This was a lot better than I was expecting it to be.
It has had a pasting from the broadsheet critics, but what do you expect? You send someone who wants every film to be 'Citizen Kane' or 'The Seventh Seal' to a funny, picaresque, family comedy adventure, and they just don't know what to make of it.
We laughed all the way through. DD and DS absolutely loved it - laughed themselves stupid. Lots of blink-and-miss-them visual jokes and funny dialogue.
Mr Tennant makes an excellent villain. He is obviously enjoying himself - so much that you feel like passing him a large pot of Old English Mustard and two slices of bread. His scenes with Rupert Everett are great, and I loved his one small moment of interplay with the luscious Harding. She's required to do little apart from smoulder, pout and offer barbed comments, which she does brilliantly. Loved her "Wall of Sound" moment too. I'm sorry but she looks so fucking COOL with a guitar.
Some bits of innuendo for the adults which will go straight over the kids' heads. A few bits of swearing, so you may want to think twice before taking very young children. They even sneak a "frigging" in at the end, unless I was mistaken!!
Oh, and there's a scene which reminded me of a similar one in the Doctor Who episode "The Family of Blood"... I'll be interested to know if anyone else thought the same.
One awful error - "Janice" Joplin on a name in the secret society's basement. Oops!