United Kingdom: The Movie (Reception Wiki-style)

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This piece of media is rated MG-Teen: Not recommended for audiences under 12 or 13. May contain slightly more mature themes, but still relatively mild in terms of violence and language. Genuinely rated by YARS.

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“This movie is just a massive insult to my childhood! You take all of these classic icons, which we've all known for a long time, and you make them a massive laughing stock in this massive dumpster pile of a movie. If you are going to make these "ambitious crossover" type movies, at least focus on the story instead of focusing on the number of fucking characters you add to it! You are better off just watching The Emoji Movie instead, at least that felt like a proper movie compared to this!”

— James A. Williams

“I wanted this movie to be good, I really did. It's so unfortunate how me and the rest of the people who worked on this movie all had their talents completely wasted, all of those hours put into producing this film turned out to be worth absolutely nothing in the end because we actually got a movie that doesn't even serve its purpose right of paying tribute to the UK, and instead feels like an insult to people who actually love the country. And what they did to Dizzy, I'll never forget. The original Dizzy has always had a special place in my heart, but this one? That's not my Dizzy and will never be my Dizzy.”

— Kate Harbour

“My personal thoughts on United Kingdom: The Movie? I don't like it. I know a lot of you are going to assume that I like it because of my little cameo, but I didn't. I thought it was boring, confusing, and painful to watch. I did like a few elements that were in there, but overall, it wasn't a good experience at all!”

— DanTDM

“I honestly cannot decide whether to despise or adore this movie. It's undoubtedly a horrible mess of a movie with too story problems, blatant product placements, and horrible flanderizations, but at the same time, I couldn't help be admired by how much of a mess this movie turned out to be, there were so many cringe-worthy and unfunny moments, but they made me laugh because of how awful they were, I'd even go as far as to call this the Fred: The Movie of crossovers.”

— JigglypuffGuy04

“United Kingdom: The Movie would have been so much better if me and the rest of the EBoys were accepted to be a part of the movie because I guarantee that we would make this piece of shit movie much better every time we appeared. This movie was such a pain to go through, and I can't believe I actually made the decision to watch it in its entirety. There were so many things to tear apart when watching this movie. It might have had some good concepts here and there, but it was ultimately wasted due to all of the confusing crap that happened in it. Terrible movie, just terrible! I think I would rather watch the entire Alvin and the Chipmunks tetralogy and the Fred trilogy in one sitting than ever watch this movie again, it's THAT bad!”

— Memeulous

“This movie is a BIG pile of shit! They just pick the characters made in the UK, hire an fake Reverend W. Awdry pick Shigeru Ohmori, and then make a lot of mess that even i can't explain! Reverend W. Awdry should be resting in peace instead of writing this junk! And also, who asked for the characters (especially Dizzy in my opinion) to be so unlikable? Now this movie should go to hell! That makes me hate to fart! (what a terrible joke, eh?).”

— - Yoshi50Windows

United Kingdom: The Movie is a British comedy-action-drama live-action/animation hybrid film based on various pieces of media that were created or based in the UK, it was distributed by BBC Films in the UK, Sony Pictures Animation in the US and Toho in Japan with various licenses.

The film premiered in an abandoned spot of Big Ben on July 14th, 2023. It is dedicated to Queen Elizabeth II, who passed away a year before release.

Plot

A bunch of UK or UK-based characters enjoy their lives until a mysterious evil force tries to take over the world, so the characters, led by Thomas the Tank Engine and his new best friend Allister from Pokémon, must unite forces and stop the unknown villain.

