starring Jay Baruchel, Dan Fogler, Chris Marquette and Sam Huntington
In a nutshell: The enthusiasm for Star Wars shines through, but it's too much of a mess 
Quick synopsis: In 1998, 4 friends decide to break into George Lucas's Skywalker Ranch in order to steal a copy of Episode 1 before its release
Content: Fanboys was sitting on the shelf for nearly two years before it finally found its way to a few theaters. This is never a good sign. Fanboys actually had some potential; a pretty good cast, a gigantic group of Star Wars fans that might be interested and a presumably small budget. But something went horribly wrong.
Between the four leading guys, I actually liked three of them. And the one I did not like was Jay Baruchel who I have liked a great deal in other things (Undeclared, Knocked Up). Kristen Bell is also around quite a bit. And the one and only Shooter McGavin (Christopher McDonald) makes a few brief appearences. I have yet to encounter a movie that did not benefit significantly from his larger-than-life presence. But the problem is not with the cast, it's with the screenplay, if there even was one. The story plays out more like a series of sketches more than it does a continuous story. Of the various problems they encouonter during their cross country trip, none are even remotely related to each other, and none of them add anything to the characters or the story. Instead, they serve as short diversions to waste time. Not surprisingly, these diversions are also incrediby generic: an accidental trip into a gay bar that ends with them stripping on stage, a night spent with an old Native American man who slips them some peyote, an evening unwittingly spent with call girls, and, of course, a night in prison.
The rest of the movie serves mostly as a means of giving many former Star Wars legends cameo appearances. In this sense, it's kinda like Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, but not as good. The "story" that gives a few characters motive for wanting to go cross-country is incredibly lame. We are told that one of the 4 guys has cancer and is dying. Then this fact is ignored for the bulk of the film as he runs around with everyone else. I was expecting it to be a ploy of Fogler and Baruchel to reunite the other two characters, who were estranged best friends. But alas, no, he was supposed to actually have cancer. And I think we are supposed to assume that he is dead at the end of the film when the remaining character toast to him, but it's not entirely clear. Studio executives tried to remove the cancer storyline from the film and received backlash from fans demanding that it stay in. So, it was hastily edited back in at the last second, and it shows. They would have better off without it.
A few more bullet points:
- Baruchel and Bell have one of the least convincing love stories I've ever seen. And they used a horrible cliches to bring them together.
- The jokes are really not funny
- Too many of the wacky situations they find themselves in are resolved WAY too easily. They end up in tough spots over-and-over again, only to be released unscathed without decent reasons. This happens about 5 times in Fanboys.
- The only cameo that I enjoyed was that of a certain former Star Trek captain
- A pre-famous Seth Rogen plays two roles...neither very well
- The filmmakers' love for Star Wars did show, unlike the Farrelly Brothers supposed love of the Red Sox in Fever Pitch (see below). Unfortunately, they didn't know how to make a decent film though.
Rolling rankings:
1. Good Will Hunting (#156) 
2. In Bruges(#153)
3. The Hangover (#157)
4. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (#155)
5. I.O.U.S.A. (#150)
6. Burn After Reading (#152)
7. The Da Vinci Code (#151)
8. 21 (#154)
9. Fever Pitch (#158)
10. Fanboys (#159)
key:
masterpiece excellent good mixed bag more bad than good garbage
No comments:
Post a Comment