What’s it about? Russell Brand is Arthur Bach, a no-good, rich layabout whose main focus in life appears to be humiliating his incredibly wealthy family. When he goes one step too far, his mother decides he needs a woman to keep him in check and gives him an ultimatum: marry the snooty Susan or be struck from the Bach will. Faced with the prospect of having to get a real job Arthur decides this is a fair deal – until he meets the down-to-earth Naomi and falls in love. But is the love of his life worth billions of dollars?
Who’s in it? Russell Brand, Helen Mirren, Greta Gerwig and Jennifer Garner.
Handbag hearts… You can’t go wrong with a bit of Helen Mirren. She’s charming and funny as Arthur’s nanny Hobson and has brilliant chemistry with Russell Brand.
But Arthur is a one-man show, and, to be honest, we can’t think of anyone else other than Russell Brand with a big enough personality to succeed at filling one and a half hours with his ramblings, such as, “I don’t trust horses. Their shoes are permanent. Who makes that kind of a commitment to a shoe?”
What’s bad? While we think he does a good job in Arthur, we miss the old Russell Brand comedy, the comedian who wasn’t afraid to offend anyone and didn’t take himself too seriously. The Russell Brand in Arthur is all smiles and clean-shaven, and we no like.
While Arthur isn’t ‘bad’ on the whole, it’s not great. The cast give strong performances (especially Mirren and Garner), and Brand makes his first attempt at playing a more in-depth and emotional character than Forgetting Sarah Marshall’s Aldous Snow. However, Arthur Bach is still a reinvention of Russell’s own hedonistic character and we were left wondering how long this one-trick act can last for.
Should you go and see it? We’ve decided here at Handbag Towers, that coming back into the office and saying “well it was better than I expected” doesn’t mean we should give it a more positive write up than it deserves. It just means it over achieved in our already low expectations – and having read a lot of other reviews preceding our meeting with Arthur, our expectations were at basement level.
So while Arthur is fun and entertaining, we’re not sure Russell Brand fans will love it, and therein lies the problem.
Arthur is in cinemas from 22 April.
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