FILM
STING
★★★
OUT 31 MAY / CERT 15 / 92 MINS
DIRECTOR Kiah Roache-Turner
CAST Ryan Corr, Alyla Browne, Penelope Mitchell, Jermaine Fowler
While its depiction of a small spider that grows increasingly larger and more violent is hugely compelling, the family dynamics at the core of Sting are considerably less so. Other than 12-year-old Charlotte (Alyla Browne), most of the characters are one-dimensional; that’s easily forgiven if they’re just there to outlive a giant spider, but it’s a problem when they take up so much of the film’s 92-minute runtime. There’s little in the interplay between Charlotte and her parents that we haven’t seen before, and apart from some brief gruesome flashes, the spider-y goodness really only shows up for the beginning and end. That leaves the vast majority of Sting as a dysfunctional-family drama that never manages to get you wrapped up in its web.