The Last Bus

For a tender movie that follows an old man on a long and demanding multi-bus excursion to honor his late wife’s wishes, the placid affair has curiously little emotional range, and an even narrower sense of stakes.

[A] plodding road-trip movie...

It's just depressingly crude and underworked.

As beautiful as some of the landscapes are, and as brilliant as Spall is in repose, there is only so much sitting on a bus looking wistful that one actor can do.

Try as I might, I couldn't make friends with this weirdly unreal and sentimental Britmovie in the last-journey-with-someone's-ashes genre.

“The Last Bus” is several things, but above all it’s a moving meditation on life, love, and the commitments we make to those closest to us. It’s also a beautiful reminder of the blessing of memories.

Adding a modern social-media twist to the episodic odyssey only exacerbates the sappiness Spall cant entirely mitigate.

Spall does what he can -- but The Last Bus only sputters to life and credibility in a few flashback sequences.

A typical English film. Meaning it features a rather small story, is filled with quirky moments, involves no action sequences, and strong acting.

Too straightforward to have gone anywhere not expected.