I liked it, the lass in the title role was superb and pretty much carried the whole thing. However, perhaps I’m being a bit overly anti-fox but am I the only person who feels that it was only financed to help propagate the anti-abortion message?

I was on the plane coming back from the Dominican Republic and as I got more and more bored from the tedium that is The Assassination of Jesse James I looked over somebody’s shoulder to see that they were watching a film about a kid playing guitar so I thought I’d give it a go.

The film is utter saccharine with wholly undeveloped characters and plot so ridiculous it isn’t even worth describing. Even more ridiculous is the music itself. The first time this kid picks up a guitar he’s doing tapped harmonics, eight finger tapping, complicated arpeggios…I mean ffs. I know he’s supposed to be a ‘prodigy’, but even prodigies have to learn technique, they’re not born with it.

And Robin Williams, where did you go so wrong? Since Good Will Hunting (which I personally don’t rate) what have you done (alright, I secretly like Patch Addams but we’re all allowed some lapses in judgement)? Please, so I can still say that I like you with any credibility, do one more good film as I know you’ve got it in you.

I only watched this so I could watch the sequal and see my work on tv but it was so so utterly bad.

In the comedy spoof Johnny English you had, very tongue in cheek, a Frenchman stealing the crown jewels. It was the old enemy stealing an item of national identity—the basest way of inspiring patriotic fervor but it wasn’t meant to be serious and nobody took it that way. Here you had an Englishman stealing the declaration of independence…come on, give me a break. It’s your typical Nick Cage film; we’ll have him doing something that’s wrong (i.e. stealing the declaration) but we’ll create a back story to make the audience want him to succeed (he’s stealing it to stop the Englishman getting it). The same storyline is in Snakeyes, Gone in 60 seconds &c.

I hadn’t meant to actually review this, just note it and move on but it really is so, so bad.