Can you fault a movie for being pleasant? Or more specifically, how can you be mean to a movie like The Flying Scissors, which just seems so nice? It's not that it's a good movie - believe me, it's not - but this mockumentary about the national finals of a Rock Paper Scissors competition tries so hard to be likeable, you feel bad beating up on it. But you know what? I think I'm up to it, so here goes: Liberally ripping off tone and motif from Christopher Guest's movies, Arrested Development, and the sports comedies of Will Ferrell, Flying Scissors brings together a cast of characters joined by their lack of characterization, limited depth, and occasional racism. And while it hopes to ape the success of those previous movies, it has neither the wit nor the structure to support its ambitions. Specifically, why does a ninety minute movie spend most of its running time on these bland characters not interacting, before taking the last, brief moments of the movie to have them compete in a tournament? At which point, other than one scene, the characters don't even talk anyway? Wouldn't it have been far more interesting to give us the broad sketches, then bring them all together and watch the sparks fly? What's the point of having all these characters repeatedly introduced in various ways, if we can't see them actually do anything? To be more precise: This is the first movie with a three act structure I've ever seen where the third act was shorter and significantly less important than the previous two acts. It isn't all bad, though. Most of the jokes fall flat, but they're competently delivered by the actors, who for the most part hit the Guest mockumentary tone just right. This isn't that laudable an acheivement, as anyone with a camera has attempted the mockumentary format, so these actors, mostly veterans of similarly formatted web series, have had a lot of practice. And the music is pretty good throughout, a small triumph for an independantly financed movie. Also, for the most part, the movie is competently directed, though director and co-writer Jonah Tulis relies too much on close-cropped talking head shots. The last little bit that doesn't work, and a warning to other prospective Guest tribute creators: how does your world work? Rock Paper Scissors, in the movie, is clearly popular enough to have a tournament, rent out Madison Square Garden, and attract an audience. But most of the non-RPS players don't know that it's a sport, or care about it, and there seem to be only two staff members running the national organization. The movie may not have a mean bone in its body, but you still have to get the skeleton in there, or the whole thing will fall apart.