Saturday, April 7, 2018

Movie Review: "Blockers" (2018)

Director: Kay Cannon
Year: 2018
Rating: R
Running Time: 1 hour, 42 minutes

Three high school seniors have made an agreement with each other that they will each lose their virginity on prom night. When the trio's parents find out about the pact, they begin a quest to make sure it doesn't happen.
"I'd rather eat 10 dicks than one Mound." (Image Source)
It just goes to show that you can't always judge a movie by its trailer. "Blockers" is directed by Kay Cannon in her directorial debut. Cannon is best known for writing all three "Pitch Perfect" movies. She did not write "Blockers," however, that honor goes to Brian and Jim Kehoe, who has only one other feature film writing credit to their name: the 2005 movie "Overachievers." The film revolves around three high school seniors named Julie (Kathryn Newton), Kayla (Geraldine Viswanathan), and Sam (Gideon Adlon), who have been friends since the first day of kindergarten. These three young women make a pact to lose their virginity on prom night. When their parents Lisa (Leslie Mann), Mitchell (John Cena), and Hunter (Ike Barinholtz) learn of their daughter's pact, they go on a mission to stop them from "losing their innocence."
"I'll deal with society later. Right now I'm worried about my daughter." (Image Source)
When we saw the trailer for this movie, we thought it was going to be awful. It didn't appeal to us at all and we almost thought about skipping it entirely. That being said, we always try to keep an open mind and do our best not to let any preconceived notions impact the way we feel about a film. Now that we have seen it, we have to say we were pleasantly surprised with how good "Blockers" is and we laughed consistently throughout its runtime. Even jokes that didn't look good in the trailer worked a lot better within the context of the film. Newton, Viswanathan, and Adlon have great chemistry together, and they are really believable as three lifelong friends. Each of them brings their fair share of laughs since they each come from a different type of family unit and have a distinct style of humor. Though they each get their moment to shine, Mann, Cena, and Barinholtz get to handle most of the funniest material. Mann and Barinholtz mostly play to type (Mann being the overbearing mother and Barinholtz being the goofy, douchey screw-up), and Cena gets to do his thing as an overly sensitive muscle-bound jock who has a habit of crying at even the slightest hint of anything emotional.
"Dad, you can't teach someone not to try things." (Image Source)
Raunchy sex comedies like "Blockers" can be good when they are done well, and this film is done really well. Beyond all of the humorous moments, this movie has a solid narrative that kept us interested during the breaks from all the jokes. It also takes on the gender-based double standard where young men are praised for losing their virginity in movies such as "American Pie," but if a young woman is shown having or enjoying sex, it is seen as wrong. They shoot down the idea that a girl's chastity needs to be protected for some greater purpose and proudly exclaims that we need to stop associating many negative feelings like shame and regret with young women doing a very natural, normal thing. The shame of nudity and any kind of sex is indoctrinated into us Americans from a very young age, and this movie is trying to say that it's about time we get over our ancient puritanical hangups and start realizing that young women, just as much as young men, are allowed to explore themselves and others without the pressures of relationships, commitment, or marriage. This will put some people off from the film entirely, but they should just get over it because they probably we're going to see this anyway.
"Penises are not for looking at, they are for use, like a plunger." (Image Source)
For us, "Blockers" will go down as another movie in a long line of raunchy and successful R-rated comedies that we found to be very enjoyable and super fun to watch.

My Rating: 8/10
BigJ's Rating: 8/10
IMDB's Rating: ~6.5/10
RT Rating: ~83%
Do we recommend this movie: Yes!

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