Why It's Not A Jolly Good Movie

1. The film suffers from a lot of problems, mainly from the characterization of the characters and the fact it lasts 5 hours, which is unnecessarily long for a live-action/animated film, it shares some problems from Thomas and the Magic Railroad, this was mainly due to the fact the Reverend W. Awdry was an angelical viper, and since he co-directed the film with Shigeru Ohmori, caused conflicts due to the infamous "Pokémon is satanic" controversy, which caused disagreements until Awdry was convinced that Pokémon is not satanic. However, the damage had already been done as the film was in 70% percent of completion when it happened, this resulted on the characters having major additions to their personalities, or worse, random personalities that do not stay true to the true pride of Mother England. If you wish to know the extent of their flanderizations, click here.
2. Executive Meddling: During early production, the movie was supposed to be released as a tribute to various children's media similarly created in the UK to Children's Party at the Palace or The Official BBC Children in Need Medley it was originally going to be released on Queen Elizabeth II's 95th birthday (April 21st, 2021), but due to many problems with the production of the film, it had to be delayed to 2023, which caused a lot of bad changes to the film and it made it less of a tribute to the pieces of media that were created in the UK.
3. Pointless guest appearances and cameos of random famous British celebrities and popular internet users, whose cameos are rather wasted and they don't give great contributions to the film, with some of them even having a different personality compared to their real-life selves to the point where they act like completely different people. See how they were derailed here.
4. It tries to do a similar concept to movies like Space Jam: A New Legacy, Ready Player One, Wreck It Ralph, The Emoji Movie, Ralph Breaks the Internet, Scoob! and Pixels by having a massive variety of British characters in the movie and it tries to create this United Kingdom Cinematic Universe, which despite sounding like an amazing concept on paper, it ends up having a poor execution since the movie sometimes relies too much on being a self-promotion for random British properties than being an actual movie itself, which suffers the same problem as Space Jam: A New Legacy and Ralph Breaks the Internet, although here, it isn't as bad as it is in the former, it is worse than in the latter.
5. The official trailer of the film was a straight-up copy of the Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace trailer, complete with Horrid Henry screaming "NO!" a-la Obi-Wan, albeit Henry's scream is cut very shortly by Thomas and Allister telling him "SHUT UP" (which is pretty funny, if we're being honest)
   • The second trailer was a lot more comedic featuring the same song used in the Thomas and the Magic Railroad trailer (The World is New), and it had a cringy scene of Wallace singing the UK national anthem but he's punched by Peppa Pig.
   • The trailers were also pretty inconsistent, some of them were action-themed and others were comedy themed, and there was were some that parodied other movies, such as one that was a parody of the infamous Super Mario Bros. 1993 film and one that was a parody to the first theatrical teaser trailer of The Simpsons Movie.
   • There was even one teaser trailer, which seemed to be a parody of space documentaries, with "Rocket Man" by Elton John playing and Stephen Fry trying to give a speech on the history of Earth, but he's soon interrupted when Thomas, Allister, Bob the Builder and Peppa Pig can be seen shooting out of Earth in a rocket ship, and they fly into the empty void of space.
6. Some scenes in this movie are just pure filler and have nothing to do with the story at all. It's just there for no reason whatsoever and they do not make any sense. Go here for a detailed list of examples.
7. Lots of the attempts at trying to be funny in this movie all fail miserably, with them mostly coming across as really unfunny and cringe-worthy. See this page and be stunned by how hard this movie tries to be funny.
8. As good as the voice acting may be, there are quite a few questionable roles for specific characters:
   • Most of the Bob the Builder characters were voiced by their actors from the 2015 reboot, as opposed to their original actors, whilst it may be justifiable why most of the characters that Rob Rackstraw played weren't voiced by him (seeing how he denied the opportunity to play in this movie), it couldn't have been hard to get the other voice actors from the original series to play the role as their original characters.
     • What makes it even weirder is that they did have Kate Harbour and Neil Morrissey play their original roles for Wendy, Dizzy, Lofty, and Farmer Pickles, but for some reason, they only had them play as only the roles for those characters and had the other ones play as the voice actors from the 2015 reboot.
     • Ironically, Spud and Travis were not voiced by any of their original voice actors and were instead voiced by Neil Morrissey, although he does a decent job at voicing them.
