Twist

I didn't really know what to expect with this movie but I was still underwhelmed by it.

It was extremely dull and just dead behind the eyes. I found it to be a chore to sit though.

I don't want to be horrible but the acting was absolutely awful. It was so lifeless and just really bad. Every single actor was bad.

Also a warning that most of this film is just running sequences that normally end up on rooftops. I'm pretty sure that some parts were shot on a go pro.

It also had this like sugary sweetness undertone which clashed so much with the "English crime" tone. It was like a kids movie but about a gang in London?

It was really bad.

Don't know who the target audience was but this felt very 'teenager' orientated. Has some big names but some mediocre acting. It was just neither something original, nor clever, using ideas that have been down before. Just kind of bland, really. Loved Headey in GOT but not at all in this. Hope she doesn't end up doing crap like this. Just didn't really care for it. Was mostly bored. Had higher expectations.

I can honestly say this movie was hard to sit through. I started to get headaches from the running and jumping scenes that added very little to the movie. Michael Caine was also awful. It's like he took the easy money then put in no effort. Then again there wasn't much to put effort towards. I'll be honest, most of the acting here was awful from Caine to Ora to Headley. Only Noel Clarke worked. Give this a miss. Another Sky production that fails to be worth it.

Other reviews have criticised Twist for being a Parkour film. I would say that this is its only redeeming feature. It would be wrong to call all of the acting "wooden" but the overall standard is very low and Rita Ora must know this is not her strong suit. The references to Twist, Dodge, Fagin and Sykes just remind you that you could be watching a much (much) better film. The dialogue is clumsy and mechanical, with youth references crowbarred in with unintended comedic consequences. But some of the running and jumping is very good!

I will start out by saying that I completely agree, this film clearly struggles with finding an audience and is clearly confused with who it's meant to appeal to. The violence it's "watered down/cartoonish" enough for a PG rating but with all the swearing (frequent uses of the four letter words including an F bomb) it wouldn't get a PG rating in the US. Another thing I found strange was the soundtrack which kept jumping between modern day hip hop and 90s-00s britpop, which further raised the question...Who is this film meant to appeal to?

I would in no way call this movie terrible as many of the reviews suggest. It's your standard paint by numbers art caper set to the story of Oliver Twist with a ridiculous amount of parkour added in. Parts of the movie are fun but nothing is really original, it feels like the type of movie you could watch on TV and not feel like you wasted your time. That's the level of entertainment I received from it at least...