RipDelight This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

amelieproductions As a huge fan of animated (especially 2D animated) films, it's safe to say that I've seen many, both aimed at children, and not so much. I have never seen a film quite like this one. Yeah, there is Grave Of The Fireflies, but... This movie is just... Different. It was heart breaking seeing this elderly couple, so innocent and optimistic having their everyday normal lives obliterated along with everything else a nuclear bomb is capable of destroying. People have commented on how stupid the elderly couple was portrayed in the film, but I felt that they were more depicted as being simply unaware of how big their situation really was, as well as slightly in denial and simply trying to keep calm, trying to go about their used-to-be normal lives to feel okay again. Of course they probably had never experienced anything like that, they didn't know what was coming. But it came alright. And when the bomb was dropped in that film, it was a huge, heart wrenching slap in the face that crap just got... Real.

the_wolf_imdb There is a ton of movies about nuclear war that are actually haunting. Barefoot Gen, for example. Some of these war movies are actually really frightening and I had nightmares from them. When it comes to British production, Threads comes to mind.This movie is very different and not in a good way. The elderly couple talks and talks and talks and the only horror I have experienced is the fright that they just won't ever stop. Really. Seriously. After one hour of uninterrupted chatter I just wished the movie would end already.The movie plays strongly at the 'good ol' England" instrument but it is downright silly. The nice elderly gentleman tries to comply with information from the government leaflets even though they are obviously stupid. The elderly woman just behaves as a housewife and cares not a bit about the world or about anyone else. Both of them pretend nothing serious at all is actually happening.First and foremost: As a generation that has experienced 1945 and bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki they should know better. There was never ending flow of civil defense trainings and information at that era. Everyone was informed way way better about what to do in the case of nuclear attack. The approach of the old folks to the situation is not just silly, it is simply retarded. Both of them should have been in the nursing home already.Second: There is not a sign of any emotional reaction from these silly folks. It might be because of some British sort of parody, but really: Everyone in such situation experiences horrible stress. Take a look at the "The Day After" - everyone is shaken into the core and on the brink of nervous breakup. For these retarded folks it is just some form of inconvenience. They are cleaning the house as if they just had experienced some sort of wild house party. Do they care about their folks in London? Do they care at all about their neighbors, about their friends? No, let's have a cup of tea, dear! Do you want some ketchup with your sausage, dear? They are not humans. They are some sort of constantly mumbling self centered and almost completely ignorant aliens. This movie should NOT be shown to the children as a warning from the horrors of the nuclear war. They would be bored into the death as after visit of a nursing home. Grandpa Simpson had a couple of both more thrilling and more horrible stories about the war! Watch the Barefoot Gen, watch the Threads, watch The Day After and then compare it with this movie. You may discover the high average evaluation of this movie is just as silly as the elderly couple.

tomgillespie2002 Once upon a time the United Kingdom had a television station that broadcast and produced some of the most intelligent, innovative, and interesting film and television - both fiction, and non-fiction. In 1981 Channel Four began broadcasting, and showed the best of world cinema, subversive documentaries and fictions, and even funded some of the most experimental animations of the time. Whilst this is hard to believe in this day and age, when this particular channel broadcasts some of the most bile-inducing, inane programming - essentially pumping sewage into Britain's homes (Big Brother, Supernanny, How Clean is Your House et al), - but it genuinely did (honestly!). I remember fondly their late night showcase for avant-garde world animation, Four-mation (where I was also first introduced to the subversive work of Jan Svankmajer), which also showed the best of new British animation.Channel Four's 1982 Christmas programming was delighted with an adaptation of Raymond Briggs's The Snowman, with its kid-friendly story of a snowman come-to-life. (Consequently, The Snowman has been shown every Christmas eve since 1982). Briggs was a well respected children's author, who had also written both 'Father Christmas' and the famous 'Fungus the Bogeyman'. In 1982 Briggs published something altogether different. 'When the Wind Blows' used the same graphic novel, illustrative technique to tell the story of a retired couple, Jim and Hilda Bloggs, living in isolation in rural England, dutifully following ludicrous government issue pamphlets, offering advice on how to "survive" a nuclear attack. When this attack becomes imminent, they construct a shelter out of their own doors, paint the windows white, and even climb into paper sacks. Laughably, the pamphlets used in the film were actual official guidelines sent out to British homes in the 1970's (the UK equivalent of "duck and cover").Whilst not a cheerful story, it was inevitable that this should get green-lit for film production, and director Jimmy T. Murakami (who had previously directed Battle Beyond the Stars (1980), and also the most interesting, and visually innovative section of 1981's Heavy Metal), came on board - with his Japanese roots, he was no doubt attracted to the film for it's anti-nuclear sentiments. The animation in the film has several innovative tricks - it mixes live action objects with the traditional cell animation - giving it a quite unique visual look. After the bomb is dropped we witness the deterioration of this lovable couple - who's naivety, and charming banter are a delight throughout. Veteran actors John Mills and Peggy Ashcroft provide the voices, and give the film real gravitas, and lends the characters their easy, ineffectual magnetism.The films conclusion should leave anyone in tears, and along with Roger Waters's haunting soundtrack, David Bowie also provides the theme song. This is essential, if somewhat alarming, and tragic film making, and one that will stay with you for a very long time. I first saw this when it was broadcast in 1986, and I have never forgotten its impact, and I still believe that this was one of the things that gave me my view of anti institution, and mistrust of any government authority. And whilst western governments and media outlets aren't reporting on nuclear threats the threat is still a very real one. However, after the fall of Soviet communism in the early 1990's meant that the authorities had to create a new dominant fear to control the masses (a necessary evil), and that of course became Middle-Eastern terrorism.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

