Charming is a relic, an archive rediscovery from a box marked ‘early noughties’. It is alike a film taking advantage of the universal amnesiac response to some long forgotten original release, fifteen years ago, with a second punt at success. While the cast is peppered with noughties names – High School Musical’s Ashley Tisdale, My Big Fat Greek Wedding star Nia Vardalos and ‘Sk8ter Boi’ singer Avril Lavigne among it – the plot is retrogressively stuck in a pre-Shrek whirl of conservatism. He was a boy, she was a girl. Can they make it any more obvious?
The leap from school textbook alternative to all-star, big screen bonanza is about as impressive as they come in the world of non-fiction. Dating back to the nineties, Terry Deary’s Horrible Histories books have spawned magazines, plays, proms, video games, theme parks and two BAFTA winning television series to gain renown as a British institution. It’s an empire even the Romans would be proud of – thus making said ancient civilisation an apt starting point for the franchise’s new cinematic lease of life. Whilst Rotten Romans does little to convince that narrative structure is the future of the franchise, its winning cast and good nature carrying things through. More laughs would have been welcome all the same.
It takes all of twenty-five minutes for the phrase ‘fake news’ to rear its ugly head in Karim Amer and Jehane Noujaim sobering new documentary for Netflix. By this point in the film, a conspiratorial tone has already established humanity to be doomed, corrupted and likely on the fast track to thinly veiled authoritarianism. But it is our willing acceptance of such a fate that horrifies. It’s our fault. In the words of Dr. David Carroll, one of three de facto narrators here: ‘We were so in love with the gift of this free connectivity that no one bothered to read the terms and conditions.’ Fake news? No, this is an all too real project of fear.
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