       • Another thing is Neil Morrissey was going to play as Bob and Roley. However, the directors decided to force him to step down for no apparent reason and had Lee Ingleby and Marcel McCalla play as Bob and Roley instead.
   • Even though nearly every voice actor from Season 5 of Fireman Sam reprised their roles for their characters, Sam was the only one who wasn't reprised by John Sparkes, and was instead played by Steve Kynman (who played Sam since Season 6 of the actual show), even though he still does a decent job at playing him.
   • Even if DJ D Sugar Hammer gets to voice Amy The Angel, she barely sings in the movie.
   • Ben Small voicing Stepney the Bluebell engine might've been a decent choice on paper, but the way his voice was executed was a little weird, as Ben Small, whenever he's voicing Stepney, sounds like he's trying way to hard to sound like the voice he did for Thomas.
9. As mentioned earlier, the film lasts 5 hours with 20 minutes (with 10 minutes of credits), and the intro lasts a whopping 6 and a half minutes! That is too long for a film supposedly rated PG.
10. The characters going around the world, while a creative idea, can make the film misleading, especially since it's named United Kingdom: The Movie, albeit the amount of time they are outside the UK is 38 minutes out of 190 minutes.
11. The plot can be confusing at some points, to the point where a few characters even mock it, including Postman Pat comparing the confusing plot to the most confusing roads he's been in, Blake insulting the plot by saying "the film TOTSOs" at certain points, and Dizzy being aware of how confusing the plot is by exclaiming that she "didn't understand a single thing that happened in the last five hours" during the scene where the UK gang are talking about the adventure they had. The producers had to explain the plot better in interviews.
    • The movie also has some big plotholes:
      • Tildy from Hilda is the one who gave Proteus' Lamp the ability to grant wishes, Tildy did this so she could have a cloud pet, and it's stated that she enchanted the lamp on the day Proteus falls off the old iron bridge and dies, and his ghost was a side effect from the lamp.
      • Dizzy implied that she has never traveled anywhere in her entire life, which is false, because she's traveled to multiple places in the actual Bob the Builder show, most notably when she went to Bobblesberg in Snowed Under and the Cactus Creek in Built to be Wild.
12. A lot of focus is mainly put on Thomas and Allister, to the point a lot of characters who had potential, such as notably George Pig (who is Peppa's brother) Mummy Pig, and Daddy Pig didn't have a lot of screentime, the two other characters that are most relevant to the plot apart from the two protagonists are Peppa Pig and Bob the Builder, whom the former is luckily redeemed after her rude moments in the actual series. Thankfully, everyone that isn't the latter two main characters does get a fair amount of screen time since the movie is long as hell.
13. The movie sometimes tries way too hard to be hip with the kids, by having the characters use smartphones and make references to random memes. Sometimes, their attempts at trying to be hip fail miserably because they either reference memes no longer relevant in 2023, or they just have the characters use an outdated electronic. For instance, there was one scene where Bob the Builder, Fireman Sam, Blake, and Vicky Pollard all played Little Britain: The Video Game together on their PSPs, this scene is not only unnecessary because it is a product placement for one of the worst video games ever made, but it also feels incredibly outdated to reference that game since the PSP is a console from the seventh generation and Little Britain: The Video Game was a game that came out in 2007. There is also the aforementioned scene where the characters play Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympics on the Wii, this one also feels outdated because the Wii is a console from the seventh generation, and Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympics came in 2012, hence the title of the game.
14. For some reason, the movie has a weird obsession with adding in tons of stereotypes for no reason whatsoever, and unlike most shows with stereotypes, they are more offensive and annoying than funny.
    • There are some pretty racist Australian stereotypes, portraying them as stupid, dumb, copycats, and thrown-away characters, there's even a scene where Gromit attacks PhantomStrider, a scene where Thomas and Allister attack Luke and Kevin Lerdwichagul (the SMG4 duo) after the latter two called Thomas and Allister "pommies" and a scene where The Koala Brothers get chased by Fireman Sam and Bob the Builder after they call them buggers and get away in their airplane while singing their theme song.
    • The stereotypes towards Americans aren't any better, as they are depicted as racist, messy, overweight, lazy, redneck, disgusting, junk food eating slobs.
    • There are even UK stereotypes despite taking place in the UK, such as some characters being addicted to tea and crackers, which is hypocrisy at its finest.
