Horrible Histories: The movie – Rotten Romans - a review

A Roman centurion get's kidnapped by a Celtic girl. Together they realize that, maybe, it's better if the Romans and the Celts learned to live together and share instead of fighting each other.

“Those who don’t learn from history are destined to repeat it! Those who do are destined to stand by to watch other people repeat it!”

This is the quote I live by. I’ve always loved history and I think it very important for other people to learn it too. History has the answers. The key to the future (in my opinion at least).

So imagine my gratitude that the CBBC decided to broadcast a TV-show about all the silly things (of which there are many) happening in history. The horrible Histories-TV show, the studio produced, was an instant hit and -moreover- it ‘caught on’ in various other countries. Happy me! Now children all  over the world were learning history in a coy friendly manner. Even the darkest chapters (like the Second World War) were brought to the children in an easy to understand (slightly dark) humorous way .

Since when did children shy away from dark humour?

Stupid deaths, stupid deaths…

So, this being me, I sat down with my ten year old son/nephew/twice-removed-cousin and watched Horrible Histories: the movie.

The short review is that the movie is an absolute laugh. I haven’t laughed as loud since I watched There’s something about Mary! years before. And that is, sure as heck, a movie I won’t take children to.

Many times the movie struck me in a hilarious fashion which, compared to many other movies trying to amuse me is quite an awesome feat.

Horrible Histories - The movie knows its formula. It takes its jokes from facts. So, where a young child might laugh out loud about a guy being tossed into a puddle. We adults laugh out loud because we know that, that was something that happened back then  'all the time'.

'Seeing something for the first time and seeing something being recreated' is what is at play here.

As a side note: Let me just be honest and say that I LOVED Derek Jacoby taking the p*ss out of his most famous part

by playing the dying Claudius once again. I've always loved the man and now, unsurprisingly, I love him even more!

The clue is in the title.

The clue is in the title. It's 'Horrible Histories: the movie'. Now a series of sketches doesn't always work on the big screen. Even the Monty Python boys had to create some silly story to tie all the jokes together in their movie outings. So, yes, this cinematic outing of Horrible Histories has a pretty A to Z story at its core: The rise of Boudicca and her fight against the Roman invaders in Britannica.

The movie starts with her rise and ends with the defeat of Boudicca’s army.

It's a short moment in history that the storytellers use as a coat rack to hang all their jokes upon.

Then, in old school storytelling fashion, the storytellers don't focus all their attention on the 'main players' like Boudicca or emperor Nero. Rather they opt to focus on two innocent bystanders; one Roman, one Celtic, one male, one female. And both teenagers because this is still a kids movie. They need someone to identify with, obviously.

 

If I sound a bit dismissive I apologize because what I like to highlight is the simplicity of how this tale is structured. If you want to make a kid-friendly movie about the horrible things that happened in history this is the way to do it! A bit of distance by focussing on innocent identifiable characters and not delving to deeply in the complex matter.

Budget-wise this also helps because making (for instance) Boudicca the main character would require at least two major battle scenes. A money budget the movie didn’t have since it was already stretching its possibilities when it comes to financial backing. There are, unfortunately, various scenes that simple don't look as impressive as they should have (especially crowd scenes). But, then again, kids won't mind so neither will I.

Everybody is having a blast.

When you see the poster above its like a 'I know that girl/guy'. That's because a lot of famous faces are in it. I already mentioned Derek Jacoby. But then there's also Nick Frost playing a loving father, Joanna Bacon playing a kleptomaniac grandmother. Even the guy from Pointless (Alexander Armstrong) is there.

Any movie gets better if you include a kleptomaniac grandmother.

And it is clear from the very first scene that all the actors know what they are doing and are enjoying themselves tremendously whilst they are doing their job.

Rupert Graves as the pompous Governor General Paulinus or Lee Mack as the homesick Praefectus Decimus. It's all a bit overacted but that's only because they actors are having so much fun thickening their characters for children. In this sense it’s like a stage play: you want to get the message across as clearly as possible.

The two main leads Sebastian Croft as Atti and Emilia Jones as Orla are the ones who need to play it as straight as possible. They succeed easily in their tasks. They are lovely together as their will-they-won't-they storyline unfolds amidst the historic buffoons (good chemistry).

True, the feministic layer of the Orla character tends to gets a bit in your face and, thus, might rub some people the wrong way (according to online reviews) but it didn't feel out of place to me. Moreover, there's nothing wrong with teaching young girls that being tough isn't always bad.

“Hashtag’s time's up!”

Just like the TV-show there had to be a song and dance or two. And apart from all the hilarious jokes it are the songs I liked even better. They were fun, well choreographed and just utterly silly as only the British can deliver. Especially Boudicca's song will get stuck in your mind for days on end.

Whenever things get too dark (as history tends to get) a nice song and dance routine lightens the mood and gets the audience ready for the next murder to happen (-yes, people get murdered in dark humorous manner, but, as I said before, kids can handle that easily).

Horrible Histories: Rotten Romans is a laugh all the way through. The movie is aimed at kids but adults will enjoy it just as much. The movie (and TV-show) have managed to take the darker sides of history as a backdrop whilst telling a story filled to the brim with positivity.

Every once in a while you come across a movie that 'feels' like everybody involved had a great time making it. Even if the movie isn't very good that feeling lingers long after the credits. Horrible Histories: the movie however is quite good if you accept the budget restraints and the target audience (it's got a talking rat-handpuppet for starters).

I for one can’t wait to see the franchise entering the Dark Ages.