Though not a complete waste of time, 'Eighteen' really wasn't all sweet as it pretended to be. Nor are the ages of the actors they're portraying 18, my butt. McKellen could have actually shown up in the film telling us he was 30 and ask us to believe it. Even Michael J. Fox was more believable as a teen in 'Back to the Future' Parts II and III (okay, maybe not; they're probably equal believability.) If you can get past the obvious age flaw, you'll have either the complete void of acting or simply overacting (Paul Anthony's so called anguish, Clarence Sponagle's Lifetime moments, and even though I do favor Brendan Fletcher, it's best to just watch him, and more, in 'Freddy Vs. Jason,') incomprehensible scenes (a faster than Britney Spears marriage, incest to prove a point and a man who needs help to urinate, but still has one hand free I'm guessing this was the writer's fantasy,) an entire movie of despicable characters (Anthony might be playing someone that's 18, but acts like he's 12 and some odd "john" thrown in so Anthony's character Pip can save the day was there really a sex scene in front of a baby?) and practically every character questioning their own sexuality by strange actions/scenes. On the positive side, I did enjoy Ian McKellen's voice-over, seeing a (rarely well portrayed) straight/gay friendship, puppy love (from someone who collects stuffed puppies, that is,) good score, some decent dialogue (love the separation of gays and pedophilia wish more people would realize that) and acting from the female leads (as well as Cumming.) I can't really recommend it as it's really trying to be too many things gay tolerance, gay hustling, homelessness, WWII epic, priesthood, first love, flawed judges, etc, etc, etc on a shoestring budget.
