Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

The movie runs out of plot and jokes well before the end of a two-hour running time, long for a light comedy.

One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.

What can I say? Young lads in love with music and in love with life itself... Emilia Clark more attractive than ever, Stone Roses tunes that stick to your mind, the feeling of that era in your face... Excellent. TOTALLY RECOMMENDED.

It's May 1990, Great Britain, and The Stone Roses are about to play a monumental outdoor gig at Spike Island in Widnes, Cheshire. A bunch of teenage acolytes of the band, aspiring musicians themselves, embark on a journey to Spike Island whist at the same time embarking on personal journeys of the real life kind.Us Brits do like ourselves a coming of age drama set to the backdrop of musical importance. Mat Whitecross (Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll) taps into the era of Baggy Manchester, of a Northern Britain dominated by pills, thrills and romantic bellyaches. To many of a certain age The Stone Roses were "their" Beatles, a power pop foursome that rocked it big time, their influence on the British music industry is still being felt today. This in spite of their relatively short life span. Re: The Sex Pistols at Winterland, see The Stone Roses at Spike Island (in other words it was a pretty awful gig all told).However, the band are secondary to the teen angst narrative threads, to the scallywag japes and sexual growing pains. As Messrs Ian Brown and John Squire weave their chordal magic in the background, a bunch of spotty Herbert's with mad mac haircuts and iffy accents try and make sense of it all, of life, death, loves and hates. Music binds them together, but does anything else?It's all very formulaic stuff, but for those of the time, or for those with a love for how music can define your life, or at the least shape its direction, then this hits the requisite chords. It's funny at times and the cast are ebullient enough to carry the clichéd and thin material home, but come the finale you will be remembering the soundtrack more than the story itself. 6.5/10

'Spike Island' takes place in 1990 and follows a teenage band as they prepare to attend a concert given by the Stone Roses rock group. The characters are strictly two-dimensional: there's the good-looking one who gets the girl, the shy sensitive one who's the only member of the band with any musical talent, the elder brother idolised by his younger sibling but who turns out to have feet of clay, etc. Nor are the situations they get into particularly new or inventive. Worth watching once, but not again. It stars lots of people Britons have seen on television (Elliott Tittensor - 'Shameless' - in the leading role probably accounted for the large number of men in the audience when I saw the film, but don't get excited - Tittensor strips to his boxers, but that's as far as he goes). Lesley Manville provides a bit of acting class.

The only reason you would go to see this film is if you're a Stone Roses fan, that much is obvious. Fortunately for the director this is just enough to carry you through a disjointed, underdeveloped and cliché riddled script. The intended demographic is clearly people like me, 40 + year old men who lived through the period and hold dear the Roses and whole Madchester scene. Yet the film plays like a film aimed at teenagers, with set pieces used merely as an excuse to overlay a Roses classic. Although the characters are likable their development is soap opera at best, their dialogue hugely clichéd and dishonest and when the script does enter interesting territory it is quickly dismissed to cover another bullet point on the 'coming of age movie' tick list. The Stone Roses reformation has been such a wonderful thing for thousands of fans all over the world. This film actually annoyed me as it belittles real emotion and makes honest affection appear contrived.