windanafive

If you're a fan of the original series and not interested in seeing it parodied, I suggest giving this movie a miss.

There are various "golden oldie" songs throughout the movie which were enjoyable to listen to and sing along to but some of the footage that accompanied these songs seemed overtly and unnecessarily sexual.

The characters of Starsky and Hitch seemed considerably less concerned with fair play and honesty than the TV series' counterparts.

The highlight of the movie was probably the cameos of David Soul and Paul Michael Glaser in the last few minutes of the movie. Amusingly, Soul's character was dressed identically to Wilson's character, as were Stiller and Glaser's characters, Glaser and Stiller in Starsky's leather jacket and Soul and Wilson in Hutch's standard style of outfit.

There were a few clever gags (literally a few, three, I think) but some of it was rather obnoxious and parents should be warned, like many remakes of old/older stories/series, a lot of this is NOT suitable for children or young teens. The TV series is suitable for a fairly young audience but I'd probably prefer not to show the movie to under 15s.

Starsky's character changed throughout the movie with no really clear reason why. I found this bizarre.

I've been there, watched it, and am unlikely to ever bother with it again.

I have to give it only 8 out of 10 because it looks like we're going to be left hanging. If it weren't for that, I'd probably give it a 9 or even 10.

One thing Herriot himself did occasionally in his books was to include events of the time and people's attitudes and how they affected his life and others. Particularly reflective of this is his book that covered the time period when he was called up and his first child was born. Although frequently the events in that book were used as a springboard to another anecdote in his life as a vet, not all of them were, such as the time he sneaked off to Darrowby without permission. Another situation that springs to mind is the gloomy attitude of one farmer towards James' health and how after each visit that farm, James would examine himself in a mirror, muttering to himself that he felt fine.

In this series, events and attitudes of various people in his life are included and how those events and people influence and shape him, not just as a vet but also as a person.

It would be very interesting to know just how close the portrayals of the characters were to each real person. I can easily see they could be quite close or a blend of a few characters (to limit the number of characters and avoid making it confusing) and it's interesting to consider those characters. I would have to disagree with any view that the characters were fairly two-dimensional. My first reaction to one character was to dislike him and consider him a shallow, fairly selfish person but as the series progressed, he did unexpected things on behalf of others, showing him to be a more complex character than he initially appeared.

Let's hope they do eventually give us more of the story.