Directed by: Kay Cannon
Starring: John Cena, Leslie Mann, Ike Barinholtz, Kathryn Newton, Geraldein Viswanathan, Gideon Adlon, Graham Phillips, Miles Robbins, Gary Cole, Gina Gershon
Vomiting is not funny. Never has been and never will be. It is a desperate attempt at a cheap laugh and sadly it usually gets one from the audience. Blockers has such a scene and many others which strain hopelessly for a laugh. The adults hold on to creepy double standards and antiquated views on teenage female sexuality as they team up to stalk their respective daughters on prom night in order to prevent a sex pact between three lifelong friends. Each young woman wants to lose her virginity on prom night and, after stumbling across texts of the plot on a computer, the parents of each girl plot to stop them. The parents are Mitch (Cena), Lisa (Mann), and Hunter (Barinholtz), three adept comic actors who aren't usually asked to play this dumb. But, dumb they are, and make one mess after another while trying to stop their daughters from experiencing their first sexual experience.
Blockers doesn't know if it wants to be thoughtful or a gross-out sex comedy, so it tries both. What an odd, humorless fit. The parents come off as out-of-touch, unrealistic people stuck hopelessly in the 1950's. The daughters are intelligent, happy, and well-adjusted, but don't let that stop the adults from not trusting them. If the trio all had sons, would their attitudes change? I would venture yes. Blockers strikes the wrong tone from the start and never steers right. I was reminded of a Tony Danza movie called "She's Out of Control", released in 1989 and has virtually the same plot, in which a father can't handle his teenage daughter's burgeoning sexuality so he makes a superhuman effort to stop the inevitable. If a movie reminds me of She's Out of Control, then it is not on the right track.
Lisa's daughter Julie (Newton) has a boyfriend she loves and wants to lose her virginity to him on her prom night. She also wants to go to UCLA, much to her mother's consternation. Then again, her mother has consternation about virtually everything. Mitch's daughter Kayla (Viswanathan) doesn't have a boyfriend, but wants to join Julie in solidarity and make it with her prom date, Connor (Robbins), who puts drugs in everything. Sam (Adlon) is the third girl in the pact, but she is a closeted lesbian who brings a nerdy beard along as her prom date.
The girls aren't given much personality. They are just pawns in the plot. Blockers makes it all about the adults and their BB-brained antics. We wind up with car chases, car crashes, a contest in which two men ingest alcohol through their anuses, drug use, and a kinky couple who like to chase either while blindfolded and naked. And for good measure, we see a guy's junk, which for some reason drew laughs from the audience. Maybe I'm the one out of touch or my sense of humor has become severely deadened. To those who crack up when a bunch of teens puke all over a limo: My hat's off to you.
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