Seize Them!

Seize Them! seeks a quest for comedy with its cast of Aimee Lou Wood and Nicola Coughlan, but no jester would keep their head after pedalling this amount of detritus for an hour and a half.

Seize Them!, directed by Curtis Vowell, was screened early as part of a new national initiative funded by the British Film Institute (BFI) and National Lottery to celebrate British films in independent cinemas. The initiative, Escapes, offers a free cinema ticket once a month to see an upcoming release in a local cinema across the UK, primarily celebrating cinema and discovering independent venues. 

There’s a lot in Seize Them! to appeal to audiences: Aimee Lou Wood and Nicola Coughlan both boast strong performances alongside its ensemble of the Best of British talent, such as Nick Frost, Jessica Hynes, James Acaster and Lolly Adefope; however, the quality of the script is unforgivable and should have been taken and locked in the dungeon. 

It establishes instantly that Humble Joan (Coughlan), a peasant, has led a revolution against Queen Dagan (Wood), who flees to hide amongst her kingdom in fear of execution. But when Dagan hears rumours of a way to turn the tide against the gunpowder-using Joan, she becomes fixated on retaking the throne.

Seize Them! attempts to teeter a tightrope of its audience and tone, yet its unbalancing performance demonstrates an apparent inability to understand either. No more evident is this than in its opening sequence, which is likely to remind audiences strongly of Horrible Histories: Rotten Romans (2019).

In Horrible Histories, Emperor Nero speaks begrudgingly to his subordinate and moves the pieces on a battle map like a child. Comparatively, Dagan ignorantly dictates orders with the battle pieces, whilst her advisor, Leofwine (Hynes), warns of ill-advised decisions. In an identical delivery, Seize Them! knowingly nods to Horrible Histories as if to say it’ll take the baton and carry it forward. Except, in this race, it falls over, shoelaces tied together, landing face first into a cow pat. Worse still, it expects you to find it funny.

Thankfully, the film heavily relies on its talented ensemble to soften the blow with its dire delivery. One of them, James Acaster, may be doing more heavy lifting for the film’s success than he may initially have considered. The prominent comedian broke into Hollywood a few years prior with Cinderella (2021) alongside Camilla Cabello and James Corden, whilst another film, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024), entered cinemas before Seize Them! and will likely outlive it. The success of Acaster’s national prominence and international appeal may be a pull for many to seek out Seize Them!, even if his scene is fleeting. Thankfully, his delivery is perfectly on-brand and reminds you of his comic talent enough that you can mentally recall his stand-up in the film’s lulls.

Similarly, Nicola Coughlan will be reprising her role in Bridgerton later this year, and a week before Seize Them!’s release, launched a new TV show, Big Mood (2024), alongside Lydia West under Camilla Whitehill’s incredible penmanship, tackling the millennial’s experience with mental health. Equally, with a guest-star slot for the Doctor Who 2024 Christmas special, casting directors Jessica Mescall and Kelly Valentine Henry clearly understand the film’s demographic.

To garner interest in the film and its subsequent financial success, there’s evidence from the casting team that the film’s talent needed to have an immediacy to them. Today, they star in Seize Them!; tomorrow, their names are commonplace in households across Britain.

To highlight so much of the strength of the cast may feel a disservice to the film’s story, its comedy, or its celebration of British independent filmmaking. But when each sequence feels more like a series of sketches weaved together rather than a culmination of scenes amounting to a complete story, the sequences that stick to mind are the ones which astound, leaving me speechless. It is not for their quality but rather their lack thereof.

Nick Frost, as comedy sidekick Bobik, spends one of its sketch moments listing all the ways a person can defecate, albeit with added profanity, as his job in the kingdom is to shovel all the faeces in the land. This is the highest brow of comedy the film offers, with the character’s development centred around his life’s mission to shovel waste. In case the joke doesn’t land the first time, fear not; it repeats with Queen Dagan later muddling her way through turds.

One chuckle was earned from Frost when speaking to Acaster’s character, Felix the pot merchant, where, unable to lie, Bobik struggles to converse, fearing Felix may be aligned with the new ruler, Joan. Channeling Robert Llewellyn’s Kryten, the conversational pitfalls Bobik falls into were enjoyable but could have been pushed further, developing the one-beat joke into something with as much quotability as Red Dwarf’s smeghead. Though given the rarity of this singular spark of joy in a supposed comedy, the small wins are worth celebrating.

Perhaps a reason to explain why the comedy continuously failed to land was due to the muddling of the audience demographic within its script. As mentioned, the film has been labelled by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) as a 15, with strong language and injury detail being the two significant signifiers for its rating.

Yet, suppose you dial back the vulgarity in its language and tweak a sequence in its final act. In that case, there may have been scope for the film to receive a lower rating and, in my opinion, be better positioned for the audience it tries to attract. Instead, by diluting the audience to those 15 and above, anyone in that bracket will feel intellectually insulted and understimulated by the dumb-downed comedy and constant toilet humour.

Seize Them! ultimately needed a rework in the pre-production stage. Whilst it has an evident enjoyment from its cast, notably Woods and Adefope, and is also a worthy celebration of independent British filmmaking; to confuse audiences in wondering if the film is meant for them indicates that it needed less shit and more wit from its team before the script ever went to the screen.

Seize Them! is in UK cinemas from 5 April.