I bought this film on VHS in the late eighties and thought it was hilarious; after many years I thought I'd see if I'd still enjoyed it... I did! The film opens with the fascist Central American Republic of Maguadora invading a small British colony in the Caribbean; a task force is deployed and the colony is retaken. That isn't the end of the matter though; the Maguadorans employ the world famous terrorist Lacrobat to kidnap Princess Wendy and threaten to kill her if Britain doesn't had the colony to Maguadora. Once she has been kidnapped it is a race to find her before she is killed; an act that Prime Minister Sir Mortimer Chris says will be met by swift nuclear retaliation! If that wasn't bad enough it is learnt that the Soviet Union has its own secret missile base in the Caribbean which they promise to use if Maguadora is attacked.
I found this film as hilarious as I did when I first watched it; sure some jokes don't work as well as others but they come thick and fast so if you don't laugh at one joke another is coming very soon. The main plot is clearly inspired by the 1982 war to liberate the Falkland Islands after the Argentinean invasion and there are other sections inspired by real events such as the SAS storming of the Iranian Embassy and even the Cuban Missile Crisis. Funny moments are too many to list but highlights include solving unemployment by getting people in work to jump to their deaths off Beachy Head, the public crucifixion of cabinet ministers and best of all the storming of a wax museum by a squad of overly enthusiastic, dim-witted SAS soldiers. The cast includes a fine array of acting talent including Peter Cook, Ian Richardson, Loretta Swit, Rik Mayell, Herbert Lom and Alexi Sayle; some like Mayell are hilariously over the top but most play their parts straight which given the material makes it even funnier. While I expect most people will find this amusing it isn't really suitable for younger viewers or the easily offended as it includes such things as an accidental castration, a travelling sex toy salesman and a pile of severed heads!
I found this film as hilarious as I did when I first watched it; sure some jokes don't work as well as others but they come thick and fast so if you don't laugh at one joke another is coming very soon. The main plot is clearly inspired by the 1982 war to liberate the Falkland Islands after the Argentinean invasion and there are other sections inspired by real events such as the SAS storming of the Iranian Embassy and even the Cuban Missile Crisis. Funny moments are too many to list but highlights include solving unemployment by getting people in work to jump to their deaths off Beachy Head, the public crucifixion of cabinet ministers and best of all the storming of a wax museum by a squad of overly enthusiastic, dim-witted SAS soldiers. The cast includes a fine array of acting talent including Peter Cook, Ian Richardson, Loretta Swit, Rik Mayell, Herbert Lom and Alexi Sayle; some like Mayell are hilariously over the top but most play their parts straight which given the material makes it even funnier. While I expect most people will find this amusing it isn't really suitable for younger viewers or the easily offended as it includes such things as an accidental castration, a travelling sex toy salesman and a pile of severed heads!