Bed time stories, don’t you just love em?  

At best they actually make your kids look forward to going to bed, at worst they bore them to sleep.  It’s a win win situation as far as I can see.  And then there’s all the other stuff people say, like that it fires the imagination, encourages reading, creates quality time for parents and children, which in mu opinion are all true.  

I’ll never forget, my sister, myself and my two brothers, tucked up in our bunk beds in a cramped caravan, probably in South Wales, waiting….

Waiting for my Mum to finish folding small clothes and move calmly towards us, book in one hand, wine in the other.  Or waiting for my Dad to return from the shower block across the muddy field, wellies abandoned in the awning, door zippers secured, Mansfield Bitter poured into his large glass tankard.  I especially remember enthusiastic readings of ‘The Twits’ or ‘The House that Sailed Away’ and ‘George’s Marvellous Medicine.”

So it was with great excitement, and I have to admit a little wiggle of nerves that I sat down with my 8 year old to watch Bedtime Stories on Disney Blu-Ray, the first in our series of film reviews 

Bedtime Stories, starring the fabulous Adam Sandler, the wicked Russell Brand and the almost always brilliant Richard Griffiths, and narrated by the wise and wonderful Jonathan Price, tells the tale of Skeeter (Sandler), son of a well meaning motelier who sells his failing business (which just happens to be on prime land) to Griffiths’ entrepreneurial and slightly odd character Barry Nottingham.  Nottingham promises that the young Skeeter will one day manage the luxurious hotel he plans to build, but the story opens on Skeeter as the overlooked and ‘underdemitiated’ handyman.  (Watch the film for a translation.)

When a downhearted Skeeter babysits his young niece and nephew and their freaky bug eyed guinea pig, he decides to create stories for them using his own experiences as inspiration for tales which take him from the wild west, to outerspace by way of ancient Greece.  But the tales start coming true and Skeeter realises that maybe his cynical assertion that there are ‘no happy endings’ is wrong wrong wrong.  Of course there’s lots more to it but if I write it all here you’ll get bored and my fingers will fall off, so I’ll leave it there.   

So what did we think?

As the title credits rolled, the first word Miss E uttered was ‘Brilliant,’ so I asked her why and this is what she told me in her own words but typed by my fair hands…

“I liked it because everything he did depended on the stories.  My favourite part was when Skeeter saved the school by making his boss able to build his hotel on the beach instead of knocking down the school.  I also like it because it was funny, entertaining, and I thought Bugsy was very cute with his two wide eyes.  I liked the stories Skeeter told. 

It was almost like it was 3D the picture was so good and I wanted to climb into the TV.”

So yes, she liked it, and see, I told you there was more to it.

But me?

Well actually I kind of liked it too in a ‘nice film to watch with the kids’ sort of way.

Yes it was a little predictable at times and the Happy Ending was pretty much guaranteed, but the characters were likeable, the kids not too annoying that I wanted to flick broccoli at them, and the ‘baddy’ was fabulously camp and brought to life brilliantly by Guy Pearce aka Mike from Neighbours, who normally plays much more serious roles (except for Mike from Neighbours), yet who took to his role of Disney  with relish and without pretension, in fact I think he quite enjoyed it.

I suppose if you’re not a fan of Adam Sandler it’s possible you would find him playing yet another slightly daft but loveable fool a little tedious, but I really like him – possibly because he reminds me of my mate Dez’s boyfriend, possibly because I think he’s kind of cute.  So that, added to the foppish and yet somehow still manly eye candy that is Russell Brand, made for a happy Ms Beaufoix.

So will Bedtime Stories score highly on the Beaufoix Scale as designed by Misses E and M?

Well, Miss E gave it a whopping 4.5 out of 5, which means it is a single strawberry dipped in chocolate.

 The rest of the scale will be introduced to you soon but I haven’t had chance to find supporting pics yet, and some of Miss M’s offerings may be hard to find graphics for.  Cough.

So 4.5 it is. 

I know, it doesn’t really leave us anywhere to go if something truly mindbogglingly unbelievably brilliant and better than chocolate comes our way, but hey, we made up the scale so we can always add to it.  Mwah ha ha ha haaaaaa.

Oh, and here’s a clip if you want to see what on earth I’ve been waffling on about…

P.s. Miss E says I have to add this as it made us laugh the most.

‘I see London
I see France
I see my golden underpants.’

Of course they laughed more than me as I am much more mature, and a lady.