It was quite good but I am let down again by all the hype and 100% fawning reviews. I wish reviews these days were a bit more level headed. For a start, the uncle character isn't very good imo, he doesn't do or say enough and is just quite a shallow character overall which is a shame because I think the film needed more of him. The only character I actually liked in this film was the lady who died almost right at the start (she seemed a great actress too, what a waste.) To me this is a film for kids because the kid takes all the screen time, and almost everything he says is for the amusement of other kids. Everything he says about rappers and going out in a blaze of glory etc, it is all very 'young'. Also most of the characters in the film are cartoony/comic book style actors. The bad guys, the dumb cop, the Cruella-esque child support lady etc.. it is all very pantomime or more like a kids TV show. That is fine, movies for young people are fine, I just wish I had more of a heads up before I decided to watch it, but of course reviews don't dare mention that because they are too busy fawning all over it. At times it reminded me of The Goonies with the sense of adventure the film has, but this film just isn't any way near as good as that was. The kid is quite endearing, but he is also quite a downer, and there are no other characters to have any comic relief. It is all just the one morbidly obese depressed kid. The story itself is very dark and depressing too, it is trying to tell me that their society so broken that a sweet kid was thrown away by his own parents and then every foster family failed to engage with him and this was the last family left before him spending life in juvie. So he joins this last family, and then she dies moments later. Fun times.

I still had some enjoyment with it though. There are some very funny lines and it was an interesting tale. But I think the story could have been better, and the characters. And I think if it wants to be a kids film, it should have been more fun, more goonies, more kids, more adventure, more mayhem, more excitement, more being chased by baddies, less grumpy old man and dead parent etc. And if it wanted to be fun for the family, it should have got rid of all the campy stuff. Not bad, but not the masterpiece the reviews tell me. I am on a film binge at the moment and I'm learning I no longer trust reviews at all.