Neil Welch Our two protagonists are still struggling to maintain an actively dissolute lifestyle on an increasingly minimal budget when a major opportunity raises its head. And then it all goes horribly wrong...For the benefit of our US and worldwide friends, Absolutely Fabulous (or AbFab, as it became known) was a BBC sitcom which ran for 41 episodes from 1992, though with some lengthy gaps between series. Written by Jennifer Saunders, she also played Edina Monsoon, an amoral and self-centred PR representative, mostly accompanied by Patsy Stone (Joanna Lumley), an equally self-centred and perpetually drunk and drugged ex-model. I'll offer up a confession: I watched very little of AbFab on TV as I didn't care for the main characters and consequently didn't find the series very funny. I wasn't particularly looking forward to the movie, which I saw in a fairly full cinema with a mature audience. Who laughed a lot. As did I.Jennifer Saunders has broadened the appeal of the series by taking it out of the small TV studio locations: the final third of the film takes place in the South of France. Eddie and Patsy remain motivated solely by greed and selfishness (and Julia Sawalha as Eddie's daughter Saffy plays her conscience, as usual), but there is sufficient material here to make it clear that their lifestyle doesn't actually enhance their quality of life, and that Eddie may occasionally glimpse that this is the case.There is a decent story here - based on silliness admittedly, but it works - with some solid laughs: verbal, as well as some good knockabout humour. And there are a host of celebrity cameos from fashion and showbiz, ranging from blink and you'll miss 'em to rather more extended cameos (Lulu as herself, amusingly, delivers all her dialogue in broad Glaswegian).I enjoyed this rather more than I expected to, although I expect that it will not travel terribly well.

guy_in_oxford When a minor character has the one funny bit out of the entire film, you know it wasn't written well. One line, out of the entire film, was funny.Bo and Marshall are especially terrible, thanks to the script. They shined in a prior bit, with the televangelism. Too bad they're given nothing of value to work with this time. Lumley is wonderful but she's given nothing funny to say or do. Even the bits she does have are often completely recycled. The entire thing seems like a long commercial for a film that is going to be made sometime in the future, when Saunders decides to care enough to work at it like she once did, long ago.I have written funnier (prototype) AbFab scripts myself in practically no time. How much time did Saunders put into this? 15 minutes?The format has nothing to do with the TV series. As I said, it's like a long commercial — a trailer masquerading as a movie. The filming is all very pretty and glamorous but nothing interesting happens. All the characters are looking back at themselves, obliquely, instead of charging forward into new development.Lumley clearly is begging for a vehicle for her enthusiasm and talent. I can write one; Saunders cannot. It's bizarre, too — because at her peak she was the better writer. The original series, except for the last episode or two, was so brilliant.Aside from the aforementioned singular funny line, which aged badly upon seeing the film a second time — there was one scene-stealing bit of body language humor from an even more minor character. Too bad that the scene collapsed into bad writing in short order.

SnoopyStyle Eddy (Jennifer Saunders) and Patsy (Joanna Lumley) are still the same. Marshall is getting transgender surgery and cutting off the house payments. Lola is staying with her mother Saffy at the house. Of course, mother and Bubble are still around. Eddy's book deal falls through. She's desperate to get Kate Moss as a client but ends up pushing her into the Thames. With Kate Moss feared dead, Patsy loses her job and the girls escape to the south of France with Lola. Patsy is looking to marry rich Charlie from the old days.Expanding a TV show into a theatrical movie is not always an easy task. The laugh track is gone. Even the old kitchen is gone. Like Entourage, this tries to fill up the empty spaces with cameos. Some are fine like Stella McCartney, Lulu, and Baby Spice who are all veterans of the show. Kate Moss is a good MacGuffin. However, the big screen is simply too big for the show. The best moments are the sharp jabs from the show's regulars. Eddy and Patsy fighting with Saffy is comfort food. Instead of trying to go bigger, it really should concentrate on the characters and their relationships.

robstackley It started very slowly, and at first I was really worried that this was nothing but a cash grab...after they "killed" Kate Moss, though, it really took off! In lieu of a "review", I've got bullet points:*Stella McCartney was totally hilarious, but only if you know your Beatles *It saddens me to say, but the least funny person in this film is...BUBBLE??? Let me put it this way - in "AF:tM", she is the equivalent of Jack Black in "Tropic Thunder" *Saffy's tirade is hysterically funny...but only if you watched the series *I recognized Barry Humphries in his 2 seconds as Dame Edna, but NOT as Charles...I didn't realize it until the credits *I LOVED the homage to "Some Like it Hot"!!