Jojo Rabbit (2019) -

I have got to stop listening to my Nephews film recommendations, because this was absolutely terrible. It was so surreal and far out that it came back around again and gave me whiplash.

The general concept of Adolf Hitler, here played by Taika Waititi, as an imaginary friend, could have been really funny and actually if it had been set in a more modern time frame and not during the actual war it might have been a lot funnier.

Adolf could have been telling Jojo to take over the school and to kill the friends and schoolmates who got in the way of their attempts to gain power, because the script and acting was too modern for the setting and it definitely all got confused. It was out of its time.

Or even if it had been a more serious effort like 'Pan's Labyrinth' (2006) perhaps. A film played straight, but with that one quirk of the imagination.

My Mother tuned out after about five minutes and I wish that I had turned it off then as well.

The only reason I didn't switch off was because Scarlett Johansson in the role of Jojo's Mum, Rosie, delivered a good performance.

The film continued to go from ridiculously silly to very dark and then quite serious with no apparent humour at all. If it had worked along the more serious vain all the way through it could have had some of the poignance of 'The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas' (2008) or even 'Schindler's List' (1993) especially if it had been produced better as well (Although 'Schindler's List' would always be superior).

It was nastily dark, not in a funny way, but in a very horrible way and even 80 years after the events of World War Two, it seemed thoughtless and disrespectful, without any tact and inappropriate. Just bad taste.

There were some really grim bits with a rabbit and later a gallows.

And I found it to be odd, because it was supposed to be ridiculing the Hitler Youth, but at the same time it seemed to be a bit too much as I believe them to have been.

And I wasn't sure why 'The Beatles' and 'David Bowie' were part of the soundtrack, it was set before their time. The whole soundtrack was wrong actually.

It was also a strange choice of cast and mostly not people I liked anyway. Funnily enough Sam Rockwell as Captain Klenzendorf, who I usually can't stand, gave one of his best performances. His suggestive relationship with Alfie Allen playing his aide, Finkel, was not lost on me and actually his characters general humanity was a redeeming feature compared to his usually vile egotists.

It really wasn't entertaining at all and missed a trick, wasting a potentially great idea.

339.37/1000.