NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

Marketic It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Anoushka Slater While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

michaellisher Hippopotamus is an adaption of a novel written by Stephen Fry, which by credit to whomever chose the cast, became obvious within ten minutes into the film when Ted Wallace, played by Roger Allam, affirmed his character so well as to have an essence of Stephen Fry's grandiloquence emanate through his role. For that reason, this film would certainly be recommended to any fans of Stephen Fry, himself. The quality of which, between the book itself and the film, must forgo to others more competent as book reviewers rather than film, as I, myself, thoroughly enjoyed the more eloquent use of language, as expected from a book, whilst a cast, of whom were capable of the eccentric roles which were required from them, were perfectly matched to the script. Bringing together a film, which by today's standards, is a phenomenal increase in the use of grammar with a visual display to aid the story onto the screen. The story revolves around a supposed miracle of which Ted Wallace (Roger Allam) is employed by Jane Swann (Emily Berrington) to witness for himself but yet opposes throughout. With such opposition, the film becomes an Agatha Christie Poirot mystery with all the clues just need piecing together to figure out if indeed this was a film, as one would watch at Christmas, with all the miracles of hope and joy, or if, by going against the grain of human emotion, reason and logic would succeed to answer the inexplicable. Much to my disappointment was that a search for more adaptations of Stephens Frys books led to zero.

JLRVancouver Despite the promising premise and cast, I found the "The Hippopotamus" to be very disappointing. Much of the 'humour' came from Roger Allam's foul-mouthed muttering and yelling. A little bit goes a long way and (IMO) incessant profanity in a comedy is usually sign of a lacklustre script (like third-rate stand-up - if you're not funny, yell 'F---' a lot and hope for cheap laughs). The story, which finds Allam's obnoxious washed-up poet "investigating" claims of miraculous cures at a country estate starts off promisingly but then degenerates into a series of embarrassing sex-sight-gags. Given that this was based on a book by the talented Stephan Fry and included some fine British comic actors (e.g. Tim McInnerny was great in the Blackadder series), "The Hippopotamus" was a real let-down.

Matt Melchert Seeing as Stephen Fry with his gentility and wit is my favourite atheist (though he does have his moments), I had high hopes for this movie.What a disappointment. It proved to be a typical example of a type of English film full of unlikable stock-standard characters (the grumpy old curmudgeon, the ditsy blonde, the brash, rude American, the goofy, horny adolescent, the ineffectual older brother, and of course the requisite gay man). Combine that with a lustreless script sprinkled with the usual assortment of unpleasant details (I'll spare you the spoilers) and almost devoid of laughs, and you've got a waste of two hours.I gave it a generous 2 because the acting was good.Somebody must like movies like this because they keep making them, but if that's not your cup of tea spare yourself the anguish.

Reid Gagle A long time ago, our hero was a respected poet, but the muse has long ago abandoned him. Now he is a drunken theater critic whose high jinks, while amusing, are out of control and cost him his job.A young woman hires him to look into a miracle worker, who happens to be our hero's godson. While a dyed-in-the-wool skeptic, our man needs the money and take the job. It's also a trip to his past, and he has to cross bridges that were burned decades before.While the sum of the movie is much less than the sum of its parts, the parts are often quite witty. The lead is well played by the excellent Roger Allam.The movie was taken from a book by Stephen Fry, of "Blackadder" and "Jeeves and Wooster" fame.