Popular reviews

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  Review by Lebowskidoo 🇨🇦 🎬 🍿 ★★★★ 5

  Being an 80's kid who had access to cable TV and video stores, I kinda pride myself on having seen most movies from that era. However, there are a small number that have eluded my grasp, such as this one. It was the time when I discovered James Bond, and Indiana Jones and all his copycats permeated pop culture. Adventure tales were my thing back then, I probably would have loved it in the 80's.

  Now, finding a long lost 80's movie I'd missed is an adventure for me. Nostalgia makes such things nearer and dearer.

  This was a fun romp, but don't expect too much more. Plays a bit like the pilot of a TV show that never happened, but there are some cool World War I flying scenes.

  TRIVIA: Screen legend Peter Cushing's last ever role.

  MORE TRIVIA: Filmed in the same area that Kubrick used to double for Vietnam a year later for Full Metal Jacket.

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  Review by Nick Langdon ★★½ 2

  There's faithful adaptions of the source material, there's loose adaptions, then there's the Biggles movie, and while watching this I wasn't sure if that rumbling sound was one of the aircraft on screen's propellers or the late W. E. Johns rotating in his coffin at a rage-fuelled 1500rpm. I read some of the Biggles books as a kid so was familiar with the character, and apparently the original intent was to put one of these beloved classic stories of adventure on screen. However the film was mired in development hell for several years and just when it did finally get going the phenomenon the was Back to the Future (1985) happened, and so one of the producers decided that what…

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  Review by Boxhamster ★★★½

  ⏰LB Community Zeitreise – 17.-19.02.2023⏰ - Kapitän: Maddin809

  Gesichtet wurde die Blu-ray von Wicked Vision.
  Fassungstitel: Der Biggels Effekt.

  Ein Geschäftsmann bekommt Besuch von einem Fremden und findet sich kurz danach plötzlich zur Zeit des Ersten Weltkriegs wieder, wo er wie Cary Grant in "Der unsichtbare Dritte" vor einem auf ihn zufliegenden Doppeldecker Deckung nehmen muss. Der Pilot stellt sich als Biggles vor, die beiden werden beschossen und schwupps befindet sich der Zeitreisende wieder in seiner Wohnung. Fortan gelangt er immer wieder ins Jahr 1917 und wird immer mehr in das Geschehen rund um den Krieg und eine geheime Waffe der Deutschen involviert.
  Der Aufbau der Handlung ist gelungen, da man lange nicht genau weiß, was da vor sich geht,…

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  Review by Keith G ★★ 2

  80s action flicks-YouTube watchlist #5

  "Great Scott, it's beyond comprehension!"

  After an encounter with a strange old gentleman (Peter Cushing), American businessman Jim Ferguson (Alex Hyde-Whyte), is transported back in time to 1917 and the battlefields of Belgium. There he encounters British flying ace Lieutenant James "Biggles" Bigglesworth (Neil Dickson) who is on air reconnaissance. Ferguson bounces back and forwards in time, usually at inopportune moments, aiding Biggles to destroy a German secret sound weapon.
  FilmFan1970 featured this last week and it happened to be on my 80s action movie list, so it was promoted to a Saturday afternoon matinee earlier today. I have seen it before and I was surprised how much I remembered. It is very 80scentric in…

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  Review by Phil Doyle ★★★½ 5

  The best film version of Biggles.

  ...alright, the plot makes no sense and quite how the American guy turns into a gung ho action hero so quick is anyone's guess but, my God, the music.

  THE MUSIC

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  Review by Paul Wood ★★★★ 2

  Biggles is one of those movies that hardly anyone remembers, and yet for me, was one of the highlights of my cinema going youth.
  The story follows a young american salesman who travels back in time, teaming up with Biggles during World War I, to foil the German's plot to use a secret, sonic weapon against the allies.
  It's very, very 80's in its approach; a pop video mentality melded to the quintessentially British approach to a boys own adventure story, was always going to be a hard sell.
  Yet the action moves along at such a pace, the actors involved sell their roles so convincingly, that I can't help but be swept along by the ridiculous nature of the…

