Member review

When I sat down to watch 'Be Kind Rewind', I was expecting to see a comedy about two guys who accidentally wipe all of the tapes in their VCR store and have to remake them themselves. Instead, what I got was a dull hour filled with short film parodies held together with an inspiringly stupid plot that was riddled with holes. This plot makes no sense, even for a comedy. Surely the writers could have thought of a better excuse to wipe the tapes than 'the nerd becomes a magnet'? Especially as this is impossible - he's made of flesh and blood, not iron! Electrocuting him should just kill him, not magnetise him. It's a silly and sci-fi element in an otherwise realistic setting. Furthermore, the characters are bland and underdeveloped. Each one's entire personality can be summed up in a simple sentence - crazy nerd, feisty female, exasperated straight man and flawed mentor. And each of these characters seems to be holding the Idiot Ball. What sane person thinks 'oh no, my idiot friend just wiped all the tapes in the shop! I know, instead of explaining this to my boss and the customers, I'll just remake the movies myself!' As to the actual comedy, I found amusement far and few between. The film parodies are all right, but they're too short to really be effective. Most of the other humour just falls flat for one reason or another, leading to a film that has three boring sequences for every mildly entertaining one. Overall, 'Be Kind Rewind' is a boring, forgettable film filled with one-dimensional characters and a nonsensical plot. 2/5