Bunny and the Bull (2009)

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

A Masterpiece!

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

Blistering performances.

A BRILLIANT FILM!!! Reminiscent of Michel Gondry's work, Paul King has created a fantasy world that is both beautiful and unique. It touched a soft spot as it reminded me of my relationship to my best friend, and how our lives ended up.The worlds created for this touching film are all surreal, beautifully crafted from books, paper mache, and other arts & crafts. The acting is flawless by all the actors including the beautiful Veronica Echegui.I was sad to find that he doesn't have any other features out yet. Can't wait to see more. Absolutely loved it and highly recommend it. It's currently available on Netflix streaming (as of May 2011).

Paul "Mighty Boosh" King storms onto the silver screen with a cavalcade of imaginative imagery, from a snow globe mountain retreat to a clockwork bullfight, but then attempts to meld it all with an atrocious script, which is at times inane, elsewhere sentimental, and riddled with boring f-bombs. The dialogue is full of jokes but empty of wit or insight.Broadly (and it often is) the film is about a traumatised and possibly agoraphobic young man named Stephen who musters a lo-fi Euro road trip in his head, the landscape and characters forged only by the contents of his apartment. If it sounds like Amelie then that's because it is like Amelie, right down to the rippling piano score. Difference is, Amelie, under its sugary shell, contained pathos and humanity, and its surreal digressions were complementary to a solid and coherent plot.King's film is a cauldron of slapstick, surrealism and homosexual tension, all stuttering along on the power of a pair of lifeless performances. As a viewer all we have to root for is the soppy, infantile Stephen (Edward Hogg) and the crass, infantile Bunny (Simon Farnaby).There's an almost amusing turn from Richard Ayoade as a bored shore museum curator. Noel Fielding's matador cameo shows promise then descends into a loud nothing.Woven well into the wayward narrative, the animated asides are arresting in a Lloyd's TSB ad kind of way, providing welcome respite from the highly variable sketches in between. But ultimately they only serve to remind us of the talent that's going down with the ship. It all comes across as quite "random"; except we know it's anything but. It really was meant to be this way.The whole venture reaches its nadir with a homeless zoophile who drinks milk from a dog, at which point you may wish to follow Bunny and leap through the frozen ice to save yourself.

Bunny and the Bull starts with the lead character Stephen a Paranoid Neurotic living a hermit like existence. What could have happened to him to make him this way, well through a series of flash backs from a road trip with his mate Bunny a year earlier we are about to find out. Let me start by saying this film is Visually brilliant, it uses so many idea's and creativity to set the scene in a surreal imaginary way for me this was the best feature of this film and credit is due to everyone involved on this front.Edward Hogg plays Stephen who does a good job of creating his paranoid character and is always believable. Te film centres around the whole buddy premise, in this case the comedy double act of the straight v's funny guy e.g Morecambe and WiseStephens friend is Bunny played by Simon Farnaby, he is supposed to be the lovable idiot and supposed to provide the laugh's.The other main character is Eloisa played by Veronica Echegui who supply's the love interest and creates the antagonist between the two friends.The supporting cast was very good and a notable performance from Julian Barret as Atilla and Noel Fielding has a small part as Matador Javier. These are the people that supply the laughs because what could have been a good comedy role in Bunny turned into a stomach turning weak wooden embarrassment. This is where the whole film falls down, without a strong Bunny performance the whole thing falls flat. Dude i don't know if it was the writing or dude i don't know if it was just the performance but dude the character didn't become the lovable idiot he became the annoying idiot that said dude too much plus he looked like Patrick Swayze with a blonde afro. Now considering Bunny was in most scenes it left the whole thing falling flat and lacking in laugh's. Verónica Echegui had some of the funniest moments and she certainly understands comic delivery but was also given funnier lines. She was a character that I liked a lot but sadly this wasn't about her. The problem with something like this is you need to care about the friendship and they did try and use all the tricks in the book, there was even a few Frodo/Samwise moments in there. If you are going to make a film that isn't plot driven or story driven then you need that friendship to carry the film and in this case it failed. There were also attempt at cheap laughs in the form of crude visual gags that maybe a 12 yr old would find funny but come on guys I expect better. Overall I wasn't totally disappointed but maybe a little let down as this could have been better either with better writing and dialogue or just a better Bunny, i mean dude !!! It was a visual treat with some amazing concepts let down by a weak supporting role which was the catalyst for the film. 5/10

Paul King worked on The Mighty Boosh, the much loved, surreal British TV show, so I hoped to get some of that in this. But alas not. Really the film is a road trip, one down memory lane as a obsessively compulsive agoraphobic man looks back on a trip through Europe with his best mate.On the trip they encounter a variety of characters including a young Spanish woman with whom he falls for and yet his friend beds. In the end through tragedy the man learns to see life differently and step into the outside world again.The film has so much potential, but it never seems to know what it's trying to be. British comedy is known for often being surreal, odd and quirky and this film tries to be all, yet it also tries to be too surreal, odd and quirky yet too clever, whilst never allowing the audience to engage with it's main characters who are either too placid or too grotesque. It also fails as it is never a serious drama, despite the elements of mental illness nor is it funny in a laugh out loud way or in a darkly comic way, instead you have a film that just drags along.One factor works in the film's favour and that is the production. Using surreal sets and backdrops, a snowscape inside a snow globe or a fairground made out of scrap metal, it is often a little overwhelming, but at times very clever. But at the same time the visual style becomes a little too much and draws away from the story line which may have come out better had the film used less quirk and more convention in telling it's story. Stick to the Might Boosh.More of my reviews at iheartfilms.weebly.com