Blockers

Emily N.

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Blockers was actually a decent movie

Okay, I know what you’re thinking: a generic, raunchy comedy with John Cena with one of the main characters cannot possibly be that good. But that’s why I’m here to review movies, and I’m telling you that this movie is at its worst entertaining.

A quick summary before we start:

Julie, Kayla and Sam are three high school seniors who make a pact to lose their virginity on prom night. Lisa, Mitchell and Hunter are three overprotective parents who flip out when they find out about their daughters' plans. They soon join forces for a wild and chaotic quest to stop the girls from sealing the deal -- no matter what the cost.

​I’ll start off by saying that yes, it is a fairly standard teen sex movie, but it’s a very interesting take. There’s a lot of things this movie does well, and one thing in particular that really made me happy: the way that they handle feminism and sexuality. At one point, Kayla’s mom calls them out on their shit, saying that virginity is a social concept and there’s a double standard between boys and girls, and I was practically cheering for her the whole time. It’s nice to see that kind of attitude that doesn’t make girls seem like delicate flowers (heh) and Kayla herself asks her dad, “Why is sex so bad anyway?” and he doesn’t have a good answer for her. He doesn’t even talk about how he’s afraid of her growing up. It’s done in a very realistic way that is only a little cheesy, and it’s more gaggingly sweet than cheesy. I am all about that exploring your sexuality within reasonable and safe bounds even as a teenager, so it was very gratifying to see that in a movie that was probably going to be shown to adults who don’t agree. We’re hopefully changing the next generation to be less Puritan American. It’s a very sex positive movie.

At one point, we see Sam struggling with her sexuality. We see the stages she goes through during the night of questioning and her process, and it works because it fits in so well with the plot. One of my favorite characters in the movie is Sam’s love interest, and she’s mostly played for laughs but ends on a very heartwarming note. I’m also a sucker for Asians in movies, especially nerdy ones, so there’s that.

The things that are in this movie that are funny are appropriately funny. From a movie like this, I’d expect raunchy jokes for the sake of being raunchy, but Blockers does a lot of things that are genuinely clever. I’ve heard people compare it to Game Night, but I’m not sure if I agree. While Game Night had a serious scenario with characters that didn’t take things seriously and the humor comes from the reactions of the characters rather than what’s going on in the movie, Blockers had a very real Adult Fear with characters that didn’t take themselves too seriously, and the type of humor that comes from that mix works very well. Out of the three endings, I expected all of them to end up as a cheesy Disney Channel movie ending, but only one of them did. I was pleasantly surprised that they did explore other way to accept your children becoming their own people.

*Side note: There’s a throwaway line, “All candles make me horny” that gets said towards the beginning of the movie. Literally every person I saw this with whacked me and hissed, “THAT’S YOU!” at me. I am extremely pleased and also mortified that this line makes people think of me. ​

Neutral:
I think I’m both too old and too young for this movie. By that I mean that I’m not a teenager, and I’m not a parent. I was a teenager and I work with children, so it gave me a little insight, but some of these things seemed partially outdated and partially too crazy. I don’t remember my prom being that eventful, and I definitely don’t remember anyone at my school saying it was an important night of their lives, period. I’ve heard the sentiment, but even when prom rolled around, I didn’t feel like it was that important. I don’t, however, feel like I would do crazy shit for my kid for the sake of keeping them “safe”. I wouldn’t let my kids go to after parties with drugs, but I also don’t think I would try to intervene if they decided to have sex.

Let’s start the bad off with the butt chugging scene. I’ll be honest; I had no idea that butt chugging was a real thing. Apparently, it’s not and it’s played for laughs in this movie. It ends the way you’d expect it to end, which is mostly spoiled in the trailer. And as I mentioned before, one of the endings is really, really gaggingly sweet, and I think there’s a fine line between gagginglysweet and cheesy. It does, several times, toe the line into cheesy. I did like the movie a lot, but I don’t think I would have seen it without my Moviepass available. This also isn’t a movie I’d recommend to everyone. It’s very much something my cousins and I would find funny, but it’s no something I’d recommend to someone who takes all the movies they watch seriously. I don’t take anything seriously, so it ended up being the perfect movie for me.

7.5/10. Solidly entertaining, but not for everyone.