Blockers

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Catching Up

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Once again, I'm opening the year (although this year's starting in February) with a catch-up on some of the films I wanted to watch and review at the time, but sadly missed due to whatever circumstances. Last year focused on 2017, this year will focus on 2018, and that's pretty well going to be the New Year Tradition from now on. First on the list, we have 'Blockers', which comes to us from a number of producers, but it's the likes of Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg awere eye-catching enough to get me intrigued to begin with. If I see the 'Point Grey' intro, with the classroom desk, I generally know I'll be in for a laugh.

The plot here consists of two sides, consisting of the girls' side and the parents' side. Our lead, Julie (Kathryn Newton) lives with her now single mother, Lisa (Leslie Mann), and we see a sort of "best-friend" relationship between the two. Kayla (Geraldine Viswanathan) lives with her overprotective but sensitive father, Mitchell (John Cena) and progressive mother, Marcie (Sarayu Blue) and plays the brilliant comedy relief between the girls. Lastly, Sam (Gideon Adlon) plays the shy, closet lesbian character who is more or less the brains of the outfit. She lives with her unreasonable mother, Brenda (June Diane Raphael) and more down to earth, but perpetually ignored stepfather, Frank (Hannibal Buress). Meanwhile, she has a party animal father, Hunter (Ike Barinholtz) who has been separated from her mother based on an affair.

The three girls make a pact to lose their collective virginities at their high school Prom (so female 'American Pie' in so many words). Through a series of unmonitored text messages, the three are unknowingly caught in their whole plan. In the girls' youth, Lisa, Mitchell and Hunter all became friends through dropping them off for their first day of school. Now the three parents team up to try to stop the girls from carrying out their pact, and potentially making a huge mistake. Although the basic plot is very similar to 'American Pie', as mentioned earlier, this is honestly better written, offering a much better parental perspective. It was like they said "let's take 'American Pie' and make it so the parents know what's going on". With that parental perspective comes a whole new range of comedy.

One should probably remain forewarned that it is indeed a raunchy, late night comedy, and it doesn't really hold back with some of its humor. You're gonna hear plenty of F-shots, sure, but you might get some uncomfortable reveals along the way. Again, that's all part of that Point Grey sense of humor. You don't go into a movie like that expecting anything less than a raunchy, late night comedy of some sort. There's bound to be some sexually suggestive whatnot, but to Point Grey's credit, there's generally some very solid writing surrounding those raunchy bits. You'll get laughs with this one from both sides of the spectrum, and thankfully it's mostly from the dialogue (as usual).

For my money, the best laughs through the movie are well-divided by each group. Geraldine Viswanathan really carries the laughs when it comes to the teens with her attitude and sense of humor. Similarly, John Cena is surprisingly one of the funniest things about the whole film. His sensitive nature and quick temper make for some hilarious moments, proving once again that a wrestler's acting skill isn't necessarily only narrowly focused on their mic skills. At one point, he damn near made me spit out my drink. Between the two actors, you'll certainly get your fair share of giggles, but they don't really end with them either. All in all, this was a great comedy that I'm sorry I missed out on a couple of years ago, but it's currently available on Netflix (Canada) for your viewing pleasure.

4/5

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