Black Adder V - Back and Forth (1999)

The Blackadder cast returns after a 10 year absence for this special. The new 21st century Lord Blackadder and his scabby, but loyal, servant Baldrick wreak havoc as they tumble through the past in a time machine, with disastrous consequences.

Too bad it's the last

For fans of the series, Black Adder V will not let you down. Most of the characters from the original return in various forms and entertain as always. Will Black Adder continue to get the royal shaft, or will history at last lay some kindness in our intrepid "hero's" path? The only way to find out is to return once again to the hilarious world of the Black Adder. October 23, 2008

I couldn't even finish watching.

Having seen the entire TV series, I rented from netflicks out of curiousity. This was nothing more than a masturbatory reveling in BA, Atkinson and Co.'s past glories. The clever character sarcasm and artistic melding of slapstic and intelligent humour is simply absent here. I was disappointed with this, and glad that Laurie moved on to win Emmy's in Dr. House, and Atkinson went on to Bean and Johnny English (both were great). But this, this is just plain crud. Don't buy.

November 17, 2005

It couldn't be worse.

It couldn't be worse. I mean that literally. That's not to say there isn't humor to be found here. In fact, my point is that this is, in fact, an occasionally amusing title. With this cast (Atkinson, Richardson, Laurie, Fry, McInnerny & Robinson) it can't help but have SOME laughs. But it could have been so much more. It's obvious that by the time they came to slap together this little 'help save the Millenium Dome' project, writers Richard Curtis and Ben Elton had simply lost touch with the Blackadder of old. The characters don't quite ring true (even ones they had played before) and the situations seem very un-Blackadderish (to invent a word). We never have time to really get to know these incarnations of the Blackadder crew. If this were a stand alone film, I don't see how anyone could have found these jokes even remotely funny without a knowledge of Blackadder beforehand? One of the great things about the old Blackadders is that, even if you'd never seen one before, every episode was funny in its own right. You didn't need to know that Baldrick's pants were a constant source of humor to find the jokes amusing. But here everything is referring to running gags of the old shows, without a solid base to the jokes themselves. Nothing stands on its own. I don't think you could ring six good episodes out of these characters if you tried. There's nothing to them, they are just shadows of their predecessors. Just like this show. January 11, 2005

Cute, But Is It Worth the Price....?

Being a longtime fan of Rowan Atkinson's Blackadder, I snapped up this DVD as soon as it was released. Considering the vast amounts of extras most DVD's have, I generally avoid buying ones that aren't loaded with hours of viewing material. However, seeing that the box said the program was 55 minutes long, and knowing it would NEVER show up on TV, I figured what the hell.....

The actual content itself is about 31 minutes long, with an 18 minute long "Baldrick's Diary" (Which is really a making-of featurette), some witty "Who's who in Blackadder" Bios narrated by Actor Tony Robinson, and 5 minutes of Historical tidbits touching on spots visited by Blackadder & Baldrick during the "Film", also narrated by Robinson. There's also some trailers for other BBC DVD's.

The Film itself is more like an episode of the series writ somewhat larger; A modern-day Blackadder and his manservent Baldrick use a home-made time machine to visit various spots in history. The usual suspects return, including Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry, and Miranda Richardson. There were a few chuckles, but no real laughs until the end-credits song. Hardly worth the price, especially since the description on the box seems to imply that the actual movie is an hour long, not that EVERTHING on the disc equals an hour. Blackadder completists will certainly buy it, and enjoy it, but it should have had either more content or a lower price point.... April 19, 2003

Not the Place to Begin With Black Adder

While a total stranger to the Black Adder corpus can appreciate it, a lot of this lovely little poison valentine's fun comes from being familiar with the setup and the characters so that one can ALMOST predict the next line or situation... and then being delighted when the writers and cast give it some twist you hadn't predicted.

I must agree with another reviewer that the return to the court of Elizabeth I really doesn't work; it does indeed seem forced as if the actors no longer inhabit the characters, but rather are pretending to be their younger selves inhabiting the characters. (Does that make sense?)

On the other hand, one of the funniest sequences in the production is in the Elizabethean time frame but without any of the series regulars save Blackadder himself, meeting up with Shakespeare, getting his autograph and then... Well, it's Very Funny. Even funnier if you thought Branagh's uncut "Hamlet" was a touch long.

The Waterloo sequence is lovely, with a neat little "Wizard of Oz" reference.

And, of course, the ending(s) -- particularly the end ending,a it were -- an absolute delight for the Black Adder fan, with, of course, an appropriate version of the theme song vocal for the end credits.

The "extras" on the disc, though a bit sparse, are appreciated, including a short "making of" documentary piece, with the writer director and actors all expressing themselves with wonderful clarity, and also including a couple of bits that were (mostly for the better, i think, funny as they are) edited out of the episode.

ALso under the "Special Features" menu are cast biographies, recited, in character, by "Baldrick". Unfortunately (and i don't know if it's a defect in the disc, itself, or in my APEX DVD player with the hacked firmware, or a combination), after the first few bios have played, the last few syllables or words of each bio were cut off as it skipped to the next. October 26, 2002

More reviews at Amazon.com ...