15. Shameless product placements in the form of Tesco, Costa Coffee, Pringles, Walkers, Jacob's, Nestle, Warburtons, Holiday Inn, Smyths, Sanrio, PlayStation Portable, Compass Group, Mattel (most prominently HiT Entertainment), TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games, GAME Digital, Heinz, Moshi Monsters (dated since the website closed in 2020), Co-operatives, Sharpie Markers, Royal Mail, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, British Home Stores (dated since the last stores closed in 2016), Primark, Nintendo, Wii, Paulton's Park, Red Funnel, ASDA, Iceland, Birdseye, NASCAR, McCain, Coca-Cola, The Guardian, BBC, LEGO, Morrisons, Woolworths (dated since the last stores closed in 2009), Little Britain: The Video Game, DeviantArt, RareWare, Media Molecule, Sumo Digital, Pepto Bismol, Cadbury chocolate, and etc.
    • There are even dedicated scenes which are based on advertising for these companies and products, like the scene where Peppa Pig, Sackboy, Shaun the Sheep, Timmy, Noddy, Pingu, Vicky Pollard, and Spud the Scarecrow are in Smyths, the scene where the UK gang visit Paulton's Park, and the aforementioned scene where Bob the Builder, Fireman Sam, Blake, and Vicky Pollard play Little Britain: The Video Game, the usage of the product placements are so bad that the movie can come across as more of an advertisement than an actual movie itself, which suffers the same problem as The Smurfs and The Emoji Movie, which were coincidentally also released by Sony Pictures Animation.
    • What's even worse is that there are even jokes and puns based on product placement that are only there for more advertising:
      • There's this laughably bad line from Thomas: "It's a Big World on the dot on the I, and you can go on Big Adventures!" an obvious reference to the early 2000s HiT logo.
      • Roary the Racing Car saying that in 2015, he was once rewarded with top-tier tires, and he comments that it was a "GoodYear" for him (get it, GoodYear?).
      • When Hilda, Frida, David, Angry Kid, and Horrid Henry try to cast a spell to obliterate the egg that Angry Kid made Hilda lay, Frida asks if there is an old piece of technology that is in Hilda's house, Hilda responds by saying "You can use my Old TV, since my Mum got me a new one, and the new one has Milkshake!" then Tontu responds by saying "TV's make Milkshakes? I'll be right back, I'm making some Pepto Bismol" (Pepto Bismol is not a Milkshake, Tontu, You idiot!).
16. Even though this movie takes place in the UK, it has some historical inaccuracies involving the UK, such as claiming it was created by Arceus, Woolworths still exists in the UK, and the UK and USA are enemies.
17. The film hints at the rest of the Steam Team and the Galar Gym Leaders being a part of the team, and while it happened, they barely get any screen time as the focus of the film is made on Thomas and Allister, and the original scripts were supposed to have the focus on various characters apart from those two, but were changed for unknown reasons, and the counterparts for the trainers and trains are as follows:
    • Milo/Percy
    • Kabu/James
    • Bea/Emily
    • Nessa/Toby
    • Gordie/Gordon
    • Opal/Edward
    • Melony/Henry
    • Piers/Rebecca
    • Raihan/Nia
18. False advertising:
    • One of the posters misleadingly has John Lennon's incarnation from The Beatles: Yellow Submarine, yet he's nowhere to be seen or mentioned in the movie.
    • Nigel "Numbuh 1" Uno from Codename: Kids Next Door is also on one of the posters, yet he does not appear anywhere in the movie, nor is he mentioned.
    • The aforementioned teaser trailer involves Thomas, Allister, Bob the Builder, and Peppa Pig zooming into space in a rocket, but in the actual movie, they don't go to space.
    • The trailers for the film hint that Rob from The Amazing World of Gumball, Zeebad, Otto Hill from The Harry Hill Movie, Diesel 10, Grandmaster Glitch, King K. Rool from Donkey Kong Country, Glomgold, Erik Ahlberg, Gruntilda Winkybunion from Banjo Kazooie, and the Cybermen from Doctor Who, were gonna be the main villains, but it's H.Bomberguy instead. Even then, the Cybermen, Diesel 10, Grandmaster Glitch, Zeebad, Rob, Grunty, Glomgold, and King K. Rool still appear in the movie as villains (though not they're not the main ones).
      • The only trailer that portrays him was the one based on the 1993 Super Mario Bros. film, but the others treated Rob as the villain.
19. There are a handful of very mean-spirited moments in the movie. For more details, go here.
20. The film tends to be too unrealistic at times by inserting elements that take away from the slice-of-life feel that the movie was intended to be:
    • One example was in the trailer parodying Super Mario Bros., there's a chase scene where Thomas and Allister (the latter of which is Thomas' conductor during the film), alongside Brum, Roary, Capitalstar, and Train from The Magic Roundabout are escaping from Gordon Ramsay, Simon Cowell, and the other villains, and at one point Gordon activates a trap that makes a bent track appear in the railroad Thomas and Allister were in and for some reason, Thomas actually makes a full 360-degree spin and somehow manages to get back on track, which is even more unrealistic than the accident he had in Thomas & Friends: Big World! Big Adventures! The Movie.
    • Another example is in the scene where Bob the Builder dies, which involved the gods bringing him back to life shortly after he dies, with the gods exclaiming that he has "done a good deed, and he doesn't deserve to go just yet".
