Seize Them!

A film watched for no other reason that its starting time fit in with my leaving a previous screening, the trailers for "Seize Them!" weren't particularly inspiring though were a fair guide to a film that I didn't particularly enjoy, but also wouldn't go as far as saying that I hated.

Dagan (Aimee Lou Wood), the unpopular and spoiled Queen of medieval Britain is overthrown in a people's rebellion led by Humble Joan (Nicola Coughlan). Dagan is spirited away from the castle by a servant Shulmay (Lolly Adefope) and, along with a peasant they meet, Bobik (Nick Frost) heads towards the East Coast where her Scandinavian family will restore her to power. Along the way she learns an appreciation for life outside the castle but is pursued by Leofwine (Jessica Hynes) who was formally in Dagan's court, but has switched sides and looks to prove herself.

It's definitely not good. Let's get the clear now. It's just not funny, despite all the talent involved on screen. There were only a few laughs and almost all of them were a) from Nick Frost and b) based on his delivery rather than the joke itself. There's nothing wrong with the performances from any of the lead characters though, the recreation is .. cheap, but works well enough. But the fact it's not that funny is perhaps the only one that really matters.

I would also say, and this might just have been my particular screening, but the final act, that takes place on a beach looked very odd. The colour kept bleeding out of the images in a way that reminded me of old cassette-based video recording. Like the saturation levels were wrong. Again, I'm not marking the film down for this as it might have been a problem in my screening only but I felt I'd mention it.

Writer Andy Riley wrote the series "Year of the Rabbit" a few years back, which I enjoyed and, perhaps not unsurprisingly, given the subject matter here, wrote on "Horrible Histories". I'd say it's "inoffensively not funny" by which I mean that whilst I didn't laugh at it, I never came to resent it that much for not being so.