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SXSW Review: ‘Good Boys’ Fails to Even Entertain

From time to time, a film makes its inspiration so evidently clear that it’s impossible to remove the viewing experience from what birthed it. For Gene Stupnitsky’s Good Boys, it’s clear that Superbad inspired the premise of his film, but instead of teenagers running around town carrying out crazy hijinks, it’s twelve year old children. What’s even more curious is that a competing film at SXSW, Booksmart, also owes a lot to Superbad.

Two films cut from the same loin premiering at the same festival one day apart present opposite ends of the spectrum for what it means to be inspired by a particular film. Booksmart takes its inspiration and exceeds it, while Good Boys tries to rebottle the magic of the 2007 classic to no avail. The resulting film is a drawn out bore that operates under a singular mode of comedy that grows tiresome far too quick.  

Bear with me for a few moments as I try to explain this stilted plot. The film tracks three kids Max, Thor, and Lucas (Jacob Tremblay, Brady Noon, and Keith L. Wiliams respectively) gallivanting around town trying to recover a drone they took from Max’s dad (Will Forte), a drone they stole so they can spy on teenagers and learn how to kiss for a middle school party. The drone crashes and sets them on a looney adventure based on anything the writers thought was remotely funny on paper. You probably read that synopsis and thought it was overtly trivial and you would be right. It’s such a bad premise that it barely, barely, functions as nothing more than a skeleton for the antics written in. 

By sheer circumstance, this coming-of-age tale is made even worse by the fact that I had just finished my second screening of Booksmart. Imagine seeing one of the greatest teen comedies of all time that is destined to become an all time classic, and then immediately seeing a raunchy, child-based comedy that has a near one to one thematic core, but executed to a much worse degree. Clearly, this isn’t a fault on Good Boys, but it makes all its shortcomings more blatantly obvious, especially when the film you are inspired by, Superbad, is evoked better by a fellow festival film. To put it simply, it got outplayed in every way.

What Good Boys lives off is a very narrow brand of comedy. These are kids so half the jokes in the film are based on them doing, saying, or seeing very mature things. The humor then draws from the idea that these children shouldn’t be doing these things in their age group, but oh well, ‘eff it. Kids playing with dildos, dealing drugs, and swearing excessively has potential, POTENTIAL, but this is playing purely to shock and awe instead of something truly funny. Also, when I say narrow brand of comedy, I mean that you should expect this rinsed and repeated several dozen times. When the humor derives from the events in the plot, which is seldom at best, you can see some variety, but don’t expect much.

It doesn’t help that the children are child actors. We’re not talking Kirsten Dunst in Interview with the Vampire here, we’re talking Disney Channel sitcom level acting. It’s gratingly unpleasant after about forty minutes. Everyone is yelling and screaming and I don’t know why. Whether it be overacting or underacting, you’ll find something in here that will make your head ache. 

In all, the film isn’t even all that entertaining. It goes without saying that a comedy should be funny, and when that fails, you’re left with a completely rudimentary narrative that doesn’t move the needle in any respect. After the credits rolled, I kinda just sat there and thought, “Damn, I really wish I saw something else at SXSW instead.”

2/5 STARS

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Review: Shane Black Comedy Characterizes The Predator

With five films and 31 years under its belt, the Predator series is not only contains one of the most prolific movie monsters in cinema, but also a character that only seems to have been pulled off once. From Predator 2 to AvP to Predators, the series has yet to have another entry in the franchise as good as the first, but it’s 2018 and Shane Black is returning to the franchise he once acted in to take a crack at the infamous Predator. His efforts are not perfect, but the result is a humorous outing that embraces the pulp action from the 80s that the series is built on and includes a narrative that is as equally pulpy. 

While on a special ops mission, Quinn McKenna (Boyd Holbrook) witnesses a space ship crash land. There he finds Predator gear that he subsequently takes and sends home to prevent the government from laying claim to it. Having witnessed the crash, Quinn is detained and sent to looney bin where he meets Group 2, a five man team of former military operatives who are now on a mission to retrieve the alien gear all while the actual Predator, government, and a unknown third party try to get it first. 

In all of the franchise’s history, The Predator most closely aligns itself with Predator 2. It has a late 80s/ early 90s feel to it where action melds with a slightly bonkers premise. The narrative is definitely hitting baseline believability, always straddling the line of absurd and rational but walking the fence between the two precariously. While there are moments where that narrative can illicit scoff-inducing reactions, the film always manages to pull you back and remind you that this is supposed to be taken lightly. 

The film is an action comedy through and through, but it is the degree to which comedy overtakes the action that is surprising. Shane Black’s sharp witted humor that we’ve seen in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and The Nice Guys is all over this film. The repertoire between Group 2 is evoking the dude-bro military men from Predator, but this time with more banter and disorderly conduct. The result is action that is less serious than prior installments, but because it doesn’t pretend to be something it’s not, it works. Black’s humor pointedly characterizes the film, and anything less would have made the somewhat absurd plot look out of place. 

What is out of place is the barebones emotional elements between Quinn and his son Rory (Jacob Tremblay). Rory is a bullied kid on the autism spectrum and believes his dad isn’t proud of him because he always out doing military missions instead of being at home with his family. The motivations in the film lie in Quinn coming home to rescue and protect his son from the alien, but when it comes time to have any meaningful resolve, it’s clear that the film has other concerns it wants to focus on. Not to say action comedies need to have a strong emotional component, but the films that can execute on these aspects tend to be the better ones.

The Predator is not the serious action film some had hoped, but it is a stupid fun time. Whether it be the late 80s feel of a zany action film or Shane Black’s trademark humor, the overall package holds itself together long enough to just cross the finish line intact, even if the ending may go overboard. Come for the Predator, stay for the jokes and decent action. 

3/5 Stars