21. The film can't decide if it was to be for kids or for an older audience, the film has multiple highly intense battle sequences, tons of adult jokes, references to pieces of media and events that are far too serious and inappropriate for children to hear, and some characters from adult show participating (such as Vicky Pollard from Little Britain and Angry Kid for example), but it also has a lot of stupid humor and the fact the majority of characters in the film are for kids (mainly from preschool shows).
22. In addition to this, many scenes in this movie are way too inappropriate for children and are often subjects that are not even appropriate for a PG movie. Go here and ask what the writers were thinking when they were making these scenes.
23. They often mispronounce words incorrectly which is terrible, to begin with. For instance, "car" is pronounced as "cah", kinda like in Rayman: The Animated Series.
24. The musical numbers feel forced and most of (if not all) the soundtrack is nothing but songs by English pop singers and rock and metal bands, mainly from The Beatles, Electric Light Orchestra, and Queen. Even some songs from Scottish, Irish, and Welsh bands or singers are used here too (though to be fair, it's nice to listen to some of the characters sing their covers of Beatles music). Click here for more info.
25. The movie cannot take criticism and tends to jab at critics who dislike the movie for its premise. For example, one commercial for the movie had Wallace saying "United Kingdom: The Movie is a movie that is fun for the whole royal family, including the Queen! Whoever doesn't think so is a teeny-weeny little maggot who suffers crippling depression and might be lactose intolerant!"
26. Some dramatic scenes can be very stupid, with them acting all suspenseful and exciting for the viewer, and are instead followed by really stupid things.
27. Even though lots of characters in this film get a decent amount of screen time due to the film's ridiculous runtime, some characters that had the potential of appearing only had cameos or didn't even appear at all Click here and see just how many characters were wasted.
28. During the final hour of the film, Allister and Thomas (alongside Bea and Emily) change themselves to look like crowned form ghost/fight type gym leaders (Allister and Bea) having both of each other's colors (Thomas and Emily, albeit both keep some of their original colors), and Blake (alongside Lily and Maddie) turns themselves into trains (the train forms first appeared in the 2021 film The Story Of Marciano), just to enter a place that only allows crowned forms to search for more clues about Gordon Ramsay's evil deeds, and they stay like that for the rest of the film, however, the crowned forms are cool.
29. The movie sometimes adds in stuff that has absolutely nothing to do with the UK:
    • There are a few product placements for companies that do not come from the UK, such as Pringles, Nestle, Sanrio, PlayStation Portable, Birdseye, McCain, Mattel, Heinz, Nintendo, Wii Coca-Cola, TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, LEGO and DeviantArt.
    • A lot of scenes include some songs from foreign artists and not British ones. Whilst some of them are fine, since most of the inclusions are simply songs that were hits in the UK, there are some inclusions of songs that have absolutely no relation with the UK at all. Some examples include the aforementioned scene of Mary Sue dancing to "Bim Bam Toi" by Carla on TikTok, which, the song, "Bim Bam Toi", is not from the UK and is actually from France, and the other aforementioned scene of Nicole Watterson, Si'Ha Nova, and NewStarMusic singing "Baby Shark", even though the pop group NewStarMusic has nothing to do with the UK and is actually from Romania.
30. Sometimes, the movie isn't afraid of rehashing concepts or ideas from other movies:
    • There is a scene where Billy Kane meets his female counterpart from The King of Fighters All-Star and they both start to argue with each other which is a rip-off of a certain scene from Toy Story 2 and it also copies elements from Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse as well like when male Kane said "this could literally not get any weirder" and the female version said "It can get weirder".
    • The ending credits scene rips off the credits of Shrek Forever After, by highlighting different scenes from other pieces of media that the characters in the movie were originated from, even though the scene is wonderful and provides good nostalgia to fans of the characters' respective source materials.
31. The first part of the ending itself is just a freaking dance/musical number akin to The Emoji Movie, Saving Christmas, and Open Season: Scared Silly and it plays "Party Rock Anthem" by LMFAO during the scenes, despite the song not really having much to do with the UK other than the fact that Lauren Bennett is featured in it, who is an English singer. Not only does it feel like it was added in at the last minute, but it serves as nothing to the story and is just there to make the original ending that only consisted of the emotional scene where Thomas gives Allister a final ride a little bit more "happier".

