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Best movie ever!

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

In the 1990s there were only three pieces of new Doctor Who, two of them were parodies.The Curse of Fatal Death written by (future show-runner) Steven Moffat is almost played straight but at that time Moffat was known more for his comedies and elements of comedy seep through.Rowan Atkinson plays the Ninth Doctor with Julia Sawalha playing Emma his companion and fiancée. Jonathan Pryce plays the Master with a side of ham and a piece of costume from his appearance in the Bond film, Tomorrow Never Dies.The Master plans to eliminate his own foe, the Doctor has news to tell the Master and asks to meet him at a castle on the flatulent planet Tersurus. Both time lords have used timey-wimey to set up traps for one or another.The Doctor plans to retire from a life of saving planets in order to marry Emma however he is injured by the Daleks and swiftly goes through his regenerations. He changes to Richard E Grant, Jim Broadbent, Hugh Grant and Joanna Lumley where the Master takes a shine to her.The production here presumably done on a low budget and shot quickly is actually very good. Sets reused, some early CGI and an early look of some Moffat sci-fi tropes. However we get a tribute to what is now regarded as classic Doctor Who with music used from past Doctor Who.Looking back at it, I can only admire the refreshing take by Russell T Davies in reinvigorating Doctor Who and allowing Moffat room to develop his own brand of storytelling.

Okay, I am not one of those people that can't take a joke when something I enjoy is parodied. No, what I don't like is when people do it wrong and while this does help a cause (which won't get in the way of my opinion of this despite me tipping my hat to them for doing that) the simple problem is this is not funny.Okay so The Master (Jonothan Pryce... who I'll be fair does a decent job) is hunting down the Doctor (Rowan Atkinson) and the TARDIS's go onto a planet where the species communicates by flatulence... If you can get past that they have the Time Travel banter taken directly from Bill & Ted of "I went back and did this" "I also did this which is why what you're doing doesn't work" and The Master gets trapped in a Sewer for 600 years. Then The Daleks are on this planet and The Master is revived back to his younger self thanks to The Daleks making him tits (no, that's literally the explanation) but we learn that for The Master, it's a trap so The Doctor communicates to him by the alien's farting language. Then The Daleks say they want to leave the planet and The Doctor agrees... for some reason and while this is going on he proposes to his companion. But don't worry, now they'll attack the regenerations. After the first regeneration The Doctor becomes someone the companion fancies even more, then he regenerates into Jim Broadbent playing The Doctor that's "scared of girls", then Hugh Grant, then Joanna Lumley, the marriage is called off and The Master and The Doctor now have a crush on one another, the end.This has to be one of the laziest written parodies I have ever seen. I mean a Doctor Who parody could have worked. Maybe have The Doctor's strange wardrobe choices be laugh out loud hilarious or if they use the common trope of getting an overacting bad guy then how about they go so over-the-top you can't help but laugh. It's better then giving the Master tits (which I think the writer has a fascination with being as that he's done this twice!) but even if you take away the bad writing you would think that I might have gotten some kind of laugh with it but there was nothing, but parody - so I thought, was using elements of the show and turning it into a joke, enough so that people would have a laugh with it, whether they've seen the show or not. Well I've seen both shows and this parody failed to even get one laugh with me.

This is something of a two-joke production. Nobody on Doctor Who had sex or went to the bathroom, so there's lots of sex and bathroom jokes. That's certainly one way to spoof the show, but I would've preferred something more accurate.Okay, so the sets look about right. And the Master really is that hammy. But, like "Spaceballs," this misses the mark somehow. The techno-babble jokes don't work (the original show really didn't have much of that), and the Daleks are under-used. In the end, I think this spoof is based too much on what the public perceives Doctor Who to have been like, instead of what it was actually like. To me, this is more interesting as an audition piece for future Doctors than as a stand-alone comedy. Isn't Lumley awesome? Isn't it strange watching Atkinson play it pretty straight? And isn't Richard E. Grant obviously all wrong? With Who's return imminent, it's fun to speculate uselessly about such things.

Although not to be taken seriously, "Curse of the Fatal Death" is a labor of love. The script features a lot of fan-pleasing moments and references. Rowan Atkinson proves how good a Doctor he could've been by playing the character straight, and not primarily for laughs. On the opposite end of the spectrum is Jonathan Pryce, who is just as excellent as the Master, going waaaaaaaaay over the top. The best part of the sketch is the quick-change regenerations near the end where Richard E. Grant, Jim Broadbent, Hugh Grant, and Joanna Lumley all play the Doctor in less than five minutes. Richard Grant is hilarious as the sex-fiend Doctor who has a good laugh over the Master's Dalek "bumps". Hugh Grant surprised me with his portrayal. The video release also contains a "Making Of" special which may even be more funny than the sketch itself. Jonathan Pryce is the highlight of this section, proving how completely bonkers he really is. His interpretations of the Master's various laughs are hilarious.