Dad's Army: 'creaky' film reboot disappoints critics

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Catherine Zeta-Jones, Michael Gambon and Toby Jones led the stars at the world premiere of Dad's Army – but reviews of the film version of the beloved TV shows have been less than stellar.

The opening at London's Leicester Square was also attended by a group of Chelsea Pensioners, reports the Daily Mail, and accompanied Zeta-Jones, who plays journalist Rose Winters, down the red carpet.

The comedy, based on the highly successful BBC TV show of the same name, is directed by Oliver Parker and written by Hamish McColl, who also penned Paddington. Jones plays Captain Mainwaring, while Gambon is the gentle Private Godfrey in a cast that also includes Bill Nighy, Mark Gatiss and Tom Courtenay.

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Set in 1944, shortly after the events depicted in the television series, Dad's Army follows Rose on a journey to Walmington-on-Sea to report on the Home Guard platoon. The men are suffering from low morale - until MI5 discovers a German spy hiding in the area, giving the team a chance to make a difference in the war.

Critics were disappointed with the results.

Stephen Dalton, in the Hollywood Reporter, calls it an "affectionate but flat-footed, uninspired big-screen reboot". There's an obvious appeal in the stellar ensemble cast, he adds, but the film is "hobbled by too much broad slapstick and laboured clowning".

Dominic Maxwell, in The Times, is more damning: "I'd love to tell you that nostalgia and good intentions can make these 90-odd minutes pass faster than they do. Alas, this flat-footed homage is just the sort of respectful but redundant act of cultural necromancy the naysayers feared it would be."

Nobody acts badly, he admits, and yet "nobody ever makes you forget the original players they are aping".

Do panic, says Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian. The blue-chip cast pull off a convincing impression of the originals and Zeta-Jones adds an unexpected dash of glamour, but there is something "inescapably creaky about this strangest of sitcom revivals", he writes. If only this remarkable team "could throw their colossal collective talent behind something new".

Yes, the jokes are "pretty feeble", says Robbie Collin in the Daily Telegraph, but there is one highlight – Toby Jones, "one of our most gifted clowns".

Replacing Arthur Lowe as Mainwaring would be impossible, he adds, so Jones has crafted a new character "so sad and snowed under with pathos that his performance is fit to stand alongside Lowe's own".

Thanks to his performance and a game cast, concludes Collin, the film is "not quite doomed".