Redeeming Qualities

1. A concept of a United Kingdom Cinematic Universe sounds like a decent idea on paper, although the execution in this movie was bad.
2. Every character is voiced by their proper voice actors except for the ones whose voice actor died prior to production, so the voice acting is good.
   • Despite John Sparkes not getting to reprise his role for Sam, it was nice seeing John Sparkes, Sarah Hadland and Joanna Ruiz play their characters from Fireman Sam, seeing how this came out 17 years after they stepped down their roles for their characters.
   • Unlike the rest of the Bob the Builder characters, Lofty, Wendy, Dizzy and Farmer Pickles are at least voiced by their original voice actors (Neil Morrissey and Kate Harbour).
     • Even though most of the voice actors from the 2015 reboot play as the Bob the Builder characters, they actually do decent jobs at trying to intimidate the voices of the characters from the original series as opposed to the voices from the 2015 reboot, although some sound notably different from their original counterparts in the original show, Paul Panting, in particular, does a fantastic job at trying to intimidate Rob Rackstraw's voice for Muck.
3. Despite the poor attempts at trying to be funny, there are still a handful of funny scenes in this movie. Click here for more info on these scenes.
4. The animation is nice and well done, and all the character's designs stay true to their original series.
   • The CGI backgrounds are also visually stunning.
   • Speaking of how the characters stay true to the designs, it's nice to see how the people behind the film used the Bob the Builder character designs from the original series rather than the CGI character designs from the 2015 reboot, it looks very impressive because it actually tries to make the CGI designs for the characters resemble the stop-motion animation from the original series.
   • The character designs for the Fireman Sam characters are portrayed as their designs from the stop-motion era as opposed to their CGI designs from season 6-present, which made quite a lot of fans of the classic seasons happy.
5. There are still plenty of likable characters, which you can look at here.
6. The narrator from LittleBigPlanet (which is of course Stephen Fry) appears as the narrator for the film which is a nice callback to the LittleBigPlanet series, Stephen Fry even does a good job at being the narrator.
7. Some of the musical numbers, covers and songs that played in the movie were good and nice to listen to. Click here to see what they are.
8. Entertaining and exciting action sequences, like the awesome final battle in London.
   • Jeremy Hillary Boob and Gruntilda doing a rhyme battle was entertaining yet exciting at the same time.
   • The climax scene where Thomas, Allister and Tommy (the latter of whom is now Thomas's secondary conductor), alongside the rest of the UK Gang (with many of them being separated into many trains) escape from an infernal London being bombarded by H.Bomberguy accompanied by the song "I'm Still Standing" is very epic to watch.
9. The scene where Professor Layton and Luke solve various puzzles is lengthy but well done and well animated.
10. The short film that came before the movie played (Mick's Birthday Blast) was really great. It featured Mick, Planty, Thomas, Allister, Bob the Builder, Bob the Tomato, Larry the Cucumber, Mario, Luigi, Futaba Sakura, Morgana, Nessa, Fireman Sam, Postman Pat, Mr. Bean, SpongeBob, Patrick, Hello Kitty, Mickey Mouse (the character), Gumball, Darwin, Shaun the Sheep, Timmy the Sheep, Mary Sue from Magical Diary, Isabelle from Animal Crossing, Blake, Banjo, Kazooie, Wallace, and Gromit celebrating Mick's birthday.
11. It was nice to see some characters who haven't had any relevancy or haven't been seen in years return to animation and the big screen for newcomers.
12. The movie introduces a new character named Redneck Kong, who was a likeable character despite being a kong/UK gang member created for the movie. Though there is a lot more to him as said in the trivia section.
13. Thomas, Allister, Emily and Bea's crowned form redesigns used in the last hour of the film are actually cool, despite them being pretty pointless.
14. Queen Elizabeth II and the Prince of Wales (now Charles III)' cameos near the end of the movie is lovely, and she gives off a really powerful speech to the UK gang, thanking them all for saving England and that she is proud of everyone who helped to join in the effort.
15. The movie has it's emotional and heartbreaking moments, like the scene where Bob the Builder gets stabbed in the heart by H.Bomberguy during the climax, and after he's defeated, there's an emotional scene where Bob the Builder thanks everyone for being there and that he had a lot of fun with the adventure he had, with him slowly dying after he finishes his speech and everyone in the UK gang starts mourning his loss, and then he's brought back to life by the Gods in the sky, it even uses the song "Total Eclipse of the Heart" during the scene, which was a fitting song.
16. The actual second part of the ending is actually nice, calm and relaxing, as it involves Allister asking Thomas if he could take a private ride on him for the last time before the movie ends, to which Thomas accepts, and then it cuts to Thomas travelling around multiple famous UK locations while Allister looks outside Annie and Clarabel's windows, complete with an instrumental rendition of "The Island Song" and having the scene take place at night, same goes for the rest of The Steam Team and the Galar Gym Leaders who get the same treatment, and it ends with Thomas and his friends giving the Gym Leaders a nice ride back home.
    • At the end of the scene, there's a cool part where Diddy Kong interrupts it and he says "maybe the UK Gang should get a racing game and I can see it as a sequel to Diddy Kong Racing. Trust me, this should be a fun crossover".
    • There's also a lovely tribute to Queen Elizabeth II in the post-credits scene.

