Starring Steve Cogan, Dharmesh Patel, John Hopkins, Giles Terer, Tony Jayawardena co-written by Armando Iannucci and Sean Foley, directed by Sean Foley. Running time 150 minutes.
If you've ever wanted to see what an Am-Dram re-telling of Stanley Kubrick's truly superb and vastly superior 1964 comedy masterpiece Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, looks like then you've come to the right place.
The film sees the events leading up to WWIII through the eyes of Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, US President Merkin Muffley, B52 pilot Major T.J. 'King' Kong, and wheelchaired bound Dr. Strangelove all played by Steven Coogan, who uses the genius move of just putting on a different funny accent for each character.
Lacking the power, cast, and vision of Stanley Kubrick who directed the original vastly better film from a screenplay by Kubrick, Terry Southern and Peter George based on the book Red Alert by Peter George. This just feels like a poorly staged church hall performance that seems incredibly dull and boring in comparison and managing to be an hour longer than the movie.
Most people will come for Coogan, well you'll get four times the dose but it's not vintage Coogan, more like going through the motions Coogan as he recalls his lines while remembering what accent to use, his least effective is his King Charles voice for Mandrake, while his Strangelove is the most successful.
This just made me want to rewatch the original film. So it's not all bad, but I certainly won't be watching it again.
4/10
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