The Famous Five

The Famous Five is a fun adventure series the entire family can watch, with just enough modern touches to keep the younger viewers engaged and enough dangerous situations to keep the older viewers interested in what will happen next.

The new film looks gorgeous – the production values are incredible, and it is tremendous fun. The level of jeopardy and adventure is startling, and outdoes the original book.

The drama here is played straight, which makes it, paradoxically, even sillier.

What followed was a mostly traditional and really quite boring 90 minutes, and the only trace of Refn was the 1980s synth-pop score jarringly laid over almost every scene. The grand cinematic gesture is that Timmy the dog gets an origin story.

An unfaithful recreation that priorities a diverse cast over good storytelling and mediocre line delivery.