Blockers

The marketing team behind Blockers must not have had much faith in the movie they were selling. The ad campaign is the most frustrating form of bait and switch. Specifically, the ads promised a raunchy sex comedy but instead, they delivered a mawkishly sentimental drama about self-empowered teens. Now I know what you’re thinking. They actually marketed it as something that is less respected? I know. I’m confused too. There’s nothing particularly noble or admirable about a bawdy picture fixated on human beings attempting to have sex. Yet that idea has been the inspiration for a lot of films. Some admittedly hilarious ones as a matter of fact.  Maybe that’s the lofty standard to which screenwriter (Pitch Perfect) and first-time director Kay Cannon aspired.  The “illustrious” genre arguably started back in 1978 with the granddaddy of all teen comedies Animal House and has continued on through American Pie, Superbad, The Hangover and even 2017’s Girls Trip. I’m casting a wide net because those last two examples were most definitely about adults, not teens, but the focus is the same. As long as people are trying to get their groove on, there will always be a movie to make light of it.

Yet Blockers really isn’t akin to those films. Only on paper does the chronicle seem similar. The plot is simple. Lisa (Leslie Mann), Mitchell (John Cena) and Hunter (Ike Barinholtz) are unrelated parents each with a different child. Julie (Kathryn Newton), Kayla (Geraldine Viswanathan) and Sam (Gideon Adlon) are their respective daughters. The guardians are goofballs. Their offspring are self-serious killjoys.  Nevertheless, the girls make a pact to lose their virginity on prom night. The parents find out and try to stop them. Mayhem ensues. I’ll give the script points for flipping the script and making this about female teen horniness instead of the tractional male libido but that’s about where the innovation stops.

The funny thing is, or rather ironically, Blockers is NOT very funny.   It’s rather heavy-handed unfortunately.   That’s where I cry “Foul!”  It’s essentially a girl power drama about parental responsibility and how teens empower themselves to rationally make the so-called right choices. That sounds like an improvement but then the third act descends into cloying melodrama. Mom and each dad pontificates to the audience on what they learned. Yawn! This isn’t a comedy at heart. It’s a preachy, after-school special about making the right life choices with some crudities thrown in.   Oh sure there are a few clever jokes here and there. One extended vignette involves the adults hanging out in mother Lisa’s home after having sent each of their three children off to prom. Lisa’s daughter Julie accidentally leaves her computer on. Some noises from Julie’s laptop compel them to convene in her room. Once there, they eavesdrop on the adolescents’ emoji-filled group chat from their phones as it is displayed on the computer monitor. Don’t question whether this is possible. It’s 2018. Technology allows everything. The subsequent parents’ conversation over what they read is possibly the funniest scene that I will see in all of 2018. Their deciphering over what a drooling face means vs. the significance of an eggplant is the kind of dialogue this movie needed more of.

I’ll admit it. I laughed. Maybe for a total of 3 times throughout the picture. I wish the rest of the screenplay had been that smart. It’s so not.  One sketch involves something that can only wholesomely be referred to as an “alcohol enema”. The sequence is stupid and lowbrow. There’s no point other than to simply be disgusting. There are a lot of those moments in this picture. Crude bits can be excusable when they show some signs of intelligent life. Moronic bits are unforgivable. When it isn’t gross, Blockers is trying to be positively upbeat and sappy. Nothing wrong with emotion if it feels sincere. When it follows a scene in which everyone projectile vomits, well….it made me want to vomit. Save for the “emoji texting” scene, the jokes aren’t amusing. When you’re calling yourself a comedy, that’s kind of a deal breaker.

04-12-18