British Comedy Films 2012: The Highs and Lows

This year's cinema listings have included a selection of British comedy film releases, some of which hit the mark and others which missed... significantly. Here's a round-up of the best and worst, in one contributor's opinion, that the British film industry has offered us so far in 2012 in regards to comedy.

The Best Four

At the top of the list must be The Pirates! In an Adventure With Scientists (pictured). The latest offering from the Aardman Productions team, who brought us Chicken Run and Wallace & Gromit previous to this, received lots of rave reviews.

The plot is about a ship of pirates who want to win the 'Pirate of the Year' competition. It's a story full of misfits including a hapless Pirate Captain who's no good at plundering, an evil Queen Victoria who hates pirates and a parrot that is actually a dodo. The plot is silly and irreverent and there are high jinks all the way. Voices behind this adventure on the high seas include Hugh Grant, David Tennant, Lenny Henry, Imelda Staunton and Martin Freeman.

Hysteria is a film set in Victorian England with the plot focused on the invention of the first electric vibrator. Dr Mortimer Granville (Hugh Dancy) has new-fangled thinking that the medical establishment disagrees with, but manages to land a job at a highly popular private practice that specialises in the treatment of women suffering from 'hysteria'. His boss has two daughters, one of them being the strong-headed Charlotte (Maggie Gyllenhaal), and a love story ensues.

Simon Pegg stars in A Fantastic Fear Of Everything (pictured) - a film about a crime writer who has been turned into a fearful recluse because of all the research he's done over the years. It's directed by Crispian Mills, son of Hayley, and former lead singer of Kula Shaker.

The plot's pretty flimsy, with Jack the crime writer having to get over his fear of a launderette in order to meet a big Hollywood producer. But there's a love story mixed in, along with a serial killer on the run, and Pegg carries the film all the way through.

When you look at the cast and the plot of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, you'd think it was a remake of A Room with a View set in India: a group of British retirees head off to India to live in what they think is a newly restored hotel. On arriving they find it's not exactly as luxurious as they had imagined, but the Marigold hotel charms them nonetheless.

The cast includes Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire),Judi Dench, Bill Nighy and Tom Wilkinson (The Full Monty) and two former Calendar Girls, Penelope Wilton and Celia Imrie.

And The Three Worst

Every year, at least a few new movies feature a plot centred around a wedding, and ever since the success of Four Weddings And A Funeral, British film-makers have been trying to reach the same giddy heights. The latest offering - The Knot (pictured) - doesn't get there though.

Instead, it's a mix of all the worst wedding jokes you can think of, hooked around the wedding between a working-class Spanish beauty - Mena Suvari - and the son of a middle class British family. The jokes, though, are just too crude and predictable - including the ring being lost down a blocked loo, the head bridesmaid going off with the male stripper at the end of the hen night, and an old aunt with no knickers falling over while jumping for the wedding bouquet. Sadly, instead of sides aching with laughter, you come away feeling you've seen it all before.

All In Good Time was another film that doesn't quite do what it's supposed to. Newly married Vina (Amara Karan) and Atul (Reece Ritchie) are a British Asian couple who are faced with all kinds of hurdles and obstacles from their family and neighbours at the beginning of their marriage. Their honeymoon gets cancelled, they don't have a place of their own and they have to start married life in the spare room at the parents' place. The young couple can't seem to get a moment to consummate their marriage - which provides the central theme of the plot. All In Good Time had a few funny jokes but mostly it was predictable humour, even with good actors like Meera Syal (Goodness Gracious Me, The Kumars At No. 42) and Harish Patel (Run Fatboy Run) in supporting roles.

And finally Keith Lemon: The Film (pictured) is a rags to riches tale about the fictional character Keith Lemon, who was created by Leigh Francis for his Bo' Selecta! series back in 2002. The film plot follows Keith Lemon's rise to fame - achieved by marketing a mobile phone with a lemon-flavoured sweet stuck on the back - and his subsequent fall from grace when the phone starts giving people speech impediments.

Leigh Francis co-stars with Kevin Bishop, who plays his best friend Dougie, and Verne Troyer as his guardian angel, Archimedes. There's also a host of celebrity cameos, including David Hasselhoff, Fearne Cotton, Gary Barlow and Ronan Keating - not forgetting Kelly Brook.

If you loved the character, then you'd probably love the film, but it's not something that worked for a mainstream cinema audience. This is one comedy character that might have been better left in his original TV environment rather than making it to the big screen.

But 2012 isn't over yet, and there are a couple more British comedy movies on the way. On those, the jury is of course still out...