When I've watched Mrs. Brown's Boys on TV, I've enjoyed it and found it pretty funny. It's not the best show to be found out there, but it's still entertaining with its own charm and its self-awareness.
With that being said, Mrs. Brown's Boys: D'Movie is an utterly painful cinematic experience.
Let's get into the plot before anything else. Mrs. Brown (Brendan O'Carroll) finds her livelihood as a independent trader under threat from evil developers (some of them being Russian). With the help of her family and other stereotypical characters (including Mr. Wang, also played by O'Carroll), Mrs. Brown decides to fight back.
As the film begins, there is some promise with a humourous and witty opening sequence acknowledging the transition from TV to cinema. However, after that, the film becomes a monotonous slog with only a few chuckles to be found here and there. Look at other reviews which have slaughtered the film, and the quote 'a few chuckles' already comes across as superlative. The audience which my dad and I saw the film with apparently had a great time, as they were laughing out loud on a regular basis. I did laugh a few times, but I felt guilty about laughing. This is because the humour was both stupidly offensive and offensively stupid, using excessive swearing and depressingly old-fashioned stereotypes to spear-head their quest for comedy. Mr. Wang, in particular, is distractingly similar to Mickey Rooney's infamous work in Breakfast at Tiffany's, which came out in 1961. That's how dated the humour in this film is (and the news that Mr. Wang may be the focus of a spin-off evokes serious dread). Plus, the humour which could be wrought from the TV to film transition becomes very lazy very quickly. If they want to get a laugh out of situations, they simply cue recognisable music from classic movies before following them up with a lazy line to puncture the music's grandiosity. I'm not a huge fan of these moments unless they're done really well, and the moments in this film just don't work (with one possible exception). The humour here fails even more so when I compare it to other comedies this year such as 22 Jump Street, Neighbours and The Lego Movie, where I found plenty of laugh-out-loud moments with little guilt attached. All three of those films combined actors, directors and writers who knew how to construct very funny set-pieces with energy and intelligence.
That trio of comedies also had an emotional undercurrent (however slight) which fit very well in-between the moments of humour. But, as if the mediocre handling of the comedy wasn't enough, Mrs. Brown's Boys: D'Movie also throws in some sickeningly obvious and manipulative drama to try and lure the audience in. How obviously manipulative is it? There's actually a dramatic scene with Westlife's 'You Raise Me Up' playing in the background. The music isn't there for comedic effect; it's there to wrench an emotional reaction out of you, whether you like it or not. The drama in the film is wafer-thin and exists for no other reason than to pad out the running time. Also, as I'll discuss next, there is a key rule to drama which the film fails big time. There is a lame attempt at letting the audience in on the fact that this is a film by slapping some bloopers in the middle of the film, but their inclusion creates a serious problem. When a film successfully engages the audience in its drama (as this film shamelessly attempts in its latter stages), it is primarily because the audience has become invested in the film and the characters. By including these bloopers, the illusion of the film is shattered, which makes the attempts at sincere drama even more painful to watch. Some might argue that the cast and crew are constantly trying to play on the fact that this is a film in order to get laughs, but then I'd argue that makes it a even bigger mistake to aim for serious drama.
The acting in this film is anything but polished. Mrs. Brown's Boys has always been a case of nepotism, with O'Carroll involving many members of his family. None of them are professional actors, and it shows. O'Carroll himself tries hard, but Mrs. Brown just feels out-of-place in her own film and, as I've said before, Mr. Wang is a sterotypical annoyance. The deficiencies of the other actors are expanded on the big screen. The new villains are another of the film's big problems; they're neither funny, menacing or energetic enough to leave an impression. Plus, can we stop using Russians as the bad guys please? If there's one thing which seems awkward in the world of Mrs. Brown, it's Russian gangsters and politics (as emphasised by the other main villain of the piece).
In looking for an example of a British TV show which made a successful transition to the big screen, The Inbetweeners Movie comes to mind. That's because it took the characters in a direction which felt organic based on their journeys on the show while expanding it into a cinematic format and scoring a lot of natural, laugh-out-loud moments in the process. Also, Ben Palmer, a regular director of the TV show, took the helm and did a fine job in the process. Here, Mrs. Brown's Boys: D'Movie loses the charm of the show, takes the characters on a journey which doesn't fit in at all with their TV exploits and uses cheap humour and stereotypes and sickening dramatic manipulation in place of any genuine effort. The director Ben Kellet helmed several episodes of the show, yet seems completely oblivious as to what makes the character so appealing to her fanbase. All of this ineptitude makes for a truly dismaying experience, made even worse by the fact that it smashed the box office in its opening weekend. God, I hope The Inbetweeners 2 does better service to its TV counterpart. Unlike the film exploits of Mrs. Brown, the approach of a Inbetweeners sequel is actually appealing.
Final Verdict
Mrs. Brown's Boys: D'Movie is a near-total failure of a film and a disservice to the TV show, showing that Mrs. Brown is a character best served by the small screen. The humour is lazy and weak, the attempts are ill-advised to say the least and the acting is of the same quality one might expect from a pantomime. In short, it's the worst film I've had the displeasure of enduring in the cinema this year. I'd advise you to avoid at all costs.
Rating: 1.25 out of 5