Reception

Whilst United Kingdom: The Movie was proven to be a box office success in the UK and the USA, this film has gotten some mixed-to-negative reviews from critics and audiences alike due to story problems and the flanderizations of many beloved characters, it lead to IMDb giving this a 5.8/10 rating, Metacritic giving this an audience score of 4.5 and a weighted critic score of 30 out of 100, indicating, "generally unfavorable reviews", and Rotten Tomatoes giving this movie a critic score of 35% and an audience score of 53%. The site's critical consensus states: "United Kingdom: The Movie is beautifully animated and has a fantastic variety of well-known British characters with faithful designs that match their original counterparts, but it doesn't save the fact that the story is an absolute mess and most of the characters act nothing like their original selves".

The Royal Family themselves gave mixed reactions to the film, some of them had fun with it, while others thought it was disrespectful and offensive. Many YouTube critics were mostly critical too, with James A. Williams in particular absolutely hating this movie and claiming that it was "a massive insult to his childhood", not only did he consider it the worst crossover he had ever seen, but also the worst movie of 2023. I Hate Everything didn't have as much of hatred for this film as James did and he also had some positive things to say about the film, but he did feel as if this movie was just a shameless advertisement for random icons from Britain and said that it was "the Space Jam: A New Legacy of British crossovers".

In addition to this, many of the people who worked on the movie were also very critical about it too, most notably Kate Harbour, BlakeIsHere and DanTDM, who all disliked the inconsistent portrayals of most of the characters and the confusion story, Kate even disliked Dizzy's portrayal in the movie, claiming that "it's not her Dizzy, and will never be her Dizzy".

