The Railway Children Return 2022 by AverageMansReviews

The Railway Children Return 2022 by AverageMansReviews

Review Time

Warning: there is racism/white on black violence/feminism/shooting

Why was this sequel greenlighted?: The year is 1944 in the midst of World War II and these many children have been sent away to the countryside for their own protection until things are safe to come back home; Our main children are Lily Watts [Beau Gadsdon,] Patty Watts [Eden Hamilton] and Ted Watts [Zac Cudby] as they move from Manchester into the countryside to be re-homed by Roberta "Bobbie" Waterbury [Jenny Agutter: yes the only original Railway child to return for this sequel from the original The Railway Children film in 1970,] her daughter Annie [Sheridan Smith] the headmistress of this school in Oakworth which I believe this school is named after this village and her son Thomas Waterbury [Austin Haynes.] One day at the beginning of playing hide and seek Pattie comes across our final main child Private Abraham "Abe" McCarthy [KJ Aikens] apparently on a secret US mission. The pacing of this 95 minutes film is something solid as in it knows what it is doing and it sticks to the plan.

The art; the scenery, landscapes, wardrobe, the steam trains and all of that look good. We do have some comical action moments as Lily puts this bully Georgie Duckworth [Joseph Richards] in his place, there is a serious tone to this which I will discuss later, but for now on this side of things let's just see it as comical action.

Now if you have been following me long enough you should know by now,, I am not of the woke or a social justice warrior or knowingly into the virtual signalling or anything like that.

But I swear this sequel does do virtual signalling [yes I have done some research on this terminology] but it is one of those occasions where I am like Tweety Pie ""I tawt I heard/seen a virtual signal!" and "I did! I did heard/seen a virtual signal!"

Private Abraham "Abe" McCarthy is an African-American and 14 years old, because of what he has done he has some people looking for him, so I may as well just come out and say it politely obviously we have this conversation between this Private, Thomas and Lily where I am paraphrasing here we have this Private telling including the actual situation here then with these strange words in this dialogue exchange where basically because he is African-American they can treat him how he would be treated as if he was at home in America with these keywords of by some of the villages saying "No we don't do that here." Thomas saying “They wouldn't do that you are a soldier" even though he has seen it for himself earlier in this film, but eventually he decides to help him and Lily. “Here is me thinking this film was based in 1944 and when this review is being dictated these things in America or the UK are still happening in 2022 yes they are much less accepted in the public domain, but it still happens on every single level. I mean it even happens in this film, yes it is completely different but the tone and the message is the same Georgie even on his own or with his friends tells the main three characters individually or together to in a nutshell go home including throwing conkers, But I hasten to add this individual turns out to be a good person, I am not condoning what he has done but in the same token he is young and does good.

 Then a little later we have Roberta making a comment about Winston Churchill, that he didn't do much for the Suffragettes, this comment stuck out like a sore thumb for me. Based on the grounds you are going through a World War where everyone is suffering, Caucasian, African-Americans and many others and yet this is a suitable time to make a comment like this; I don't think so. Then we head to the closing section of this film where it really pushes what it wants to push and this is where things may get really uncomfortable for some readers. But I am just talking about this film and speaking the uncomfortable truth without giving too much away General Harrison [Hugh Quarshie] makes a ruling/order for a prisoner to be released of the same ethnic background and I have briefly discuss this with the person I watch some of these films with even though it sounds like I am putting this comically I am being serious with sarcasm " Well isn't that convenient they are of the same ethnic background." Because everyone knows deep down that if General Harrison wasn't African-American or in my country black, oh let's just go with I don't know Caucasian he wouldn't in no way shape or form be this lenient including having this conversation and understanding where this African-American is coming from.

The character developments and the performances; the character developments are designed to put across what they are designed to put across and the performances themselves are good.

This film receives: 3/10, this film is poor; on reflection I have even decided to take off the mark, just based on all the negatives I have spoke about in this review/blog. It is once again on reflection some virtual signalling if I was to be honest for just a second garbage, when will people learn that we can learn from history, but we cannot change or delete history this is how we evolve and change throughout the years, even when we are all dead in a million years time, the people in the future will probably think we were primitive mammals, concerns with all the small details that is called evolution for you.