Cruise Of The Gods (DVD)

I only came across “Cruise of the Gods” when I became addicted to Little Britain (as a lot of us did, during the far superior first series), I just started searching for other comedies featuring David Walliams and Matt Lucas. This was one of the few DVD’s that I found, and it especially drew my attention because Rob Brydon co-starred (who I had been watching on the fantastic “The Keith Barret Show”). I had missed it when it had aired in 2002, so ...
...in buying the DVD, with this in mind it took me a couple of years to eventually buy it.

I decided to pluck up the courage to buy it when I got into Steve Coogan’s comedy, so I went on a hunt for the DVD. I say hunt because it was very hard to obtain, I regretted waiting so long to buy it. I eventually found a copy in HMV, it was the last in the shop and quite expensive, but I was so delighted I had found it, I bought it anyway.
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I only came across “Cruise of the Gods” when I became addicted to Little Britain (as a lot of us did, during the far superior first series), I just started searching for other comedies featuring David Walliams and Matt Lucas. This was one of the few DVD’s that I found, and it especially drew my attention because Rob Brydon co-starred (who I had been watching on the fantastic “The Keith Barret Show”). I had missed it when it had aired in 2002, so I was going to take a bit of a risk in buying the DVD, with this in mind it took me a couple of years to eventually buy it.

I decided to pluck up the courage to buy it when I got into Steve Coogan’s comedy, so I went on a hunt for the DVD. I say hunt because it was very hard to obtain, I regretted waiting so long to buy it. I eventually found a copy in HMV, it was the last in the shop and quite expensive, but I was so delighted I had found it, I bought it anyway.

I watched it that day and enjoyed it a lot; the story is about an ex-actor, Andy Van Allen (Brydon), who starred in a popular 80’s science fiction show, “The Children of Caster”. Twenty years later, his life hadn’t gone as well as he had planned, he now works in a hotel, whilst his co-star Nick Lee (Coogan) is a huge star, thanks to his very successful show “Sherlock Holmes in Miami”. He ends up reluctantly going on a fan cruise, organised by Jeff Monks (Walliams).

Although Brydon’s character is the central character of the story, he isn’t very likeable, which isn’t a bad thing, just unexpected. Steve Coogan’s character also surprised me; I thought he would be impolite and arrogant partly based on the fact that Coogan plays a quite a lot of characters like that, and the fact that his character is now very famous (famous characters are often shown as being quite horrible.), but instead he got involved with the fans and helped out Brydon’s character, to get some work. I’m glad my assumptions were wrong as it made the whole thing more refreshing and enjoyable.

Walliams is absolutely hilarious in this; every scene with him is pure joy, mainly because he plays a manic fan, shockingly well. Though for me this is where the problem of this show comes from, most scenes without Walliam’s didn’t make me laugh as much, and a lot of the time it is more of a drama than a comedy, which I didn’t expect considering the cast. I couldn’t help but feel it could have been cut down more, but it is still a enjoyable 88 minutes.

The extras are quite good, there are the usual deleted scenes, out-takes (which I had higher hopes for), and a commentary, which are mildly funny to watch. The “Coogan’s Runner” documentary is enjoyable, and a great insight into how a show like this is made, also the alternative ending was interesting, but I was glad that it wasn’t the real ending!

Overall, it is worth watching, I wasn’t disappointed and I especially loved all the plot twists, they surprised me each time (but I guess that’s the point…). However, I definitely recommend this to fans of cult TV shows that go on fan cruises and conventions, you’ll enjoy how accurate it is at times, look out for Russell Brand’s cameo as a fan, it’s very funny. 

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