Popcorn

It’s probably not my place to judge a picture whose target audience (according to its makers) consists of 15-year-old boys looking for tips on talking to girls they want to kiss. If it helps a few kids on the tortuous path through adolescent loin-ache, mazel tov. As paid entertainment, though, ‘Popcorn’ is halitosis. Shy Danny (Jack Ryder, late of ‘EastEnders’) has a crush on one of the popcorn-jockeys at his local multiplex, so he gets a job there himself. When it turns out to be her last day, he has his work cut out in both learning the ropes and getting the girl. A gaggle of other staff are on hand, notably projectionist Zak (Luke de Woolfson), a self-styled mentor of movie-style lurve.

The film’s ‘Scream’-style attempts to play by teen romcom genre rules while broadly winking at them ring weakly false on both counts. Almost entirely contained within the multiplex, its unapologetically contrived action is hamstrung by cripplingly awkward dialogue, stale compositions and the harsh, flat sheen of what might well be the strip lighting of the cinema where shooting took place. Attempting to meld the movies and life, the result feels like neither. Its makers, like its characters, could perhaps do with getting out a bit more.