose Winters you actually feel sorry for her), you must wonder what the film-makers actually think of you. It’s not exactly lowest common denominator fare, like the recent Grimsby, but it’s so bland, so bereft of anything approaching invention, and so wasteful of the talent within it that you’ll feel angry as well as depressed.

Toby Jones. Oh my, Toby Jones. Trying his very hardest to create a character who is sympathetic, while also blatantly trying to cheat on his wife. Bill Nighy. Dear me, Bill Nighy. Doing nothing but playing Bill Nighy in Love Actually but without the ability to swear. Michael Gambon. Good lord, Michael Gambon. Turning up in a Hawaiian dress and playing a character who should be taken into care instead of being laughed at.

Director Oliver Parker’s anti-cinematic ambition is almost to be admired. Action sequences revolve around an insanely slow bull and a climax – on what looks to be an area of coast used for sewage waste – in which a car blows up. With the money the cast must have asked for to appear in this, it is little surprise it looks like the whole thing was made on broken promises and Nigel Farage’s farts alone, although he probably hates the fact women get to shoot guns in this.

This is mild comedy for Brexit supporters. A jingoistic, patronising, rose-tinted look back at a time that, let’s face it, was not exactly any fun to live in. That this dire remake didn’t exactly set the cinema box office alight is the most entertaining thing about the entire experience. If you enjoy existential dread, depression and fits of anger while watching a comedy, Dad’s Army is perfection.

Dad’s Army is available on Sky Cinema. Don’t have Sky? You can also stream it on NOW TV, as part of a £11.99 Sky Cinema Month Pass subscription – with a 7-day free trial.

 

Where can I buy or rent Dad’s Army online in the UK?

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