Spike Island

source: Spike Island

Set around 1990 Spike Island concerns five young British lads who have a pickup band in their after school hours and they are a rambunctious bunch when not making music. They decide to go on a mission to see a concert by their idols the Stone Roses who originated in Manchester. They've got no money so they have to use all kinds of wiles and strategy to get there. The object: get a demo tape to their idols. I suppose if I watch this a few times as I had to with A Hard Day's Night to get down the Manchester accent the way I had to get what John, Paul, George and Ringo were saying in their Liverpudlian speech. Made it kind of hard on these American ears. Leads Elliott Tittensor and Nico Millenegros are quite talented and appealing. And if you were a British youth of the period I think you'll like this film.

Spike Island is the kind of film that makes you nostalgic. Very nostalgic. But that doesn't deter the fact that the story is something we've seen a dozen times before in this sub- genre of film. There's your group of friends, and they are an aspiring group who are desperate to get tickets to the titular event, featuring everyone's favourite band of the nineties, The Stone Roses. They all have their individual problems. Ones dad is dying, ones dad is abusing him, one fancies the girl, but she fancies the other from the group, so on, and so on. But it makes it an easy watch. Its funny in places, dramatic when it needs to be, and characters are ones you've seen in endless nostalgic movies. But it captures the early nineties down to a tee. The music was, and still is phenomenal, and The Roses music is used with the utmost respect that it deserves. So its a good nostalgia trip, albeit a little predictable, but would make a great double bill with Shane Meadows documentary.

'Spike Island' takes place in 1990 and follows a teenage band as they prepare to attend a concert given by the Stone Roses rock group. The characters are strictly two-dimensional: there's the good-looking one who gets the girl, the shy sensitive one who's the only member of the band with any musical talent, the elder brother idolised by his younger sibling but who turns out to have feet of clay, etc. Nor are the situations they get into particularly new or inventive. Worth watching once, but not again. It stars lots of people Britons have seen on television (Elliott Tittensor - 'Shameless' - in the leading role probably accounted for the large number of men in the audience when I saw the film, but don't get excited - Tittensor strips to his boxers, but that's as far as he goes). Lesley Manville provides a bit of acting class.

Great story to keep me interested. Hoping there was going to be cameos by The Stone Roses but none the less still a great film. The story of 4 guys wanting to start a band always sounds cliché. "Maybe if we start a band we can be big and tour the world!" Not exactly like this here. They just pure and simply want to give there demo to Ian Brown which is somewhat unrealistic in my opinion but you know what? It's different. No one else thinks to do this with a plot line. It is a change. Whether it's language, accent, scenery etc. I just got really interested on every characters development. Knowing they can do better than what they are already doing. Working with the sources they have to build up a sense of what recording music and producing music is like. I give this a solid 10 for that!

As a British person, I felt a personal connection to this film - trust me, it got everything spot on! I liked this film a lot - it was your typical film bout a group of friends going on an adventure (Think Stand By Me if the characters were older and a lot more obsessed with girls and pop rock bands). It was fun, there were lot of laughs. But it was also more than that. It dealt with a lot of issues, subtly at least. The emphasis was on the music, but the underlying angst was there. I can't exactly put my finger on why I enjoyed this movie so much, but there it is: I liked it. Definitely worth a watch, and, of course, a listen to that soundtrack.

I was a teenager in 1990 when this film was set and The Stone Roses formed a backdrop to my angsty early 90s teenage years. The use of music, clothing, hairstyles etc. in this film is very evocative and true to the era and positively influenced my score above what it probably really deserves. The story itself doesn't really know what it wants to be. Most of the film is light comedy romp, a fun celebration of youth, but after coming to a seemingly ecstatic climax, we get an unexpectedly harsh comedown of an ending. Whilst this improves the film overall, a bit too much drama is injected in too short a time which jars with the tone and pace of rest of the film.

Some years ago I used to go pass Ian Brown's house every day on my commute to work. When I say house, it was actually the prison he was residing in after Brown was convicted for threatening behaviour. Spike Island is a meandering low budget film of a fictional Manchester band made up of teenagers with terrible nicknames planning to attend The Stone Roses concert at Spike Island in Merseyside and hand a demo tape to them. It is a daft plan, they have no tickets, they take a van from of the boy's uncle and they try to blag their way into the concert. The film's characters are thinly sketched out and it consists of the usual family issues and girlfriend problems. It does have some nice Stone Roses tunes though but relies on nostalgia too much and the Madchester scene is a fading memory to many.

Spike island was an amazing film that I would happily watch over and over. I was inspired to watch this as I like the period it was set in (1990s). As a teen I thought it was brilliant as well as many members of my family. Before this film I had never really listened to the stone roses but watching this film influenced me and now I really enjoy their music. Also some of the main cast in spike island I like such as 'dodge'. I like the whole atmosphere of the film and the themes as there is sadness, love and fun. I would suggest this film to anyone as I enjoyed it so much. It's great!! Another reason why this film is so fantastic is because it is so funny in some parts. I think this film is to varied people's tastes and you don't really have to be a fan of the stone roses as it's not that much about them it's more about how they bring people together nearer to the end. This film made me want to have been bought up during this period. I thank the producer for making this film as its so so so so good and amazing!!!!! 😊😊🎉😜🎶🎶

Nice story. Simple straight forward, and well acted. These young actors take you on a journey that changes all of their lives forever trying anything they can think of to get into the concert of their generation. There is a very strong sense of family in this movie, you see both the good, and the bad sides, and you see how people will create a family to shield themselves from all of the bad. I Enjoyed the youth, and vigor of these people, and the feeling that they are all giants walking among the people always above the rest, and sort of worshiped all the more. Mostly though this is just a nice little coming of age film with some good music, and acting.