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Biggles - Adventures in Time
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Super
Review date: 2008-06-30 Rating: 10 out of 10
Biggles - Adventures in Time is a super 1980's Si-Fi film. I am not sure that the main charactor is actually Biggles which is a shame. But the action is true to the spirit W E Johns books. A time traveling adventure. This film could have had a follow on story.
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Reviews
The Thunderbirds the Movie of it's day
Review date: 2006-11-29 Rating: 4 out of 10
It's amazing what you find yourself watching in a motel in the middle of nowhere when all the restaurants are shut. For those unfamiliar, the Biggles books were a long-running series of boys own style adventures about a WW1 British pilot (the series ran long enough to take in WW2, post-war secret service adventures and even a series of Kiplingesque prequels about his childhood in India), and terrific fun they were too. The movie was in development for more than a decade (at one point a hideously miscast Dudley Moore was mooted for the lead after hitting it big in 10) and the finished film looks like they finally just decided to make something, anything because they'd spent so much money in development.
The end result is the biggest misconceived fiasco of a potential franchise until Working Title's 2004 Thunderbirds came along and turned a weekly sci-fi disaster movie series into a bad kiddie flick. So, to appeal to an audience with no interest in the series and to alienate anyone who was, the plot centres around an American TV dinner promoter who finds himself traveling back in time to 1917 to help his 'time twin' Biggles destroy a secret German weapon that could help them win the war and change the course of history. If that isn't bad enough, it comes with a woefully wrong score by Stanislas that sounds like a BBC Radiophonic attempt to do New Romantic via Kraftwerk, a complete absence of dogfights, poor action scenes, weak comic relief, lazy direction from John Hough and terrible writing (the 'love' story is related entirely as backstory by one of Biggles' sidekicks). Peter Cushing is fine in his last film role and the film does have one deliriously demented line of dialog - 'Get us out of here before they realize you're not a god, you're just an American!' - but is definitely best avoided.
At least the UK DVD includes plenty of extras...
Chocks away!
Review date: 2006-09-03 Rating: 10 out of 10
A wonderfully kitsch twist of the modern man out of place in World War I. Alex Cameron is the nearly-successful TV dinner manufacturer who gets intermittently sucked back in time to World War I. He seems to be inter-connected through time with a figure from history, one James Bigglesworth of the RAF - the legendary flying ace, Biggles! Whenever Biggles is in mortal danger (which is a fair bit!), Alex gets dragged into the Western Front in rural France/Belgium.
Here he finds he has to assist Biggles with a dangerous scheme to eradicate the German's latest secret weapon against British Flyers. You think this is dangerous - wait till they both find out the rift in time works both ways! How will Biggles cope with the loud music and pink hair of punks in the 80's?
Ably assisted by Peter Cushing as the Air Marshal of Intelligence who is the go between and source of kit and information for Cameron, this film is great fun for an hour and a half of escapism, with a great soundtrack written by John Deacon, bass player in that great rock band Queen. Enjoy!
Still as good now as when I first saw it!
Review date: 2006-07-26 Rating: 10 out of 10
Ok, back in the day i saw this movie, and I loved it then. I love it even more now. The plot is this, American guy finds out he has a time twin, someone who will save his neck in his hour of need, only problem is this, its James Bigglesworth, world war one Sopwith camel pilot extradinaire! Now, although the only niggle with this movie is the cover of the dvd, it shows a ww2 spitfire instead of a ww1 sopwith camel biplane :-) , this movie has all the typical eighties trappings. Don't let that put you off, just sit back, enjoy this underated masterpiece, and be unhappy that a sequel was never made. My favourite quote from the movie: James Bigglesworth "If you can fly a sopwith camel, you can fly anything!" and this being said whilst he is trying to fly a modern day helicopter!!!
An entertaining guilty pleasure of mine
Review date: 2005-03-01 Rating: 10 out of 10
The movie BIGGLES:ADVENTURES IN TIME is a rather odd movie to try and review. All logic says that the movie should be soundly panned - a low budget time travel movie about two "time twins" who bounce back and forward between 1980s New York and London and the Western Front in the French trenches of World War I whenever the other is in mortal peril.
Though the movie has plenty moments that make you cringe - the `old boy attitude' of the British flyers in WWI, the dated fashions of the 1980s and some of the most awe inspiringly terrible dialogue and dialogue deliveries in recent years. Yet in spite of it all this movie also has a certain amount of charm and there are a number of times in which you cannot help but feel seduced by the Boy's Own adventure of it all.
Drawing its inspiration from a series of Biggles novels by British author Capt. W.E. Johns, the movie is really the story of American celebrity dinners CEO Jim Ferguson (played by Alex Hyde-White). Following a visit from a mysterious elderly Englishman (played by Peter Cushing in his last movie), Ferguson finds himself transported back to World War One France where he meets British flying ace Biggles, whose Sopwith Camel bi-plane crashes nearby.
It becomes apparent that Ferguson must help Biggles complete his mission to destroy a German sound machine, a technology that could lead to Germany winning the war (one wonders why Germany didn't simply build more than one). The young cast are quite good in their roles, the music is serviceable and there is some very nice biplane dogfight scenes between Biggles and his archenemy Von Stalhein.
Faithful only in spirit to the Johns books, this movie was obviously meant to be the start of a franchise as evidenced by the ending, but that never transpired. This movie has its moments and for time-travel fans it will fill a nice couple of hours, but it's a movie where its parts are better than the whole. A true guilty pleasure.
Product Details/Specifications
Actor(s):
Neil Dickson
Fiona Hutchison
Peter Cushing
Marcus Gilbert
Alex Hyde-White
Creators:
Neil Dickson (Primary Contributor)
Alex Hyde-White (Primary Contributor)
Director(s):
Recording label: Prism Leisure Corporation
Manufacturer: Prism Leisure Corporation
EAN: 5014293145558
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 1
Format: PAL,
Release date: 2003-09-01
Number of discs: 1
Audience rating: Parental Guidance
Region code: 2
Theatrical release date: 1988-01-29