POSTMAN PAT. Directed by Mike Disa, with the voices of Stephen Mangan, Jim Broadbent, Rupert Grint and David Tennant.
REVIEW: Frank Scheck
A BELOVED children’s television character gets a perfunctory big-screen treatment in director Mike Disa’s feature film adaptation of the series that has been running on-and-off in England since 1981.
Despite its voice cast comprised of a gallery of notable British performers including Stephen Mangan, Jim Broadbent, Rupert Grint and David Tennant, it’s a mostly charmless affair.
Mangan nicely voices the title character, the ever-reliable mail carrier of the small village of Greendale. The overly convoluted plot is set in motion when Pat, eager to take his wife on a trip to Italy, is denied his bonus by a ruthless efficiency expert at the Special Delivery Service. The plan is to replace Pat with a robot, who sorely lacks the personal touch.
Pat’s only hope is to participate in a singing competition , the top prize for which is an all-expenses-paid Italian holiday. Displaying a heretofore unrevealed singing talent, Pat (his singing voice provided by Ronan Keating) proves a sensation.
Younger tykes are bound to be baffled by the satirical content and the story’s increasingly dark tone, with the robot versions of Pat and his cat proving far more scary than comical. – Reuters/ Hollywood Reporter