It's 1985. Brian Jackson (James McAvoy) lives with his widower mother Julie (Catherine Tate) at a seaside town and spends his days with his slacker friends Tone (James Corden) and Spencer (Dominic Cooper). His memory of his late father consists of watching the TV show University Challenge. At Bristol University, he befriends politically active Rebecca Epstein (Rebecca Hall) in his first party. He signs up for the Challenge and helps Alice Harbinson (Alice Eve) cheat her way onto the team. The team is led by the twitchy obsessive Patrick Watts (Benedict Cumberbatch). Brian starts dating the sexy Alice.This is a very appealing young cast. It's got good 80's Brit music. The story has plenty of love-lorn hormonal young people. It's got fun bits. It's great that Alice Eve isn't an airhead or a villain. However, Rebecca Hall needs a lot more screen time in the first half of the film. The tone does careen around sometimes. It's a nice movie and great to see some funny early Cumberbatch.

This film has to be one of my favourites since I was forced to watch it by cultural people. Luckily I was not disappointed.The general story is of a Brian (McAvoy), an intelligent and clever young man who after going to university in Bristol, joins the University Challenge team. During this time, he falls for an attractive blonde on the team called Alice (Eve) while being completely oblivious to the affections of the beautiful intellectual, Rebecca Epstein (Hall).The film has a great cast and some good comedy moments. A great cast, and some good dialogue. There's not much else to say about it, but that if you ever feel unhappy and depressed, watch this gem, it will not disappoint in cheering you up.

Alright I confess that I don't see or understand the charms of Mr McEvoy but putting my prejudices on one side I have to say I've had more fun with a rectal exam.This film takes dullness to new levels. It's excruciating even if you have your observers book of Brit-film clichés with you and are intent on crossing a few hundred of them off.Imagine, if you will, a love child fathered by Four Weddings on the blushing maiden known as The Holiday and you get an idea of how bad this film is.Everyone involved should be thoroughly ashamed - apart from Mark Gatiss.

"Starter for 10" is a charming coming-of-age comedy set in the Thatcher-era Britain of the mid 1980s. Brian Jackson ("Atonement"'s James McAvoy) is a brainy lad with an insatiable appetite for facts who leaves his home in Essex to attend university in Bristol. Almost immediately, he becomes a member of the school's academic quiz team, falls madly in love with his drop-dead gorgeous teammate, Alice, and catches the eye of an earthy social crusader by the name of Rebecca. Meanwhile, the team prepares for a trivia bowl competition to be broadcast on nationwide TV.Adapted by David Nicholls from his novel and directed by Tom Vaughan, "Starter for 10" has all the drollery, dryness and wit we've come to expect from the best of British humor. McAvoy exudes a great deal of charisma as the intelligent young man who finds that shedding his lower-class origins and proving his smarts in a university setting is not going to be quite as easy as he thought it would be; and Dominic Cooper, Rebecca Epstein, Alice Eve and Benedict Cumberbatch match him in likability and appeal. The movie also playfully captures the sights and sounds of the era in which it is set, with crowds of placard-waving young people dressed in "Flashdance" and New Wave-inspired attire protesting everything from apartheid to pollution to nuclear proliferation while synthesizer-laden music pounds away in the background.But it is as a hilarious and insightful human comedy that the film earns our real attention and affection. And that '80s-infused soundtrack (featuring The Cure and The Psychedelic Furs, among others) may just be the inspiration you need to finally ferret out those long-discarded leg warmers and head bands from the back of your closet.