The Wind in the Willows (1997)

Very well executed

The Worst Film Ever

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

When I first heard about this film, my first thought was - I'm going to hate it. I really like Monty Python, it had nothing to do with the fact that they were in it - I just thought I would hate it as I don't usually like it when animal characters are played by humans and don't look anything like the animals. Only when I watched this film (12 years after it was made) did I realize that was actually the point.Terry Jones is a fantastic Toad. He's got his personality and attitude to a T. Ditto for Badger, Ratty and Mole. The film is rather a comical version of the book, and whilst it stays along the same lines, there are a lot of changes of the storyline. Bits are added, and bits are removed...but I can say i was never once bored while watching this! Go ahead and check it out - I'm glad I did!

The Monty Python team are the Pink Floyd of comedy; that is to say, they began brilliantly, shattering paradigms, but gradually subsided into lumbering, stodgy self-parody. (In the Floyd's case, compare and contrast the brilliantly fresh and visionary "See Emily Play" with the depressingly self-regarding millionaire's stadium plod-rock of "Comfortably Numb".)The trouble is, many people follow rock bands and comedy teams as blindly as they follow political parties, once their basic loyalties have been established. So it is with the Floyd and the Pythons. Two or three Pythons only have to show up in a film or TV show for unthinking accolades to be heaped on it, regardless of whether, viewed objectively, it is any good or not. The Floyd/Pythons continue to bathe in the referred glory of their earlier, genuine achievements. (In any case, Jones and Idle are the only strong Python presences in the film; Palin (the smuggest of superannuated satirists) must have sleep-walked through his exiguous, undemanding role as The Sun, while it must have taken about thirty seconds for Cleese to complete his economy-size cameo.)As an adaptation of the children's classic, Terry Jones's film is a travesty. Taken on its own terms, it is intermittently entertaining, although it loses focus and becomes excessively silly once Toad has escaped from gaol. I think the film must be viewed in the context of the time it was made. John Major's faltering Conservative regime still just about held sway in Britain in 1995-6 (the time of the film's production), and the Labour Party had been out of power since 1979. The grasping, treacherous, materialistic weasels - who resemble the Blue Meanies from "Yellow Submarine" - are clearly a satire on the greedy entrepreneurs who had taken centre-stage in British public life after the accession of Margaret Thatcher. (We were still naive enough then to hope that Tony Blair's New Labour would rescue us from the weasels, so to speak. But New Labour were just the same old weasels in disguise.)Steve Coogan and Nicol Williamson play their roles with more conviction than the film strictly deserves, while the Pythons simply trade on their fans' brand-loyalty. Pretty Julia Sawalha is fetching as the gaolkeeper's daughter

Terry Jones's adaptation of "Wind in the Willows" is wonderful!! I found it very interesting to watch, and it kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time! I'm not usually a fan of Disney movies, but I saw this and flipped! I loved it! I think people who don't like this movie really don't appreciate the wonderful Terry Jones. Yes, I understand some of the humor is a little "adult" for some of the younger viewers, but there is plenty for them as well (I mean, as a former python, how could Jones resist a few jokes here and there). The kids will laugh at Mr. Toad's zany exploits trying to get his motor car! Even funnier is Mole, Rat, and Badger trying to cure him! What else to say... I just thought this was a wonderful film, and a must see for (a)Disney Lovers (b) Python Lovers (c) and people who just want to see a different adaptation on a movie!!

I thought that this was the best live action Disney film. It was so cute. The casting was perfect. Steve Coogen, was a cute and wonderful mole, ERic Idle, was the perfect rat, and Terry Jones, was the best toad ever. The songs are wonderful too.