Film: Adulthood

I loved Kidulthood, the 2005 film which Adulthood follows on from. It's six years later as we join Sam in his first day after being released from prison, and we see how his freedom affects him and those around him.

Having such a firm basis to go on, Adulthood had most of its premise already made for it. We're still in gritty West London, where crime seems to pay pretty well and the place is full of kids that would keep The Daily Mail busy for years. There's still the same violence, sex and foul language we saw before although in my opinion it was used in a less real and authentic way.

But that's not the least of the problems this film has. There was definitely something missing throughout - I blame the shallow, single minded plot as it desperately tried to get through to the end. The film end up being just a roll call really, and fails even in that as some of the characters have changed in the last six years.

Gone are the layers and side arcs that made the previous film so ace; there's no romance, there's no comedy and there's no realism. The acting is also not up to par, although since that was hardly the compelling reason to watch the previous film either that's more an observation than a criticism.

So a bit of a let down then? It's hard to imagine anything from the stables that brought us Kidulthood to be a cash in, yet that's exactly what Adulthood feels like. That's pretty unfortunate actually.