"it was wonderful, charming and totally infectious"

I'm a bit lost. Sounds Like Teen Spirit ticks a lot of boxes. It's full of genuine and engaging characters, it's cringey, funny and touching all at once, there's nail-biting-holding-your-breath suspense aplenty, and it teaches you a little something about different countries, cultures and their preferred choice of pop - always a bonus! In fact, the first version of this review, the one scribbled mostly on the tube, had me gushing about the warm-like-honey sweet-like-ice-cream glorious cutesynes of this film for a whole 3 paragraphs.

But the thing is, much as I fell completely in love with the subjects, I'm not sure how much the makers should be credited. I'm sorry, I just don't think they tackled a very challenging subject. Who doesn't coo over babies, kittens or puppies? No one (and if you don't you're clearly made of stone and should be made to watch Disney cartoons until you come out all rosy and sweet, Wednesday Adams stylee). Y'see, it's just a bit easy.

Maybe that on its own is fine. More then fine - it was wonderful, charming and totally infectious. And at the end of the day, I'm not going to blame anyone for wanting to bring these gorgeous kids' pain, passion and extraordinary determination to the public. They are all amazing little people. The pride they felt at being picked to represent their country and actually feeling like its reputation depended on their performance is totally smack-in-the-stomach overwhelming.

So why is it that the (also very sweet) director Jamie J Johnson insisted on such weird special effects and random cuts to talk about ancient European history. Did he feel the film lacked substance? Because ohmygawd is so does not. I just don't get it. If only he'd left those bits out and replaced them with more awesomeness I'd have given this a full 5 out of 5, despite the easy topic. Alas, now it'll only get 4.