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  Review by Martin ★★★

  Biggles (released as Biggles: Adventures in Time in the US) is a bizarre film that seems to have been cobbled together from various sources. It's based on a series of adventure books about an ace pilot from both World Wars called Biggles but inexplicably updates it with a time travel plot, having contemporary American advertising man Jim Ferguson (Alex Hyde-White) who's about to launch a new line of TV dinners become Biggles' "time-twin". This means he zaps back to 1917 whenever Biggles' life is in danger to save him, and along the way they team up to destroy Germany's new super-weapon, a sound cannon. It's a film where in one scene the main character disguises himself as a nun with…

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  Review by Gavin ★★★½ 2

  I had an unashamedly great time with this film. Some highlights include:

  1917 dogfight to generic 80s synth pop.
  Biggles calling someone a "sausage guzzler".
  Grotesquely mutilated nazi corpse at a weapons testing facility (making me question whether this was actually a PG after all).
  Peter Cushing.
  Utterly absurd resolution for an already adequately absurd film.
  Nazi technician basically doing a backflip from an explosion.
  Vitamin D saving someone's life thanks to the power of sunlight appearing through the church windows.

  All in all, I had a surprisingly good time. The anachronistic elements were a lot more fun than I was expecting.

  Edit to add: I loved how they made no attempt whatsoever to explain the time travel aspects.

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  Review by Jon Cross ★★★½ 1

  An absolutely bananas movie.

  It’s odd because almost every decision anyone made from the Director to the Screenwriter on down, is the worst possible decision you could make (except hiring Peter Cushing): 

  It’s a time travelling Biggles Movie but he’s not the main character and he only time travels once.

  The main character is an insufferable twazzock who isn’t phased by almost any of the things that are happening to him.

  Its influences are boys own adventure books about war and derring-do and wants to capitalise on Indiana Jones and Back to the Future but it has a weirdly awful, cheesy synth pop soundtrack. 

  The main character’s introduction, business and job has no bearing on anything and yet we waste…

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  Review by Dom Holder ★★½

  John Hough's Biggles is a classic case of a film that never truly knows what it wants to be. Mixing classic warfare action with sci-fi time travel is an interesting concept, but a concept is all that it actually is, as it would appear that nobody thought about the logical side of the plot.

  World War 1 hero James "Biggles" Bigglesworth (Neil Dickson) is joined by 1980s American Celebrity caterer Jim Ferguson (Alex Hyde-White) who keeps jumping back and forth through time just as Biggles is about to meet a particularly grisly end. This is sort of explained away by Air Commodore William Raymond (Peter Cushing) who is inexplicably living in one of the Towers of Tower Bridge in modern-day…

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  Review by Bernd Plissken ★★★

  Wilde Mischung aus Indiana Jones und James Bond mit ganz eigenem Flair, aber auch nicht so gut wie die genannten Filmreihen und so ist es nur konsequent, dass es bei einem Abenteuer des Helden Biggles geblieben ist, obwohl es eine ganze Reihe von Biggles-Büchern gibt.

  Wild, weil Zeitreisen hin und her zwischen den 80‘ern und dem Ersten Weltkrieg. Da gibt es eine Ultraschallwaffe der Deutschen, ein Helikopter wird in die Zeit zurück genommen… Außerdem gibt es den großen Peter Cushing in seiner letzten Rolle und einen sehr britischen Look. 

  Das ist alles mit viel Herz gemacht, aber eben auch nicht von einem Spielberg oder Bond-Team inszeniert. So wirkt manches etwas ungelenk, aber nicht ohne Charme. Der Biggles-Effekt ist definitiv ein Film, den es zu entdecken lohnt, wenn man sich auf ein paar Schönheitsfehler einstellt. Und dann wird man hervorragend unterhalten.

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  Review by Zulu_Shaun ★★ 3

  What could have been a fun movie is let down by it's uncertain tone and rather bland characters. The humour you expect to arise from the personality/culture clash between British stiff upper lipped Biggles and the 1980s American sensibilities of his time twin John Ferguson never arrives. The music is all over the place. It sounds like it's been composed for three different movies, none of which are this one. Not a great movie for Peter Cushing to end his legendary screen career on but thank god he's there. Every time he appears he gives the whole thing the charm and class that it lacks the rest of the time.