Review of Thunderpants (2002) by Alison O — 27 Mar 2005

Best in Show: Bruce Cook.

One for the future: Bruce Cook.

Stand-out scene: Fart-fuelled Hovercraft.

Brainer or no-brainer: No-brainer.

Stands up to one viewing or repeated?: Repeated.

DVD commentary any good?: n/a.

TV.

Farting?films have touched in it in the past but this is the first full-length flatulence movie, to my knowledge. It manages a fairly symphonic toot (a damp parp could have been all it mustered) thanks to the top drawer cast, punchy script and mesmeric art direction. The last time I saw a film bathed in various shades of the colour green it was the modern Great Expectations, director Howitt (The Borrowers) here setting the movie in the aesthetically adventurous Fifties. Born with two stomachs, Patrick Smash (Bruce Cook) emerges into the world propelled by his first first. After his persistent bottom burping causes his father to flee the marital home and leads him to be shunned for his 'gift' at school he chums up the only peer with any time for him; speccy ginger proto-inventor Alan A. Allen (Rupert Grint off of the Harry Potter movies). With appearances by Simon Callow, Stephen Fry, Keira Knightley, Leslie Phillips and Peter Giamatti there's enough talent on board to make this an enjoyable way to spend an hour and a half. Plot developments seem to have evolved out of the screenwriter's bout of late night cheese consumption following a double bill of The Matrix and Apollo 13. Realising his ambition to become an astronaut, Patrick literally flies by the seat of his pants to the rescue. Surely the film that the Pearl and Dean signature tune was written for, I wonder if poor Cook has suffered for his (f)art and is now saddled with the greeting of 'Thunderpants!' wherever he goes?!