Sumotherhood

I wasn't expecting this to be amazing but thought it would at least be funny from the trailer. This was definitely wrong. Don't get me wrong, there were a few funny moments and an unexpectedly bizarre cameo from Jeremy corbyn that made me laugh, but overall the directors were trying way too hard and it just fell flat. If they hadnt tried to force the comedy so much it could had worked, but instead it just felt overdone and cringey. I felt genuinely bored for most of it as did my partner and the majority of the cinema...a packed screening and probably heard about 2 laughs the entire time. I'm rating it 3 stars to match the 2 laughs I had and 1 for the cameos. Don't waste your time on this poor attempt at nostalgia.

You know how Home Alone 1 and 2 are timeless classics...and every other Home Alone after them have been absolute abominations...

Well that's exactly what we have here with 'Sumotherhood'. Kidulthood and Adulthood were brilliant, but every spin-off since has been pure garbage.

Appearing to be written by school kids on a bus home from school...unfunny, OTT stereotypes, forced, pointless cameos, almost zero story...the whole thing is just WACK!

I literally only laughed ONCE, during the Ed Sheeran scene...he was only on for about 45 seconds...and the fact that he was the best thing in the entire film, tells you all you need to know.

These guys are living in the past and trying way too hard to keep this franchise alive.

Get some professional writers, start a new project ..and move on!

Aside from a rather fun cameo from Ed Sheeran that reminded me that he probably lived a street life not a million miles away from the characters here when he was younger and homeless, the rest of this is really rather disappointing. As you'd expect from Adam Deacon ("Riko"), the writing is break-neck paced and littered with humour, contemporary references and there is a definite chemistry between him and his sidekick (and co-writer) "Kane" (Jazzie Zonzolo). Petty criminals in just about every sense of the word, they find themselves £15k in the hole and desperate to raise the cash. Looks like a robbery is the solution - so they try. A wealthy gent in the toilet? A bank branch? Will they make the cash and escape with their lives? If you listen to the dialogue then it is certainly cleverly constructed with some potent observations contained within the relentlessness of the delivery. It's that last bit that I struggled with, though. It plays way too much to linguistic stereotypes and my brain actually felt more attacked by the constant verbal onslaught than entertained enough by it. I think if I had seen this on stage with just the two men, then it could have made for a belter of a two man show shining a light on their East London community, but as a film the visual comedic elements are all just a bit too predictable and I found the other characterisations - there are really only two of note - just a bit annoying. There's far too much soundtrack and I also felt Deacon just a bit too old to carry off the role very plausibly. It has it's moments, just not enough of them.

Anuvahood is a guilty pleasure of mine. It's not a great film by any means, but it is entertaining and a good time. When I saw the trailer for Sumotherhood, I won't lie to you, it looked pretty bad. Much more slapstick, much more 'action' comedy than the first movie and only a sprinkling of the original cast returning. Nevertheless, after a couple of beers and some food, we decided to give it a go. How bad could it be?

... It's pretty bad.

One thing that I found quite jarring is that the names and characters have changed from the first movie? The two leads have different names and the other returning actors are playing different characters. I can only imagine Adam Deacon wanted to get the full gang back to play the same characters but they weren't having it so he got what he could and changed them completely.

This movie is loud, too loud. The shouting gets irritating after about 15 minutes and that delivery of shouting jokes and screaming all the time just isn't that funny. Not to mention that 9 out of 10 jokes just aren't funny. There are some good one-liners in this, and I did have a few chuckles, but it just wasn't enough.

Adam Deacon has bipolar and I believe that is why he has been away from acting for quite some time and his inclusion of mentioning this in the movie is about a subtle as a third nipple. The ending is also hilarious with some social commentary shoehorned in which is completely out of place and out of the blue.

The cameos are in the trailer and aside from Jeremy Corben saying 'allow it wasteman', they all add nothing to the comedy.

Overall, the movie is pretty bad, it's not that funny, it's repetitive and it falls flat on so many occasions. Surprisingly though, it's actually better than I thought it would be.

A very generous 4/10.

This movie is the definition of that one student in secondary school whose whole humour consists of repeating and rinsing the same jokes over and over, but now attempts to make a full career out of it. I think due to this, as well as the fast pace, that some of the jokes land half ass or don't sink in very well leading to really dull segments. The forced in lingo gets tiresome within the first 20 minutes to the point making you think if the script was either AI generated or written by the same people who wrote the last season of Top boy. Fortunately there were moments within the movie(particularly the first half) where the jokes were genuinely funny.

Was gonna give it a 4 but it was genuinely good to see faces from the old YouTube 2011 era such as the two main characters themselves and others( Diary of a Badman, Smokey barbers and Black and Brown). Not to mention the acting is top notch and the budget was utilised well.

Overall it's a film I would recommend to watch once and not numerous times.