MovieChat Forums > Sing Street (2016) Discussion > Not as good as the critics said

Not as good as the critics said

posted 8 years ago by LawrenceOfAlabama
25 replies | jump to latest

I've heard many gush over this film. I just couldn't really get behind the contrived setups:

The songs were almost studio grade from the beginning.

The bully was so easy to get him to change course.

The head master priest was straight out of The Wall. Hitting kids in the face with no worry of a parent beating his ass?

Some of it was also just polished over:

Wanted to at least know the band members. Other than one liking rabbits I didn't feel like they were really that much of a team.

The sister? In the conversation with the older brother he states he paved the way for his younger brother. So where did the sister fit in?

Decent film that does make you remember the MTV days. But where Once made you care for the material, Sing Street makes you miss the decade.

[–] wooody 8 years ago

I don't believe this film was targeted for residents of Alabama....

[–] LawrenceOfAlabama 8 years ago

And I'm the narrow minded redneck?

Don't you think it's just as ignorant to judge someone based on their location?

I'm sure the world only listens to those who are fortunate enough to live where your from.

[–] nlpnt 7 years ago

A lot of it was *very* Irish and didn't expend a lot of effort explaining things. Brother Baxter calling Conor "pretty" is a blink-and-you'll-miss-it, but Ireland was marinating in the Catholic Church abuse scandals for almost a full decade before it broke in the US.

*The only true currency in this world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool.*

[–] LawrenceOfAlabama 8 years ago

Also I made some valid points. You dismissed it with a profile based on your own narrow mind.

[–] wooody 8 years ago

Everything you said is TRUE...you did make valid points and no one should be judged...at the very least by me. I apologize. I hope you enjoy Lawrence of ARABIA.. one of my all time faves... Roll Tide!!

[–] RickVee 7 years ago

Wooody is a bigot

[–] wooody 7 years ago

It's like you read my mind......Keep up the excellent sleuthing, better yet, get a life...

[–] rek16803 8 years ago

Not as good as the critics said

The ratings it has gotten from Viewers on Rotten Tomatoes is 97 % positive.
You seem to be one of the 3 % trashing the film and didn't like it.

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/sing_street/reviews/?page=8&type=user

[–] LawrenceOfAlabama 8 years ago

Not trashing it. I thought Once was an amazing tale of musicians and a love story. This film was hailed, by several critics I read, as one of the years best films. I just can't see how it is even an above average film. Is it because of us setting? Sure it was nice to see another location besides USA and England in this setting.

But that alone just didn't elevate this film the way the reviews are touting it. The lead actor was not that amazing. The music wasn't that memorable (the new stuff) and films like That thing you Do and Music & Lyrics were far more enjoyable. To me.

To me this was akin to Be Kind Rewind without a story that made you vested.

Once again I will say the older brother was a good character; but the band/lead/and girl were so one dimensional it was cringe worthy.

Take the scene wher he met her on the steps. What was her direction? To wait for him to swoon her? He didn't even know the words to Take on Me but he built his plan on being a child of the 80s pop scene.

A better script with better characters was needed to pull this piece of nostalgia bait from ok to good.

[–] rek16803 8 years ago

The lead actor was not that amazing.

The director / Movie Writer deliberately wanted natural unknown actors to play the band members and also ones that could be innocent and authentic in their performance.
No one would have believed the film's lead actor if they had been well known from other films like " Harry Potter or Superbad, etc" . I know I wouldn't have,

I bought into every scene with Cosmo especially the picnic scene , because of his innocence and naivety qualities. I wasn't expecting , nor did I want to see a Michael Cera or a denial Radcliffe type in that role. the movie would have lost its authenticity if it did.

[–] nolearylaw 8 years ago

BRAVO!!

[–] d-garutti 8 years ago

I agreed 100% w/ OP. Cheap melodrama, nothing new user the sun. 6/10

[–] wooody 8 years ago

This coming from the genius that rated that scary cutting edge Wall E a bleeping 9!!

[–] TheLastStop41 7 years ago

I don't know about anyone else, but I find it odd that you're trying to discredit someone's opinion by referencing their love for a movie that is generally agreed upon as being great.

For what it's worth, I LOVED Sing Street.

Illusions Michael. Tricks are something a whore does for money.

[–] RickVee 7 years ago

The movie was average at best in part because of how weak the songs were. A movie about music and there was not even one quality song in it.

