Hitting DVD shelves, VOD and other digital platforms today, July 26th, via the Flatiron Film Company is very random English export titled Jackboots on Whitehall. The film features the voices of Ewan McGregor, Alan Cumming, Stephen Merchant, Dominic West, Rosamund Pike, Tom Wilkinson, Timothy Spall, and Richard E. Grant. I know, quite a list for a movie that is about a bunch of animatronic puppets.
Jackboots on Whitehall is a WWII spoof shot in the style of supermarionation, think plastic action figures that move without seeing who is doing it. This WWII satire tells the story of what would happen if the Nazi’s seized London by drilling under the English Channel and exploding through the cobblestone in Whitehall. The Nazi’s goal is to kill Winston Churchill so that the English have no leader and so that they could own all of Europe. Making a call for help via radio, a group of villagers, led by a young farmer with big hands named Chris, take to arms and travel to London to save Churchill. The rest of the movie is about the villagers, a gung ho American pilot, and a group of Punjabi soldiers protecting Churchill from the Nazis while Chris tries to find out his true identity and why his hands are so big compared to everybody else’s. There is also a major side plot that involves Chris’ love for Daisy which is accompanied by a Romeo and Juliet aspect since her father, the Vicar, hates Chris with a passion and makes it a point to degrade him at every waking moment.
I didn’t have high expectations as I sat down to watch the DVD. It looked kind of like a bad version of Robot Chicken or a Team America wannabe, English style. Either way, I still went in open minded and gave it a fighting chance. When I finished watching the 92 minute feature I was rather glad it was over. It’s not that the movie itself was painful to watch, I thought the visuals were actually pretty funny and the character movement was well done but I just hated the voices and the way everyone sounded. I understand it is a comedy but I just didn’t find it very funny and thought that some of the characters were a bit too immature for a satirical movie like this.
As for the voices I have a few peeves. The first has to do with the main character Chris who is voiced by Ewan McGregor. McGregor is from “Scot Land” and has a pretty heavy accent to begin with, but when I was watching the film it sounded like he was an American trying to do a bad rural English accent. I couldn’t take his false sounding optimism in defending his nation. As for Timothy Spall, the man who voiced the cigar smoking Winston Churchill, I have a different complaint. Spall, who played Churchill in the Oscar winning King’s Speech, did a good job doing the voiceover it’s just that no one in their right mind could listen to Churchill’s voice for more than two minutes without getting a headache; it was a relief every time he stopped talking. I found a clip of Churchill speaking online to make sure I wasn’t making this up.
One aspect that I appreciated was the script. While I wasn’t a fan of the movie the script/dialogue read/sounded like a full-fledged war epic except it was scaled down to accommodate the puppets that were 1/6th the size. On the other hand I wasn’t a fan of the comedy used because there was nothing that I found to be very funny, and this is coming from a guy who has a very broad range of humor. I understood where the punch lines were or what was supposed to be funny but I just didn’t really laugh, maybe I just didn’t get the British humor, which is a shame since I know they want a lot of people to see this film. Although, I’m not going to lie, I really did enjoy their jokes about ‘Scot Land’ and bringing Braveheart into the mix.
Despite my overall lack of enjoyment, I was impressed by all the technical aspects of the film; the action, animation and the set. There were four major set pieces that were extremely detailed and very expansive and included Whitehall, Buckingham Palace, the farm where Chris and the villagers are from, and Hadrian’s Wall in Scotland. These were massive sets that allowed for large scale battles with rather large explosions, including the epic final battle at Hadrian’s Wall that involved 1000 puppets, tons of explosions, heads being chopped off and more. It was quite crazy.
My favorite part of watching this DVD was when I watched the special features and learned how they actually made the movie, saw how big the set was, the kind of explosives they used and what it was like to use regular cameras to shoot people 1/6th the size of normal folks. You only need to watch about half the features though because there is some repetition. You also get to see how passionate the people are about this film which isn’t something that always shines through in interviews. The directors are young, ambitious and clearly ready to take on the world. The one disappointing part about the interviews is that none of the people that voiced the film did one. It’s probably because they did the voices months before production actually started but still, it would have been nice to know why they joined the project.
Overall, Jackboots on Whitehall is an impressive feat in the use of puppetry in feature filmmaking but other than the technical side, there isn’t much going for it. The voice acting is pretty good even if it does get slightly annoying after a while and most of the humor seems to be tailored for those from the UK, so for people outside that region you’ll find yourself lost for laughs. As for the directors, brothers Ed McHenry and Rory McHenry, I’d like to see them take on a live action film since I do think they have the talent to make another semi-unique film.
Film Rating: Technically impressive but rarely funny. It’s the British wannabe version of Team America (3.7/10)
DVD Rating: Pretty in-depth look at the entire filmmaking process minus the cast voiceovers (6.5/10)
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