Hunt for the Wilderpeople

[Sam]

Very funny, very charming, very good.

Near the beginning of the film there was a moment where I cried and then laughed out loud within literally seconds of each other and for that alone it's a damn good film.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I adored this. It's such a lovely, gentle film, but with a quirky sense of humour and as you say, a huge amount of charm. Both the kid and Sam Neill are fucking superb in it, and bar the odd bout of tears it had me grinning throughout.

Edit: It's only been out at the cinema for a short while, but is also available for download btw.

[Old Nehamkin]

I liked it a lot. The kid is really funny, Sam Neill is great and it manages to be heart-warming and offbeat without giving way to twee cutesiness as it might have done in the hands of a worse director. I know this is a bit of a lazy way of describing films, but it felt like a mix of Moonrise Kingdom, Goodnight Mr. Tom and Up, except funnier than any of those.

[The Roofdog]

A couple of characters pushed too far into outright silliness for my liking, especially

Spoiler alert

the Child Welfare Officer

[close]

who has a few great lines in the opening scene but steadily gets more and more batshit until

Spoiler alert

she turns up driving a tank

[close]

. But the central pairing of Ricky & Uncle Hec is great enough to overcome it.

[holyzombiejesus]

A couple of characters pushed too far into outright silliness for my liking, especially

Spoiler alert

the Child Welfare Officer

[close]

who has a few great lines in the opening scene but steadily gets more and more batshit until

Spoiler alert

she turns up driving a tank

[close]

. But the central pairing of Ricky & Uncle Hec is great enough to overcome it.

Totally agree with the first part of that, to the point that I disagree (to a point) with your final sentence. I felt that maybe when Ricky met the girl on the horse, certainly when they met the hermit, the film just became quite stupid from then on. My wife asked me if it was a childrens film and it definitely felt like something aimed at 10 year olds for the final third. It had lots of good things, and at least it didn't finish with a haiku, but it seemed to want to straddle two camps and I think it failed.

[clingfilm portent]

Seemed promising at the very beginning until he spoke. This kid couldn't act for toffee and then that contrived, whimsical birthday song sung by the aunt was so cringeworthy I just said "Nah, shite" and offed it.

Even holyzombiejesus wasn't overly impressed, and he's a Robbie Williams apologist.

[QDRPHNC]

Sorry for bumping this, but just watched this last night on the heels of loving What We Do in the Shadows.

Well, I say watched it, I turned it off half and hour in because it wasn't funny, and I had the feeling that huge chunks of character development were missing.