Horrid Henry: The Movie (2011)

What are all these negative reviews? Come on! This is a movie for children. My kids (11, 9 & 4) really love it, and they are big fans of the Horrid Henry books. This is not supposed to be Bergman, Truffaut or Scorsese. It is a fun family movie. That's it. I was sad to see all the negative reviews, so I gave it a 10. Cheer up, relax, don't be so critical and enjoy the movie! Greetings from Madrid / Antonia

It's odd reading all the reviews critiquing this film in terms of editing, plot etc and marking it down.There is one golden rule when watching children's movies - take children, leave your adult experience in the foyer.My two girls - 5 and 8 - loved it. I didn't but that really doesn't matter.I've given it an average rating taking into account my score - 3 - and the girls' score - 9. The girls' score is the only one that matters.So far they've watched it about 5 times, and keep yelling at me from the other room to come in quick because "this bit is really funny".That's enough for me.

I'll admit the only reason I bought this DVD is for love of Noel Fielding. His cameo is enjoyable and it's a shame he didn't get to sing or be on longer. I liked Joe Brand too, but blink & you'll miss her. The child actors aren't annoying. In fact the only casting I found objectionable were Dick & Dom. There were two really gross moments, but otherwise the humour was acceptable. Not much to the story. The songs are forgettable, but not too torturous, apart from being over loud. (But you can turn down volume.) Some good fantasy/weird imagery. Overall it's okay, but a lot of joy obviously went into it. I've looked at a few of the books and the costumes are very accurate. Henry is more likable in the film though. 5/10

As a child, I loved the Horrid Henry books, I would reread them all about twenty times a year. Then I got really excited when I heard about the film.A quick summary: I was praying for Dick and Dom's characters to die in this film, the story is ridiculously far-fetched, some of the subplots serve no purpose, the gross-out humor is not funny but just plain disgusting, and some continuity errors are just unbearable (e.g: guitar playing in the background when Henry isn't playing anything, the hamster emerging from the soup bowl completely clean) and if I were to take out all the unnecessary things in this film, we'd be left with a half hour feature that could easily have been an animated episode.And yes: I'm going to get it on DVD when it reaches the bargain bin.There's one thing that makes this film work: the passion behind it. Each and every actor and actress is in heaven when they get lost in these roles, and everyone was clearly having fun making it. They're obviously not making this film to win any Oscars - it's purely for fun. So if you're looking for a completely daft film to pick on that is still a pleasure to watch at least once, check it out. It definitely falls under the "so-bad-it's-good" category.