GODSPELL no stars

 Never having seen this on stage I must admit director David Greene has done a very good job of opening up "Godspell" for the big screen. The question is, was it worth opening up in the first place? Like "Jesus Christ, Superstar" it's another hippie rock musical based on the life of Christ but whereas "...Superstar" stayed reasonably close to the 'facts' as we know them and adhered fairly closely to biblical locations this, like "Hair, transfers Jesus and his disciples to contemporary New York, turning them into hippies.

This might have worked had its score been on the same level as Andrew Lloyd Webber's classic or if it had a director of the caliber of Milos Forman but here the score is largely insipid and mostly forgettable and quite frankly, not the kind of thing to turn either a hippie or a Christian on and it's unlikely that this thoroughly banal film will convert anyone. In fact, if you are a follower of Jesus, after seeing "Godspell",  you might actually start looking the other way.

CONSEQUENCES no stars

 "Consequences" is well directed by first-time director Darko Stante and mostly well acted by its young cast but it is also thoroughly unpleasant and more than something of a downer. Andrej, (Matej Zemljic), is a young thug who winds up in a reform school where he falls in with Zele, (Timon Sturbej), and his group of bullies but Andrej is also secretly gay and it doesn't take Zele long to figure that out and use it to his advantage.

This is a Slovenian coming-of-age movie set in a world of violence and full of characters with no redeeming qualities and where, in view of everything else that is happening, the LGBTQ+ angle is spurious to say the least, Zemljic may be physically attractive but his performance carries no conviction and it's left to the thoroughly nasty Sturbej to walk away with the picture. Still, there are better ways to pass the time.