Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa (2014)

Despite there not being many episodes of it the character of Alan Partridge has become an iconic comedy character in the UK, so it was no surprise that eventually some bright spark would try to make a full length film.It's not a bad film to be honest. It ticks all the right boxes in terms of laughs per scene but really it's all on Steve Coogan's head to make a silly set up work.I can see the fascination with the character and the film, but for me I didn't find it that funny or indeed that engaging. I think the character works in small doses but to sit through a full length film of someone doing clearly irrational things did not make a good time for me.

Film adaptations of beloved TV programmes often don't work out, usually because what works for half an hour doesn't necessarily work for 100 minutes. With Alan Partridge, though, Steve Coogan (with Armando Iannucci, Peter Baynham and Patrick Marber) created a fully rounded character that has been allowed to develop from a sports reporter (The Day Today) to a chat show host (Knowing Me Knowing You) to a radio DJ (I'm Alan Partridge S1) to a man with a failed career and serious mental problems (I'm Alan Partridge S2). Because of this, Alpha Papa was never going to be bad… … but after so much darkness creeping into the second series of I'm Alan Partridge, this just seemed a little silly. Don't get me wrong: a lot of it was absolutely hilarious - the cast is flawless and the laughs just keep coming. It's as good a job of a film adaptation as I imagine anybody could have made, but there was just something missing. Verdict: Very, very good, but just didn't seem quite as human (however grotesque) as the TV and radio work. I certainly could have done without the bass guitar bit. yetanotherfilmreviewblog.tumblr.com

(53%) First of all I've never been a huge fan of the hapless broadcasting buffoon, his TV shows in the nineties were fine in small doses, but never anything I felt I must watch. So despite the good reviews I wasn't a big enough fan to grab myself a cinema ticket, and by and large in hindsight I'm glad I didn't. Not that this is a bad big screen effort, it's just that the show worked on subtlety with very little actually happening, this in an attempt to be more fitting for the big screen has tonnes, so something has been lost along the way; but then again the TV show was if anything a little too subtle and sluggish at times. Overall this is something that Partridge fans will cherish, but it doesn't do a great deal to win me over.

There is a problem with this movie: you will watch it probably only because you know the Alan Partridge TV show, but if you know the show, then you won't like this movie so much.It's comedy, but even a comedy must make some sense in order to be funny. The silliness of this story is so big, it overshadows the few jokes and since almost everything happens at just one place, it really drags.I don't get it: why not make a good movie using the successful concept of the original TV series, which made Alan Partridge and Steve Coogan so famous, with Alan as a TV host, interpolated with some moments of his private life? This should be done while Steve still isn't too "old" for that.