Despite being seen as a capital of the world, London has always had an odd relationship with cinema. The city hardly ever seems to get the true-to-life grittiness that New York gets, but is rather depicted as some sort of Dickensian playground for super villains and fops.
It’s kind of laughable, and, actually, kind of lovable. Here are a few movie Londons that make us chuckle.
Total Recall (2012 remake)
The original 1990 film Total Recall is possibly the greatest science-fiction film about schizophrenia set on Mars ever (a very competitive film genre, we’re sure you’ll agree). Therefore, from the outset, the 2012 remake was a silly idea. The film-makers must have realised this and upped the ante by setting most of the new version in a future version of London.
The creative answer to all the people moving to London over the years has meant Boris Johnson and his successors decided to split the city into a multi-layered maze, with famous landmarks torn from their foundations and now hovering miles above the actual roads. This is plainly laughable as the London Underground would have even more delays with all these new destinations, so obviously it would never get planning permission.
See the United Federation of Britain from 0:56 onwards
National Lampoon’s European Vacation (1985)
Sure, the Griswolds’ adventures are purposefully comedies, but they do highlight the strange obsessions Americans have with the British. The oddest is the humble roundabout. As anybody encountering one can attest, it’s a fairly mundane experience, but it’s portrayed as some sort of impossible labyrinth. The joke was even copied by The Simpsons when Homer and co travelled to London.
The Griswolds enjoying the Lambeth Bridge eastern roundabout:
Mary Poppins (1964)
Forgetting the toys that put themselves away, the chalk drawings that you can jump into and the medicine that changes flavours, the main absurdity in Mary Poppins is its depiction that London’s upper and working classes mix happily and sing songs together. As Downton Abbey has shown us with startling accuracy, this is just unthinkable.
Dick Van Dyke’s attempt at a London accent is also infamously baffling. Nobody really understands what he’s saying at all, they just laugh politely because they’re so English, as demonstrated in this scene:
Bedknobs & Broomsticks (1971)
After the shameless surrealism of Mary Poppins a few years earlier, Disney wanted to continue their campaign to make David Tomlinson the face of London. In Bedknobs and Broomsticks, they yet again pretended that people like to laugh and sing on London’s streets, this time trying to convince the world that Portobello Road is a place where people dance. Admittedly, people in Portobello Road can be a friendly bunch, but they don’t start huge choreographed dance numbers (the flashmob fad from a few years back not withstanding).
Have a butcher’s at the Portobello Road scene from Disney’s Bedknobs and Broomsticks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TOYaEcgQS4
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) / Snatch (2000)
Although both of Guy Ritchie’s gangster films are set in modern London, neither really seem to actually register on any scale of realism. Everything seems to look like a tiny section of Southwark for a start. As much as we’d all like to think London is nothing but miles of Borough Market and wheeler dealers, there’s also the congestion charge and people from Willesden.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSodvRnD3Qc
Notting Hill (1999)
To most Londoners, Notting Hill tends to be associated with the Notting Hill Carnival at the end of every August. Richard Curtis’ film version of the place makes you wonder if there is any hope for the world, let alone street parties.
Also, everybody knows that if you want to bump into rich Americans, you should actually stroll around St John’s Wood. Notting Hill is mainly for bumping into tourists who have watched Notting Hill.
Luckily, Notting Hill has one of those trailers that idiotically gives away every single plot detail. If you haven’t seen it, you can pretty much get the whole movie out the way in two minutes and continue on with your life.
The Man Who Knew Too Little (1997)
Although it’s another vision of London through the distant blurred telescope of Hollywood, at least The Man Who Knew Too Little features travel guru Bill Murray. In his typical relaxed fashion, Mr Murray saves what would otherwise be yet another eye-rolling depiction of London featuring Mini Coopers and stiff upper lips.
Bill talks to London’s oh-so-unintimidating police:
Sweeney Todd (2007)
Tim Burton’s disease-infested, cobble-stoned, eternally-nocturnal and violent vision of London would be almost completely accurate if it wasn’t for all the singing.
Sherlock Holmes (2009)
Guy Ritchie’s update of Sherlock Holmes is much like his take on East-End gangster life – a bit silly. His version of Victorian London is awash with steam-punk sensibility, which most historians agree is not factually accurate as much as we might like it to be. Robert Downey Jr’s diabolical London accent is another matter altogether.
If you can get past his voice, this scene is actually fun to watch when you remember that nowadays the upper sections of Tower Bridge tend to be used for corporate networking events for accountants.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi7ZOWoY9ac
28 Days Later (2002)
Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later falls apart in the first few minutes – even in the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse, you will never see Westminster Bridge without tired-looking business people jostling briefcases and coffee cups past groups of gawping tourists. That being said, the film’s depiction of London’s population as riddled with furious primitive anger seems pretty much spot on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02qibJJ0OvE
Wimbledon (2004)
The overused formula in the early 2000s of a posh British man hooking up with an American woman seemed to reach its nadir with the 2004 film Wimbledon. As the title warns, it depicts London’s population as consisting mainly of people who play competitive tennis. In reality, London is actually made up of people who excitedly watch the sport for two weeks a year and then forget it exists again.
London is mostly pristinely-kept lawns, honestly:
Love Actually (2003)
Richard Curtis’ Love Actually seems to be much loved, but certainly not for any sense of realism. The mob of awkward and incompatible relationships that blossom with London as a backdrop truly stretch the limits of plausibility, but the most ludicrous part is when the film shows the UK’s Prime Minister dancing around at 10 Downing Street to the Pointer Sisters. It’s well documented that the current PM David Cameron is into Nordic black metal and his only dance moves are head banging and blood-curling screams.
This has never happened at Downing Street:
Friends (1998)
Okay, so Friends was a TV show, but its version of London was so simplistic that we just had to include it on this list. Of course, this came as no surprise to anybody – over its ten-year history, the show’s depiction of New York never had any semblance of reality either.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-ma0ZDQ6Ig
Sliding Doors (1998)
The most absurd thing about Sliding Doors is not Gwyneth Paltrow’s accent but the film’s insistence that magic can happen on the London Underground. As any typical London commuter will tell you, there is no magic there, only hardship and e-book readers. The parts of the movie where she’s miserable in the rain are acceptable though.
If the film was just the part where she misses the tube and it screws up her life, then we’d be saying it was totally accurate.
Fast & Furious 6 (2013)
Watch from 1:00 onwards – where are the traffic jams?!?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8Y834H3VnQ
Certainly the award for most inaccurate version of London has to go to The Fast and the Furious franchise. The multi-levelled London in the Total Recall remake does a better job of representing the city’s traffic, at the very least. But this film, which is supposed to be about cars, can’t be bothered with all that.
In Fast & Furious 6, London has been haphazardly replaced with the contents of some sort of lad’s magazine. The whole city is just sports cars and half-naked models.
Just look at this clip below:
Who let all these DJs play in The Mall? It’s a stone’s throw from Buckingham Palace – does the Queen know about this? And why aren’t all the girls in bikinis carrying umbrellas? Most importantly, where are all the overworked Londoners miserably staring at their phones?
Yes, congratulations must go to Fast & Furious 6. It truly is the most ludicrous depiction of London ever committed to celluloid. A most impressive achievement.
(Featured image: Elliott Brown)