GLEN LEWIS SPOILERS May be included in my review:It takes a truly gifted film and TV maker to mix humour and light hearted dialogue with utter heartbreak. These talented geniuses reel in their audience and lull them into a sense of light hearted expectation and then sucker punch a hole straight through their soul leaving them feeling like they've hit by an emotional freight train. Paul Whitehouse could do it the 'The Fast Show' (Rowley Birkin QC comes to mind) - as could Sir David Jason's character Derek Trotter in 'Only Fools and Horses' The finale of Ben Elton and Richard Curtis' 'Blackadder Goes Fourth' where they go over-the-top to be shot down instantly in the fabulous last scene ever to be shot in the Blackadder series. You know that you have been laughing real hard the whole way through the show and you know you absolutely should not be laughing now.As I say, a tough thing to do successfully. This animated masterpiece does the same. 'PinHead' from the movie Hellraiser claimed he was going to 'tear you soul apart' - well scriptwriter Raymond Briggs, director Jimmy Murakami, voice actors John Mills and Peggy Ashcroft, Soundtrack contributors Pink Floyd - David Bowie - Genesis - Paul Hardcastle - Squeeze and the hundreds and hundreds of animators do just that..... Who doesn't recognise their Aunts and Uncles, Mothers and Fathers, Grandmothers and Grandfathers in the two elderly main protagonists Jim and Hilda. With their British stiff upper lip, their almost romantic notion of war dating from their experiences in WWII - 'we'll teach the Hun like we did in 42' as an example of their utterly misguided hopes that it will all be OK. It's not OK. It's as far away from OK as it possibly could be. Jim and Hilda are expecting a few bombs and so hide under the makeshift shelter they have built. They built the shelter because the government told them to. The government knew it was pointless to do so but they lied about the survivability of the 300-400 megaton attack the United Kingdom would suffer and Jim and Hilda believed them. Touchingly, during the build up as the mood darkens slowly - relentlessly - Jim calls his son in London to make sure he is prepared for the attack and that his 'inner core or refuge' is built and they are ready to get into it, only to find his son on the end of the telephone in a state of utter mental overload/breakdown. Jim assumes his son is drunk and even though we only hear the conversation from Jim's side it is obvious to everyone *except* Jim that his son has simply lost his mind. Jim almost thinks it's funny, the viewer knows it is anything but.... As the pace quickens and we find our lovable (and we do love them) Jim and Hilda in their inner core or refuge, we witness an amazing animated piece depicting the end of the world as Jim and Hilda know it. The dust settles and the second act is an abject lesson in horrific despair, with an almost clinical breakdown describing and showing stages of the breakdown of the human body and the breakdown of Jim and Hilda's everything. A breakdown of the breakdown of everything ... 20 minutes ago the film was showing us a dear old couple arguing like only those who've been married for 50 years can argue. Good natured banter with Jim pointing out to Hilda that very large thermonuclear weapons are on their way and now is perhaps not the time to be bringing the clothes in off the washing line and finishing cleaning the pots and pans. 20 minutes ago Jim was reassuring Hilda that everything will be just fine once the bombs had gone off and that they can get the mess cleared up when the all clear signal is broadcast.20 minutes ago Hilda was not passing blood in the toilet. 25 minutes ago Jim wasn't vomiting blood. 30 minutes ago Jim and Hilda had a full head of hair instead of the clumps that are falling out now. 35 minutes ago Hilda wasn't breaking out in awful blistering and hemorrhaging from every orifice. At this point the viewers mind is utterly shattered with the complete hopelessness of their situation. As I watched them trying to survive the unsurvivable I found myself hoping against all hope that this lovely pair of old timers would live, somehow survive.....long enough to be killed by the leukaemia and bone cancers that are a near 100% guarantee after their level of exposure I guess... I didn't want them to die, nobody wants them to die, except maybe the crazy bastards with the launch codes tucked away under a mountain somewhere safe and air-conditioned. Hollywood tries to condition movie watchers to an often wishy-washy happy ending.... 'Oh no hold it there sir - there'll be none of that nonsense in this film .... for Christ's sake this is not Hollywood dear viewer, they've just been exposed to so many roentgens that their internal organs are turning into liquid sh|te'Talk about mixed emotions. Just f****** hardcore. Glen Lewis