Blackbird

I watched this film on line a few days ago and really struggled to watch it all the way through, though I did spend some of the time playing a card game on my phone.

It is essentially a series of poorly executed cliches more stolen than 'based upon' old movies. The acting ranges from disinterested to awful and the experience left me surprised that I couldn't even laugh at it. Just bad.

I note that 5 reviews award it 10/10. Mmmm. I quite liked the Austin Powers movies, but I hadn't realised they were masterpieces until I half-watched this.

I hadn't realised until afterwards that Mr Flatley had produced this as a sort of 'vanity project', but that does go some way to explaining the inexplicable heroism and misogynism on display here.

OK, I've watched this so that you don't need to.

Rather than review this on here, I'd encourage you to chase up Mark Kermode's rant. Not only is Kermode on sparkling, witty form, but he also tells you all that you need to know about why you shouldn't watch this. And let me just qualify that: ever.

Kermode said: "It's not just bad - it's eye-wateringly awful. There are scenes in this that Tommy Wiseau, who made The Room, would have said, 'I'm sorry, that's actually not up to snuff - we're going to have to take that out ... This is not cinema; this is something so staggeringly self-regarding. I've seen a lot of very bad performances, but this is in a stratosphere of his own."

This review doesn't contain spoilers, because they would add nothing to what is already spoiled beyond repair.

How are people giving this more than one star? You're only encouraging him to make a sequel. It's just awful.

He can't act, the actors don't want to act. The dialogue is like something a twelve year old boy would write and get a D in English. It absolutely crawls along and spends most of the film focusing on the "what happened ten year years ago" story.

The opening funeral scene is like a bad Bord Failte ad for the American market. He even has the lad playing Uileann pipes in the bar.

There are a couple of genuine laugh out loud scenes (that are not meant to be funny) That said, I couldn't turn it off as I just had to see could it get any better/WORSE, soI suppose it merits the one star by default.

This film should have been made in Kansas. The dialogue is so corny, that even the B actors trying to say the lines at least deserve an award for keeping a straight face as they deliver these lines of drivel. The film must have been written by a first year film student during his or her lunch break. The dialogue is so bad, it sounds improvised without a director present. There is no director on earth who could have saved this turkey. They would have been much better off trying to play this as a satire, but it would have failed badly at that as well. Please do not waste your money seeing this poor excuse for a film. I saw it for free, and needed two gin and tonics to get over my experience.

The strangest thing about Michael Flatley's 90-minute animated selfie is how dated it is. A sort of action-free action remake of Casablanca is one thing, but Flatley hasn't moved on (in 2018) from servile magic black men, skinny women whose job is simply to appear nearly naked, high-stakes Texas hold'em (ffs that was old in 1999), and indeterminately Middle Eastern bad guys.

Eric Roberts can't seem to manage his teeth, the hotel singer cannot speak intelligibly - I don't think this is a disability-opportunity casting - and never mind Flatley's stupid hats; he must have been measured for his clothes before a particularly self-indulgent Christmas.

Like Claude Rains channelling William Shatner as depicted by George Galloway.

If it was fast-moving, it might be approaching hilariously bad, but it's slower than a wer Sunday in Rosscarberry.