A nerdy redhead from Cockfosters discovers that he is part of an ancient magical sect. Under the eye of Pentangle, he heads to Australia to be taught the way of the witter by eccentric Bavarian filmmaker Werner Herzog.... (Full plot summary below)
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A nerdy redhead from Cockfosters discovers that he is part of an ancient magical sect. Under the eye of Pentangle, he heads to Australia to be taught the way of the witter by eccentric Bavarian filmmaker Werner Herzog.
Leave your thoughts about Benjamin Sniddlegrass and The Cauldron of Penguins.
| User ReviewMark HThis review was written upon release of the film- reproduced here because the blog on which it featured is no longer available. Benjamin Sniddlegrass and the Cauldron of Penguins is based on a joke in a film review by Mark Kermode, and it's been fleshed out to make for a proper parody of those Harry Potter knock-offs that have been rattling around in the cinemas. So in the vein of Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, this is the story of a magical boy, who learns that he has magical parents who he didn't know about before, and so he's whisked away to magic school to learn magic and prepare for a big battle. To fill in the gaps, the magical boy's name is Benjamin Sniddlegrass, and the shadow in the darkness is the dastardly and gorilla-faced Lord Emmerich. It's important to emphasise that you don't need to be in on the various included in-jokes from Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo's "Wittertainment" film programme on BBC Five Live in order to enjoy this film on some level or another. While such knowledge helps, with Wittertainment associates David Morrissey and Werner Herzog becoming characters in the form of Benjamin's aunt and headmaster respectively, there's a broad cinematic literacy to the whole endeavour. It's a far cry from the humourless and desperate approach of Vampires Suck- it's obviously a lot funnier, and just the right kind of scattershot approach to a parody film. Sometimes it's actually genuinely cool- I loved the James Bond style title sequence, which has the best James Bond song that never was in the form of rock-y R&B number "Bad Man". So it's not just a spoof of Harry Potter or even of Potter knock-offs, but it covers a broad spectrum. Also enjoyable is the inclusion of Naked Gun style comedy credits, with cards reminding the audience that True Grit is an alternative to watching "the film about the penguins", if they'd prefer. I was waiting for the continuous interruptions of the film to get on my nerves, but the various "technical difficulties" encountered by the metatextual projectionist, Kenneth, are always amusing. Plus, they actually tie back to Kermode's long-running objection to poor projectionists, which suggests a focus that writer-director Jeremy Dylan deserves credit for. Kudos also goes to Dylan for having enticed Stephen Fry to narrate the film, in those reassuring tones that are so familiar to UK fans from the Harry Potter audiobooks. It's the actual, proper Stephen Fry too! At one stage, arm-wrestling negotiations were underway to get Jason Isaacs and David Morrissey to do voice roles too, but it's impressive enough that Fry turned up. But let's not overlook the cast we see on screen- Andrew Griscti is just the right amount of nebbish to be perfectly suitable for the title role, while Catherine Davies does a great send-up of the Hermione role as the beautiful love interest, Scarlett McKenna. The MVP is probably Dorian Newstead, with his spot-on Herzog impression, adding to what might be the closest anyone has come to explaining why the eccentric Bavarian filmmaker is the way he is. To borrow a new media term, Benjamin Sniddlegrass and the Cauldron of Penguins is a triumph of audience produsage. It runs for a manageable length, it keeps the laughs coming throughout and it has a banging soundtrack too. Terrible comedies have been made from much more substantial material than a film review, and Dylan wisely broadens his focus to keep it nice and accessible. |
