I went last night to see Starter For Ten a British based film with the excellent young up and coming actor James McVoy.
Not an awful film but not as clever as it would like to be, I did like it, I just felt it was trying to be more than it was. It felt like the writers were trying to be Richard Curtis but failing with the actual cleverness of his writing, timing and general script play.
The title is taken from the well known, in the UK, University Challenge and a young lad who always wants more knowledge and generally dreams of better things for himself, an opening gambit:
"Ever since I can remember, I've wanted to be clever. Some people are born clever, same way some people are born beautiful. I'm not one of those people" The problem I had with it is I felt the jokes coming before they did, you could almost script it yourself around the usual 'My Family' style sitcom, which in it's place has it's very funny moments but wouldn't hold up on the silver screen.
The parts I actually liked more were when it seemed to ad lib slightly, a little turn of phrase, but overall underwhelmed.
It's not a nasty film by any stroke of the imagination, it's got a certain warmth, it's probably trying to hard and that's it ultimate downfall.
I'd recommend but on DVD when you have time to catch up on recent movies.
-------- Reading other entries I can now understand why it was a certain way as I've discovered the American backing...that explains a Lot! I have however included my original opinion.
Not an awful film but not as clever as it would like to be, I did like it, I just felt it was trying to be more than it was. It felt like the writers were trying to be Richard Curtis but failing with the actual cleverness of his writing, timing and general script play.
The title is taken from the well known, in the UK, University Challenge and a young lad who always wants more knowledge and generally dreams of better things for himself, an opening gambit:
"Ever since I can remember, I've wanted to be clever. Some people are born clever, same way some people are born beautiful. I'm not one of those people" The problem I had with it is I felt the jokes coming before they did, you could almost script it yourself around the usual 'My Family' style sitcom, which in it's place has it's very funny moments but wouldn't hold up on the silver screen.
The parts I actually liked more were when it seemed to ad lib slightly, a little turn of phrase, but overall underwhelmed.
It's not a nasty film by any stroke of the imagination, it's got a certain warmth, it's probably trying to hard and that's it ultimate downfall.
I'd recommend but on DVD when you have time to catch up on recent movies.
-------- Reading other entries I can now understand why it was a certain way as I've discovered the American backing...that explains a Lot! I have however included my original opinion.