Ian Barker

A film with a beginning, half a middle and no end. Crammed full of talent with nothing to do (Anthony Ramos pukes, Kaitlyn Dever answers her phone, Willa Fitzgerald buys some food and looks worried, Greta Lee answers her phone for a bit longer than Ms.Dever). I'm sure everyone was desperate to work with Ms.Bigelow, but they should have glanced at a script. The message is 'Nuclear weapons are bad'. Not exactly Earth shattering news, unless one actually goes off, which it doesn't in this mess. The clock stops, quite literally, at the last second. If you are looking for a great anti-nuke film try 'Fail Safe', 'Seven Days In May', 'On The Beach', Dr.Strangelove', 'When The Wind Blows', even 'The Sum Of All Fears' does a great job AND all of these films have great scripts, rounded performances and an ending. If the other message is 'the people in charge are both out of their depth and badly advised' then anyone who watches the nightly news knows that already. In fact anyone who watches SNL or Bill Maher knows it too. This is two hours you will never get back, so don't bother.

Mitchell and Webb are NOT funny! Unless the programme's title is supposed to be literal, in which case it should have been 'Mitchell and Webb Are Not Helping Us Laugh Or Even Crack A Smile'!! The only ones laughing are M and W's accountants! Look, I like the guys both as a double act and as single entities, 'playing' themselves on a game show or acting a part, but this is terrible. The humour is meant to be ironic, but lacks the bite of "Are we the baddies?" for example. There is a great deal to vent about in today's society, but the low hanging fruit of 'sweary' Aussies, bad quiz/game shows, David Mitchell being a c**t or Robert Webb being dead are not what we've come to expect. The support cast are very hit and miss. Lara Ricote is very twitchy and annoying, Kiel Smith-Bynoe, whilst amusing on 'Taskmaster', cannot act and does not sell his characters. Stevie Martin is always convincing, but needs worthy material, something as brilliant as her 'Smarty- White Paint' role for instance. The 'Smarty' ads are the ideal example of why Mitchell and Webb have failed so spectacularly in this endeavour. The humour is so soaked in irony and labours the point and, so, loses it's edge. Whereas the 30 second one hit 'Smarty' ads are short, sharp, acerbic and lightly laced with sarcasm and irony. This whole thing could have been avoided had producers and editors with more clout than the stars been on board. Someone like any of the thousands of disappointed viewers who could have said "Sorry Bob and Dave it's not funny." A John Lloyd type might have done wonders!! 1 out of 5.