Even though this film got some negative feedback, it did manage to win a Nickelodeon Kid's Choice Award blimp for best-animated feature, the film was also nominated at the BAFTA awards for "Best Film", "Best Animated Film", "Best Actor in a Leading Role" (for Joseph May) and "Best Actor in a Supporting Role" (for Casey Mongillo), winning the latter three. The film would also gain a cult following under a nostalgic view and/or a "it's so bad, it's good" charm.

Dialogue from the Movie (Because Why Not)

Roley: Now, Dizzy, you see, these are cows.
Dizzy: I know what they are, ya stinker.
Roley: Haha, well, I took you here to tell you something about them. Did you know that their farts cause a lot of methane?
Dizzy: Nope, all I know is that they stink, nice and good!
[Cow farts]
[Roley and Dizzy scream]
Roley: OH NO!!! HE FARTED!! FARMER PICKLES!! KILL HIM!!!
Farmer Pickles: Alrighty.
Scene: Cows Fireman Sam: ELVIS!!!!!!
Elvis Cridlington: Y-y-y-yes, Sam?
Fireman Sam: I am so sick of you and your stupidity! You are nothing but a moron who's got an annoying obsession with potato waffles! You're the biggest moron since Nanny from that Duckula show! I mean, don't you have a brain at all?! No wonder why you're a stupid idiot !
[Sam punches Elvis in the face incredibly hard]
Elvis Cridlington: Ouch !
Fireman Sam: You know what, Elvis? I am done with you! You are the worst human I have ever met and I wish you would die a horrible death!
[Elvis runs away crying with his feelings hurt]
Scene: Poor Elvis...Not!

H.Bomberguy: You will be forced to watch these shows, whether you like it or not!
Bob the Builder: Please, just let me go, or do anything but this-
H.Bomberguy: Oh boo hoo, how sad! Well, guess what? I. DON'T. CARE!
["Ode to Joy" plays, and the intros of Bob the Builder (2015) and Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go! without audio plays]
Bob the Builder: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-
Scene: Mattel Hell

Big: I know how to get Small to do what I want.
Roo: And what might that be, mister?
[Big grabs toothbrush and toothpaste]
Big: Brushing his teeth.
Tigger: Hoo hoo hoo, this will be funny!
Small: Uh oh, you found the toothpaste! Let's get one thing clear, I can brush my teeth all by myself, okay?
[Big aggressively brushes Small's teeth]
Scene: You found the toothpaste!

The Aardvark: Oi! Alan, you happened to see an ant around here?
Alan the Aardvark: Oh, yes, I have seen ants, what kind of ants are you talking about? Black Ants? Flying Ants? Red Ants? Fire Ants? Blue Ants? Screaming Ants-
The Aardvark: THE ANT I ALWAYS CHASE AROUND!
Alan The Aardvark: What kind of ant is it?
The Aardvark: He's red, small and very annoying, and has a dumb face
Alan The Aardvark: Nope, never seen an ant like that.
The Aardvark: Ugh, you're no help! [The Aardvark leaves]
[The Ant pops out of Alan's ear] Thanks, Alan!
Alan The Aardvark: My pleasure, Ant!
Scene: The Ant and The Aardvark

Random boy: I love Allister! She's my favourite character in Pokémon-
Allister: DID YOU JUST ASSUME MY GENDER!?!? YOU MISOGYNISTIC, SEXIST JERK!!
Random boy: (Cries) I'm sorry!
Allister: I don't care, go away!
Scene: London Calling

Wallace: Gromit! It's PhantomStrider! Go get him, lad!

[Gromit lunges at PhantomStrider and attacks him brutally]

Strider: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

Scene: Take that, Strider!

Blake: Why did I burn a Smyths down? Why did I commit arson too many times? Why did I try to kill myself? And WHY did I kiss a fucking caterpillar? I must have a criminal record at this point, right?
Unknown person (in background): Yeah I think so.
Blake: I'm gonna go now anyways, bye.
Scene: Blake Admits his Wrongdoings (in-credits)

Cast

Click here to see the cast.

Soundtrack for the film

Click here to see the soundtrack.

Trivia

Click here for trivia about this movie.

See Also

• The United States Movie: Patriotic Palooza!(Reception Wiki-style)
• Japan: The Movie (Reception Wiki-style)
• UK & USA: The Series

References

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