The trailer made this look like it was going to be both very funny and very silly. It’s a Strong Baby production (Jonah Hill’s company), so I was on board for slapstick and stupidity. Let’s fucking go. Well, the overwhelming majority of funny shit happens in the first thirty minutes of the movie. The rest of it is more of a coming-of-age tale for Rachel Zegler and the white boy whose face is so square he looks like he could be the teen version of the old guy from “Up.” Pause: I’m being told this actor’s name is Jaeden Martell.
My primary beef with the movie is that it is very silly, BUT then they start killing characters in which you’re already emotionally invested in silly ways and it feels like a mismatch. Killing a bystander with CDs to the head? Hilarious. Killing one of the main characters after watching them deepen an emotional arc with one of the mains? Actually just kinda sad. And I don’t mind being sad at a major character death, I was just expecting all of this to be funny. So it felt incongruent. Overall, I think 2 stars.
EDIT: I wrote the majority of this review before I got to the third act. That whole Fred Durst “Faith” cover to rally morale was the coup de grace for me. Painfully corny. I couldn’t do it. This review is edited down to 1.5 stars.
