ROMAN DATA
IT’S NOT AS GOOD AS THE TV SERIES, BUT AT LEAST THERE ARE SOME HISTORICAL FACTS HIDING AMONGST THE TOILET HUMOUR IN HORRIBLE HISTORIES’ BIG SCREEN DEBUT
BASED on Terry Deary’s popular children’s book series, this big screen take expands on one tattered page from our inglorious national past for 92 minutes of toilet humour-laden edutainment punctuated by rumbustious songs.
In 54 AD, enterprising Roman teenager Atti (Sebastian Croft) earns the gold coins he needs to buy a new pair of sandals by passing off a vial of horse urine as precious gladiators’ perspiration.
Nero (Craig Roberts) receives the bottle as a present and, as punishment, condemns the weakling Atti to serve as a centurion under Decimus (Lee Mack), who dreams of retirement in Italy.
Far from home, Atti meets feisty Celt Orla (Emilia Jones), whose tribe is part of a rebellion against the Romans, led by fame-hungry Boudicca (singer Kate Nash), queen of the fearless Iceni.
Atti and Orla develop a touching friendship as they join forces to rescue Orla’s light-fingered grandmother Brenda ( Joanna Bacon) from the clutches of a rival clan. By working
THE CURRENT WAR (12A) ★★ ★★★
DIRECTOR Alfonso GomezRejon’s turgid period drama, tries to illuminate the hard-fought battle of words and copper wires between Thomas Edison and entrepreneur George Westinghouse in the late 19th-century.
The year is 1880 and Thomas Edison (Benedict Cumberbatch) is poised to together, Atti and Orla hope to outflank the military manoeuvres of Governor General Paulinus (Rupert Graves).
Director Dominic Brigstocke struggles to replicate the madcap tone of the long-running Horrible Histories TV series. Song lyrics are snappy and pitched at a young audience.
“I’m better than Caesar/A real diamond geezer,” raps an emasculated Emperor Nero as he attempts to emerge from the shadow of his formidable mother, Agrippa (Kim Cattrall). Fleeting cameos provide a few giggles for parents and teenagers. Warwick Davis delivers a stirring speech as a gladiatorial trainer, who tells his sweat-glistened wards: “I want you all to give it CX percent”.
Despite the odd misstep, Horrible Histories: The Movie – Rotten Romans gallops through 1st-century betrayal and bloodshed with a mischievous schoolboy grin. light up a section of New York with his electrical system, aided by personal secretary Samuel Insull (Tom Holland).
Edison’s reliance on direct current makes it expensive and businessman George Westinghouse (Michael Shannon) senses an opportunity. He believes an alternating current system could be cheaper and more efficient.
The two men trade verbal blows as their respective businesses duel for supremacy and Nikola Tesla (Nicholas Hoult) joins Edison’s team of bright young things.
As Edison loses ground on Westinghouse, he takes a calculated decision to link alternating current with the first electric chair, connecting his rival in the public’s mind with the “barbaric” practice of taking a human life.
Cumberbatch and Shannon are powerless to plug us into their flawed, emotionally complex characters and Tuppence Middleton and Katherine Waterston are largely wasted as the rivals’ supportive spouses.
Texan filmmaker GomezRejon is determined to energise this dull history lesson with flash camerawork, but cannot make up for the shortcomings of the script.
HORRIBLE HISTORIES: THE MOVIE – ROTTEN ROMANS (PG) ★★★ ★★