Holiday On The Buses Film Review

 

Film fans over here in the UK there seems to be one tradition that has seemed to died down a bit in recent years and that is over the Easter bank holidays ITV would on one of their many channels air one or perhaps all three of the On The Buses movies. Well I didn't want to let this tradition die down and as luck would have it I happen to own all three films on DVD and so then join me as I review the film that brought the On The Buses team to Wales with the film in question being called simply just "Holiday On The Buses" enjoy.

The plot of this film is after he causes a crash at work bus driver Stan Butler and his best friend find themselves working at a holiday camp for the summer. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty pretty bad since what I just described to you is more of a synopsis of the film itself as the film doesn't really have a plot which does in turn make the film feel rather pointless in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.

Starring in this film is Reg Varney as Stan Butler , Doris Hare as Mabel 'Mum' Butler and Michael Robbins as Arthur Rudge. Also starring in this film is Anna Karen as Olive Rudge , Stephen Lewis as Inspector Cyril 'Blakey' Blake , Bob Grant as Jack Harper , Wilfrid Brambell as Bert Thompson , Kate Williams as The Red Cross Nurse , Arthur Mullard as Wally Briggs , Queenie Watts as Lily Briggs , Henry McGee as The Holiday Camp Manager , Adam Rhodes as Little Arthur , Michael Sheard as The Depot Manager , Hal Dyer as Mrs. Coombs , Franco De Rosa as Luigi , Gigi Gatti as Maria , Maureen Sweeney as Mavis , Eunice Black as Mrs Hudson , Sandra Bryant as Sandra , Carolae Donoghue as Doreen , Annette Long as Betty and Tara Lynn as Joyce.

Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual acting thats actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty not that bad. With all of this films cast making good use of this of this films lack of a decent script and trying to turn in some good performances which given that this films cast is made up of comedy legends isn't that hard to do.

To me this film actually looks like a feature length and not like an episode of the TV show which is thanks to this films director of photography Brian Probyn and this films director Bryan Izzard. Who manage to make the film look like an actual film whilst also making it look like the TV show where as in the previous two films they both just looked like an episode of the TV show and not like a feature length film and that isn't something that you want to happen as it would then make your production look cheap.

Continuity has never been this series strongest suit but here they seem to wipe the entire second movie out of existence just by removing one character. As it the end of the second film it was announced that Olive was pregnant with her second child and yet in this film she only has one child this has always been a nitpick of mine because it just goes to show that the makers of this film just don't care about continuity which is weird as the writers and producers of this film also created the TV show that these films are based of off.

The opening crash at the start of the film to me is like the worlds of the movies and the TV show coming together as the buses in the TV show were green where as in the movies they were red. As such to have the red movie buses crash into the green TV show buses just felt like it was a nod and wink to the TV show and the crash itself was really well built up and given just how bad of a bu crew Stan and Jack are it's a wonder that they haven't caused more crashes as this one was totally avoidable if one of the, just looked where they were going.

The one major thing that bugged me about not only this film but the rest of these films is the fact that they all just feel like a collection of very loosely connected scenes and nothing more then that. With each scene not having anything to do with the one that came before it and as such this film does suffer because it doesn't allow you the chance to connect with the characters and any storylines that the film does start gets dropped and forgotten about which is OK for a TV show and it's expected of a sitcom TV show but it's not really something that works all that well for a movie at all.

Now then I cannot for the absolutely life of me remember whatever this films running time even was but I do know for a fact that this has / had an exact grand total running time of roughly one hour and twenty three minuets. Which is pretty much the bog standard running time for these On The Buses films to have but at the same time I feel that if this film was longer even by ten minuets it would have allowed for some more character development which given that this film basically has no plot stretching this film out wouldn't be that much of an issue but to this films credit it does have some really good pacing to it. 

So now then since this is a comedy that means that I have to actually talk about the actual comedy that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual comedy that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty not that bad. With this film being a bit more funnier then the previous two films but with that being said this film still tells alot more bad jokes then it does good jokes in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.

Overall while i'm glad to have finally reviewed this film after years of putting it off it's also a film that I can't really see myself coming back to as it's just not that good of a film in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. Now then i've talked about all of the good and as well as all of the bad things that are in this very film in this very review and as such that means that this very film earns itself a grand old score of exactly a 5.5 out of 10 from me.

Now then as or where I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review well then boys and girls and as well as ladies and gentlemen I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review from the official On The Buses fandom wiki page and Google Images. With my personally preferred website to use to get images from this very / particular / exact film being obviously Google Images since alot of the images that are from this film and that are currently still indeed up on Google Images are all fairly freaking high in quality and as well as being fairly freaking high in definition.