[–] rek16803 7 years ago

A movie about music and there was not even one quality song in it. [quote]

Yeah, those grade school kids should have been as good at writing songs as Van Halen, the Beatles or Bruce Springsteen right off the bat.
The songs were good but not so good that you would find yourself taken out of the movie because you would know that kids in a newly formed band couldn't possibly write fantastic songs that Musicians with 20 years of experience could write.
Get real.

[–] RickVee 7 years ago

Total straw man argument by you, rek16803. I never said, or even implied, that the songs had to be as good as all-time classics. That would not be necessary. But the songs have to at least be quality - i.e. catchy, enjoyable. That's a must in any musical. The songs in this film were garbage. They genuinely sucked.

The movie that Sing Street gets compared to is Once. Once showed a guy busking on the streets of Dublin - not a guy who was a professional world class musician. And Once works in large part because the songs in that film are quality.

[–] rek16803 7 years ago

The songs in this film were garbage. They genuinely sucked

Only to you apparently. Even critics said the bass hook in "The Riddle of the Model" was something that would turn heads of music producers at most record labels." Up" was genuinely original and could have been written by talented young music protégés . Hell I just went to the News Years Eve Duran Duran concert last night in Washington DC and those founding band members were still in High School when they started in the 1970's. Genesis and U2 are also ones that formed while in HS. This film was not about street busking by a solo artist like in Once, it was about a formation of a band to write songs to impress a girl to get her in their videos. The whole movie was enjoyable and plausible, the evidence of which is virtually every movie critic, newspaper reviewer praising it, and its 97 % viewer rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It appears you are the anomaly on this one, and that's really a shame.

[–] wooody 7 years ago

Well said. This was my favorite film of 2016. The music was brilliant.

[–] wooody 7 years ago

And yet one of the songs was nominated for a Golden Globe and is favored to be nominated for an Oscar but what do THEY know. We should continue to listen to the southern country stylings of Ricky Vee........

Thanks so much for checking in....

[–] tpjohn8 7 years ago

i'm surprised it has a critics average rating of 8.1 in rotten tomatoes by 160 odd critics . this is a good movie but not a 8.1 may be a 7-7.5 for me at best. my expectations were huge seeing the 97% ,8.1 on RT.yeah it's a feel good movie and i may appreciate it more when iam watching this at a point when iam down on my luck in life and need some motivation

[–] jaroto 7 years ago

You are mostly wrong OP.

1. The songs were good, because you can't have half of the movie with horrible music, but anyway there is stuff thay justified it. The first thing they recorded was awful and The "Riddle of the Model" was average. Those were good enough to show a decent start. In the scene when they performed "Drive it like you stole it" (the most elaborated song) Cosmo is obviously imaginating all the sequence, so we can assume the real sound isn't that great. Same can be implied with "Up", when Cosmo says "This is going to sound great with the band"...so the way the song sounds could all be in his imagination.

2. I agree the Bully changed his course too easy, but sometimes it's all about timing. He wasn't a leader of a gang, he was mostly a loner, and he obvioulsy liked the band and felt envy with all the security Cosmo showed when he confronted him. So getting the opportunity to be part of it by doing what he likes the most, while he was being humilliated by his parents and failing in school. I mean it's not that hard to understand a change of heart.

3. Child abuse in schools was very common in the 80s. There's no need to elaborate in this.

4. I would have also liked to know more about the other band members. Maybe an extra scene would have helped. The scene when they are traveling in train shows them having fun...that helps a little to show they are actually a team.

5. Brandan was the oldest of the 3. He can say he paved the the way to both. Even then daughters usually get a different treatment by parents. What he said made sense to me.

[–] bjamzilla 7 years ago

I liked it. I just didn't see anything unique about it. I found myself being reminded of other similarly themed movies. The brother for example, reminded me of Jack Black in School of Rock, another slacker with a musical obsession. It also felt too short. It felt lacking and yes, I'd already felt like I'd seen this movie(On the Disney channe actually.) But I liked the acting and overall enjoyed it. That's all that mattters. I don't see it deserving all this praise, but it seems I'm in the minority.

Wildcattin'...Wildcattin'. Pow! I'm gonna go.

[–] reverbz 7 years ago

Seems like you are nitpicking a little there... I try not to overanalyze a movie as I prefer having a more serious attitude with more important things.