James Adams

As is often the case in these caper flicks, there’s too much plot for insufficient dramatic effect, and alert viewers will suss out where it’s all heading in the first five minutes.

Unfortunately, The East is not a very good movie, hobbled by an excess of plot, a lack of believability and big gaps of logic.

Upside Down is no more than one big-budget, gussied-up fairy tale – a topsy-turvy Romeo and Juliet.

The premise (and the promise) here, of course, is that, as the miles pass, the two will be as chalk is to cheese, oil to vinegar, an apple to an orange. And indeed this is what happens. Unfortunately, it's about the only thing that happens.

This little movie – it's only 83 minutes – seems so determined to if not avoid, then only caress the tropes of slacker films that it commits the worst sin for a comedy: It's boring.