Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, which opens in UK cinemas this Friday, may not be great art, say critics, but it does offer some welcome relief from the current political upheavals and dreary UK summer.
Based on the hit TV show, the film sees Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley reprise their roles of PR boss Edina Monsoon and her magazine editor pal Patsy Stone. They're joined by series regulars Julia Sawalha as Saffy, June Whitfield as Mother and Jane Horrocks as Bubble.
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The plot sees Eddie and Patsy forced to flee from the paparazzi after a PR event goes wrong. They head to the French Riviera to hatch a plan for a permanent yet glamorous retreat from the media spotlight.
The long-awaited big-screen outing for TV's favourite female hedonists "brings some necessary fizz to Britain's glum summer", says Guy Lodge in Variety. It's not great cinema, he says, or even "peak Fabulous", but "for a post-Brexit Britain in dire need of some cheering up, it more than does the job".
Echoing Patsy's reasons for remaining friends with Eddy, Lodge says of the movie, "it's bloody good fun" and that is "as good a reason as any for making this sunny, silly rallying cry for irresponsibility, and a better one still for watching it".
Yes, it's as if Patsy and Eddy have come through a wormhole from the 1990s on a mission to cheer us up post-referendum - "bless them", says Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian. The film is "a broad, silly, likably daft Britcom" that's "basically 50 minutes of material stretched out to 90 on a daisy-chain of cameos".
The wooden celebrity appearances are "kryptonite for comedy", but Lumley saves the day with "imperishable hauteur and comedy-charisma", he adds.
Patsy and Eddy's "fizzing chemistry" carries us briskly along even when the plot meanders, as it often does, says Helen O'Hara in Empire. Ab Fab works best when it focuses on the two women behaving badly and Saunders's script has plenty of genuine zingers - the best of them delightfully mean.
The laughs come and go, continues O'Hara, "but Edina and Patsy are classics".
Leslie Felperin in the Hollywood Reporter calls it an "endearing shambles" which, like the show, works best when stars Saunders and Lumley "stand around delivering zingers while wearing ridiculous outfits".
It's "stuffed to its statement earrings with celebrities, fashion folk and comedian chums making cameos", and a "breezy blast of bawdy jokes and Bollinger product placement should lift spirits", adds the critic. "What's not to love?"
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