Blockers

Blockers

Starring Leslie Mann, John Cena, Ike Barinholtz, Kathryn Newton

Directed by Kay Cannon

The Story:
Lifelong friends Julie (Kathryn Newton), Kayla (Geraldine Viswanathan) and Sam (Gideon Adlon) are planning on loosing their virginity at prom, to the chagrin of their parents: Julie's overprotective single mother Lisa (Leslie Mann), Kayla's jock-yet-sensitive father Mitchell (John Cena), and Sam's mostly absentee father Hunter (Ike Barinholtz).  Together, the parents try to stop the kids from doing the deed with their respective boyfriends, leading to a night none of them will forget.

The Synopsis:
Judd Apatow (Leslie Mann's husband) is a very humorous director who's brought the likes of "Knocked Up" and "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," but he's also known for making comedies that are very, very, very...long.  A good comedy should be a scant under two hours at most, but his films tend to run the near-gambit of epics.

Thankfully, he didn't direct "Blockers," but it was instead a woman named Kay Cannon who took the helm, which is refreshing to see: a female directing a raunchy R-rated comedy.  Yet, despite the film's runtime of one hour and forty minutes, it somehow feels like an Apatow epic due to terrible pacing, elongated direction, and a cast that seemed to only be there to make a (not-so) quick buck.

One minute the film is a coming-of-age comedy centering on three virgin girls who set out to loose the most important part of them.  The next minute it's three over-the-top parents who are so clueless to social norms they try to decipher a series of emojis like trying to read hieroglyphs in Egypt.  Then it's an all-out gross-fest as the kids interact with too much booze, leading to a scene straight out of "Family Guy" when everyone is puking on each other.  Then it's the parents coming into conflict with each other over how to parent and who they really are.  Then it's a heartfelt, emotional performance where the parents actually parent to their kids.  Then there's some naked game of tag for some reason.  Basically, the film feels way too long to tell the most typical story, and most of the laughs come from the events you see in the trailer.

The three lead actors seem to not really enjoy being with each other at all.  Leslie Mann floats through using her natural charisma but seems to be acting very little, John Cena plays to his strength of the tough-guy-with-a-heart-of-gold man who has bulging muscles yet weeps like a little girl, and Ike Barinholtz is the typical divorced father who likes sleeping around and makes fun of his ex-wife's new boyfriend.  They're the stock parent characters you see in millions of other comedies of such caliber, and they don't really work well off each other at all.

On the flip side, the young actresses Kathryn Newton, Geraldine Viswanathan and Gideon Adelon are the shining lights of this film, even if they're not utilized to their full potentials.  Julie is the most attractive of the girls, and thus their leader, who tells the others she plans on loosing her virginity to her boyfriend on prom night.  This causes Kayla to decide to do the same, because she doesn't want to be left out, and Sam - the most conflicted of the three, yet she isn't given a full chance to use her conflict - really doesn't want to be left out, so she wants to too.  It's the typical pack mentality, where you don't want to be left behind - basically, a great reason to loose your virginity (note the sarcasm).

So the adventure begins, and basically it just escalates from one insane moment to the next, without rhyme or reason.  This is why I don't particularly like comedies, because they follow this trend every time in hopes of getting a cheap laugh, and that's what I gave them - cheap laughs throughout.  There's also the generic moments that I called way ahead of time - such as Julie getting an acceptance letter to UCLA (which is a far, far way away from their home in Chicago) and not telling her mother.  Bland, predictable, ordinary, unmemorable.


The Summary:
I don't even remember most of the jokes, nor do I choose to care to remember: I won't be seeing this movie again.  The faster I wipe it completely from my memory, the better.

The Score: C-