The Dad's Army reviews are in

The new Dad’s Army movie is ‘doomed’ to mediocrity, if the critics are to be believed.

After the remake received its world premiere in London’s Leicester Square last night, the reviews are in – and makes for disappointing reading, with most clustering around the two-star mark.

The outlier was The Independent, which gave the big-screen version a five-star review courtesy of its deputy managing editor and former economics editor Sean O’Grady.

But the full-time critics were far less kind. Despite praising the cast – especially Toby Jones as Captain Mainwaring – most found the jokes laboured.

The cast also includes  Bill Nighy as Sergeant Wilson, Tom Courtenay as Lance-Corporal Jones and Catherine Zeta-Jones as journalist Rose Winters despatched to  Walmington-on-Sea to report on the  Home Guard.

Here’s a summary of the national reviews ahead of the film’s release on February 5:

Five stars

Sean O’Grady said: 'This celebration of Dad’s Army surpasses the original… All the elements that made the original such a clever and durable and indeed lovable comedy are turned up for parade, present and correct: the wit, the subtle satires on our still mostly intact class system, and the knockabout (in just the right proportion).  And most of all we cherish the finely drawn characters.’

Three stars

Daily Mail

Film critic Brian Viner said he had ‘mixed feelings’ about the very idea of a remake, but declared that the film ‘has the same sort of gentle charm [as the original] and a few bursts of inspired physical comedy.’ But he cautioned: ‘I could have done without quite so much innuendo, some of it decidedly laboured,’ Before concluding: If Lowe, Le Mesurier, Clive Dunn and the others are looking down from their celestial church hall, I fancy they're probably smiling.

The Sun’s Grant Rollings doesn’t award stars in his online review, but it ‘reads like a three’, praising the ‘thoroughly spirited remake’ and the comic timing of the actors in this ‘proud but far from perfect effort’. ‘So what if many of the jokes are older than the cast’s combined age?,’ he writes. ‘They’re the best ones. And they’re delivered by great actors.’

Two stars

The Guardian

Long-standing critic Peter Bradshaw wrote: ‘Everyone really does look and sound like the originals, and it really is a blue-chip team that has been assembled here either side of the camera… But it’s hard to escape the sinking feeling that this is a waste of talent – and that this is a good-natured, well-meaning but pointless kind of Brit-comedy ancestor worship, paying elaborate homage to a TV show that got it right the first time. Just imagine if this remarkable team could throw their colossal collective talent behind something new.

The Telegraph

Film critic Robbie Collin praises Toby Jones as ‘one of our most gifted clowns’ saying: ‘There’s a precision to his work that’s instantly hilarious, and yawningly absent from the film at large. The rest of the cast… are perfectly game, and largely well-picked. But they’re let down by the kind of puny script that can’t tell funny and frantic apart.’

The Times

Reviewer Dominic Maxwell describes the film as a ‘drab, all-star rehash… a well-acted, well-intentioned error of judgment. It’s a labour of love, no doubt. It’s just not a very funny one.’

The Hollywood Reporter

No official stars, but Stephen Dalton’s review of this ‘creaky comedy comeback’ talks of a ‘fatal lack of comic spark. For fans of the original TV series, this reboot will feel like a disappointment. For everybody else, a pointless and easily avoidable misfire.’

One star

The Mirror

Film critic David Edwards blasted the movie saying: ‘This all-out assault on Britain’s comedy crown jewels contains all the humour of a V2 rocket attack. With moments of humour strictly rationed and inspiration rarer than a pair of wartime nylons, it’s time for all involved in this career-killing catastrophe to panic… You’d be wise to avoid it.’

Published: 27 Jan 2016